Laputan dreamsSkies of Arcadia is, in many ways, something of a landmark title:the first Dreamcast RPG to really shine and show what thenext-generation formats are capable of. Whilst titles like SoulCalibur long ago relegated the Playstation to the bin as abeat-em-up platform for discerning players, until very recently thebest RPGs were almost exclusively found on Sony's old grey box.Skies of Arcadia is set in a somewhat unique, Laputa-inspiredworld, in which there is no 'solid ground', only islands (somelarger than others) which float in the endless sky. This world is,unusually, orbited by no less that five (arguably six) moons, eachof which takes the place of an element in the world of Arcadia,conferring certain powers. Two of the three central characters areair pirates, or, more specifically, 'Blue Rogues' - the flyingequivalent of Robin Hood. These two, Vyse and Aika, are thrown intoa struggle to locate five crystals that control giant war machinesthat could destroy the world by the arrival of the third - Fina, amysterious girl on a mission to prevent the coming destruction.Both the world and the characters are extremely well-defined, anddeep. By keeping the number of playable characters small the gameis able to devote a lot of time to their personalities, reallybringing them to life.

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This task is made easier by the graphics,which are extremely detailed, and allow the characters to show awide range of expressions and emotions during cutscenes. The worldis also commendably large, and in a twist facilitated by thesetting, remarkably three-dimensional; you must frequently go bothover and under obstacles to progress. The skies are not in theleast bit empty, either, there are natural hazards such as floatingrocks(!) and vortices, as well as a myriad of other ships,including traders, other pirates and suchlike.Arcadia: The magnificent worldThe world is so lovingly rendered that it is hard to resist theurge to simply explore, and through some sort of devine intuitionthe developers have anticipated this. All around the world are alarge number of 'discoveries' - relics, creatures and suchlikewhich can be located through cryptic clues or simply blind luck.Some of these are critical to the plot, but most are simply therewaiting to be found. Once you have found one, you can then go andsell the information on its location at the local Sailor's Guidefor a (potentially hefty) sum of cash - not to mention the fame yougain for doing soThis is not as pointless as it sounds, as another neat ideaincorporated into the game is your 'swashbuckler' ranking. Thisgoes up when you do 'heroic' things, or make the right choices inconversations, and goes down when you run away from fights or makemistakes.

This location is found a smidgeon south of Maramba. You'll see a pair of mountains shooting smoke out into the sky; the discovery location is nearby a peak of one.

This rating in turn affects how people will react to you,and your 'title'. There's nothing quite like the ego-boost you getfrom having a shopkeeper say 'Oh my! It's Vyse the Daring! It is anhonour to have you in my humble shop!' Rather than the more usual4am petrol-station attendant attitude you get in most games.The graphics in Skies of Arcadia are nothing short of spectacular.There is no FMV in the game, and all of the cutscenes are renderedin real-time. This adds immeasurably to the sense of continuity inthe game, as the characters and environments look exactly the sameall the way through.

It is also used to good effect in other areas- for example, you can choose a logo for your ship later in thegame, and this is visible in all the cutscenes. In battles thecamera zooms around the combat area, and whilst wandering around itassumes a rotatable Xenogears/Grandia-style angled view (afirst-person view can be selected for looking around). In fact, theonly gripes I have with the graphics are that the camera can be tooenergetic at times. In some battles (particularly ship battles) itswoops about so much that it can get confusing not tomention motion-sickness inducing!Rainbow ForcesThe sound is, unfortunately, an area where Skies of Arcadia doesnot score quite so highly.

The music is very good, and in placesexcellent, but it never quite reaches the uniform brilliance ofgames like Xenogears, Grandia or Chrono Cross. That said, however,this is really a case of nit-picking - there is so little else tocriticise about this game that even very slight flaws needmentioning. The sound effects are equally good, although somewhatsparse in places. There is also some speech in the game; mainly forspecial-attacks in battles, and the occasional word or two when thecharacters get emotional. It is somewhat hard to judge the actingquality when the characters have about 10 lines each in the entiregame, but it certainly never gets noticeably bad (with the possibleexception of the badly edited together samples on the 'Prophecy'attack, but again I have been reduced to nit-picking).Any RPG lives or dies on two things - Combat and Plot.

The combatsystem in Skies of Arcadia is pretty generic; it is a strictlyturn-based system, with character initiative (or 'quick' as thegame calls it) determining the order of moves within the turn.Character can attack, use items or spells, and perform specialmoves each turn. Spells and special moves use up 'Spirit Points',which are held in a party-wide pool, and are replenished by acertain amount each turn (this can be increased by using the'focus' command). This does add a certain twist to the availablestrategies - often a good policy is to get physically weaker partymembers to heal and boost the SP gauge so that your attackingcharacters can do repeated specials.Taking the place of the normal fire/earth/wind/water element inSkies of Arcadia is a more complex system based on the colours ofthe five moons. Once moonstones of the appropriate colour are inyour possession, you may switch the colour of your weapons at anypoint during battle, which in turn affects how much damage you doto the enemy. This system certainly forces you to think carefullyabout tactics in battle, although it can get somewhat annoying asthe rules for the colours are somewhat arbitrary - I found thateven after 45 hours of play I still had to keep the manual open infront of me to tell which colours were effective against whichothers.Man the Cannons!As well as the normal character battles, Skies of Arcadia alsofeatures battles between airships.

These work along roughly thesame lines as the normal battles, except that ship weapons areused, and orders must be given in groups of four (one per partymember). Ship battles are in ways much more tactical, as it isnecessary to plan ahead and work out what the enemy will do in thenext set of moves.