Skies of Arcadia, puts you in the shoes of Vyse, a young Airship pirate with a good heart, eager to make his mark in the world on his own without the shadow of his father. Along with Vyse you also get to know another airship pirate by the name of Aika, a longtime friend of Vsye and a very adventurous young soul. Together they rescue a mysterious young girl known as Fina from the malicious Valuan Empire. The three of them quickly become close companions and set forth on their adventure to challenge the will of the evil Valuan Empire.

Skies of Arcadia is a “traditional console RPG” in every sense of the term - turn base combat, random battles, and an epic tale of adventure and excitement. However SOA does break away from the old RPG cliché of wandering the vast world on foot until you find a ship, horse (or giant chicken in some games), or other means of transportation near the end of the game. SOA: Legends accomplishes this by putting you in a Airship right from the get go, giving you the feeling of freedom that you just don’t get from other traditional console RPGs.

The basic combat system in SOA: Legends is a simple, yet refined turn-based system; simply put, everyone involved in combat has a turn during each round. You select each of your characters actions and watch the events unfold after you have made your selections. During combat you have the options to attack, run, use items, guard, use magic, use your S-moves, or focus.

The SP (spirit points) system is what makes the SOA battle format different than almost all other RPGs. The way the SP system works is that your whole party shares a pool of spirit points, which increases during combat and returns to the starting value at the end of combat. These spirit points can be used to unleash special attacks or powers as well as your routine magic, which cost you a MP (magic point) as well. To help you gather SP points faster you can use the focus command to get more SP points for that round. The S-move is a special attack or power that is unique to each character, which can be used during combat, after your party has accumulated enough spirit points.

Also, you can align your characters’ and their weapons with Moon Stones. Moon Stones are rocks that, well, fall from the moon; they are the primary source of energy in the world and extremely magical. Moon Stones come in six colors, Red that has the power of flame, Blue contains the power of the wind, Yellow has the power of lighting, Green holds the power of life, Purple withholds the power of ice, and Silver which contains the power of the void. Each Moon Stone will affect the way your character levels up and what magic abilities he or she will learn as they progress throughout their journey.

Another rather unique item in SOA is the ship-to-ship combat. Again all of the ship-to-ship battles happen in basically the same turn-base system as the normal combat and the commands are rudimentary the same as well. However, assigning different crew members to different tasks during the combat will yield different results. For example, using Fina to be your main gunner will give you quite different damage results, than if you made Vyse your main gunner.

With the Gamecube having no traditional RPGs to speak of, Skies of Arcadia, is one heck of a start. Not only does the game give you freedom to explore the rich and colorful world. Along with a finely polished combat system, with ship-to-ship combat tossed in for good measure. But SOA also gives you a city building aspect that you discover later in the game, without giving away any of the story, let me just say that it almost becomes an obsession to gather all of the potential town members just to see what dynamics they will bring to your town. Graphically SOA: Legends, does withstand the test of time, the characters are modeled well, and the world is bright and vibrant, making it a joy to play and explore. Also for the people that have already played the Dreamcast version, SOA: Legends has many goodies for you as well. SOA: Legends is almost a directors cut, there has been many cut scenes and even some characters added to tighten up the storyline, making the GC version of Skies a different, and even deeper game than its predecessor.

If you are a fan of RPGs and own a Gamecube you owe it to yourself to give this game a try, unless you just can’t stand random encounters, you won’t be disappointed.