This paper assumes you have played Skies of Arcadia and has some spoilers. All images pulled from the Skies of Arcadia Wiki (https://skiesofarcadia.fandom.com/wiki/Skies_of_Arcadia_Wiki) and from a screenshot LP by Mr.Vile found on the LP Archive (https://lparchive.org/Skies-of-Arcadia-Legends/Update%2012/)
Skies of Arcadia is a JRPG from 2000 originally released on the Sega Dreamcast, it was later ported to the Nintendo GameCube with extra content and all the DLC. It has been one of my favorite games since I played the GameCube release. The game is all about discovery and adventure with a sort of whimsical attitude towards the whole thing. If I had to give it one particular theme that runs through everything, it would be something that I harp on JRPGs for all the time, the power of friendship. However, I think it takes it a step further, which is why it annoys me far less than other media with that sort of trope. It has a more nuanced approach as you travel around the world as there is also mutual respect for different cultures and people that leads to powerful bonds; not only helping you achieve your dreams, but helping others achieve their dreams, causing the world to come together.
There are also threads of colonialism and empire, myth and legend being disappointing, and there is some racism that, maybe, fortunately goes unexplored, but it is present in the background and is inherent in colonialism and empire.
That’s just the story stuff too. As I said before, what permeates everything in the game is the strength of spirit inherent in the bonds of friendship. Which extends to a ship’s crew where everyone has their job and they’re all good at different things. Vyse’s undying need to run directly into danger for funsies makes everyone have hope and the mechanics reflect all of this.
MECHANICS
The game comes in three flavors, overworld exploration, ship battles, and not ship battles. Overworld exploration happens on a ship and not on a ship. We will be covering the combat mechanics and their relation to the theme of friendship.
Ground Combat
On foot combat is standard turn-based fare, you can attack, cast magic, use items, or an ability. The twist is that there is a meter at the top of the screen, the Spirit Meter. Each turn you get some points put into this meter. Super moves and magic pull from this value. This one thing is what ties the mechanics into the overall theme I mentioned. Each party member contributes a different amount of spirit, but you can also “focus” which charges the spirit meter. It’s a lot like cheerleading. Each character also brings different things to the table via “special moves”
There are 5 main stats and 5 derived stats. The main stats are: Power, Vigor, Will, Agile, and Quick. The derived stats are: Attack, Defense, MagDef, Hit%, Dodge%. Attack is Power + weapon damage. Defense is Vigor + armor, MagDef is only from armor, Hit% is only from weapon, and Dodge% is from Agile. Agile is raised by nothing. Magic damage derives straight from Will.
Vyse is high Power, low Quick, low Will. Aika is low Power, high Quick, med Will. Fina is low Power, low med Quick, high Will.
You also get various 4th characters in the group but outside of special moves they are pretty average across the board (minus Drachma, who is high vigor high power)
Magic seems to be broken, and as you may notice magic is pulled from Will, which is only affected by armor. Where Attack is pulled from Power and your weapon. What this means is that physical attacks are going to always be stronger than magic. There are also elements, so you may be thinking that using the right magic might be more powerful. This is not the case, as using the right element is only about a 10% increase in damage, you won’t even notice.
It is also common to belief that hit% over 100 results in more critical strikes, but this is also not the case. Hit% above 100 does nothing. So, the benefits of Aika and Fina are…basically Aika goes first. That’s it…If you were thinking of this like a typical JRPG. That’s where the spirit meter and special moves come in. Sure, they can’t do any damage but...
Aika has the earliest and cheapest AoE in the game, making her essentially a powerhouse of annihilating early enemies, making grinding/exploring quicker. She also has a later move called Delta Shield; this blocks all incoming magic (including yours), but it doesn’t block items. It’s indispensable.
Fina’s super moves are also great, one has a chance to petrify which comes in handy for one boss. Another is the only way in the game to apply Regen. Her final super move resurrects everyone, heals them to full, and removes all adverse effects. And most importantly she has a move to remove all beneficial effects from enemies!
Vyse is the physical damage, and due to how the mechanics pan out might be the ONLY damage. Having Aika and Fina there as back up to cheer him on, he can unleash his super moves every turn. His Super Moves also work on multipliers, so Cutlass Fury, his first move, will always do 2.5x damage. By mid to late game you’ll be using Pirates’ Wrath for a staggering 7.5x damage. Easily several thousand points in damage. There is only one move with higher Enrique’s The Judgement with 8x, but he is significantly weaker than Vyse.
Magic has many other purposes though, and we will touch on it a little more and why it is extra important in the next section for ship combat. Status effects are the main reason to use magic. Increasing attack by 25% is huge for example. Each element has strengths though.
· Yellow, Lightning, attacks in a line, it has a spell to lower the enemies attack and defense.
· Green, which still has to be plants as an element because it cannot be life, poisons and heals, though mostly heals and is probably the most important element.
· Purple, ice, are very cheap spells and focus on single target damage, silence and confusion are also in here.
· Blue, wind, does AOE damage to enemies around the target, the highest tier affects nearly the entire field, quick and sleep spells are here.
· Red, fire, hurts every enemy on the field to varying degrees, it can also pump up your attack and defense.
· Oh, and silver causes death. It also reverses death.
Knowing magic does make a difference, even if the game doesn’t let you do a LOT of damage, and there are tons of limits on casting spells…it is more damage than Fina can do physically for sure. The status effects are very important though. Also worth noting that there is an item for basically every spell effect.
Lastly there are 2 extra special moves when you have a full spirit meter. Prophecy and Blue Rogues. Prophecy is supposedly the best attack in the game, but it tends to do lower damage than pirate’s wrath, and you can’t do anything else. The next turn also leaves you with the starting amount of spirit. You can use this maybe once every 4ish rounds? Blue Rogues can also do massive damage, but depending on your crew, can also heal you. It’s a good way to turn the tides of a fight, but it will also drain the entire spirit meter. While these mechanics are about as oddly broken as Knights of the Old Republic's it feeds into the theme somewhat, in that it makes you have to farm out spirit points using other characters and then use the special moves, the things characters are good at, to decide to do damage or defend yourself. This makes it accidentally fit the theming of the game.
Ship Combat
Ship Combat is where there is a departure from convention. The ship combat breaks down into deciding what each party member will do for the round. This is represented by a 4x4 grid, each party member can choose from multiple different actions. The ship itself also has its own stats.
Attack has some things to consider, like what weapon to use. Main cannons are affected by the characters attack rating and fire once, secondary guns can fire over multiple turns, but are not affected by stats. Torpedoes fire on one turn and hit on a later turn, also not affected by stats.
Magic causes you to shoot a cannonball infused with magic, this adds your will stat and elemental damage to the attack if it is an attack spell. If it is not, this casts the spell onto the ship. You can repair your ship with a heal spell, for instance. More importantly this is Incremus’s time to shine. It is the leveled up version of the spell to increase your attack and defense. On foot it just affects the whole party instead of one person. Here it prolongs the time in which it is active, lasting 4 rounds instead of the round it was cast. This frees up some space to do more damage.
There are no super moves in ship combat, instead you have extra abilities, some passive, that your crewmates can do. Like increase main cannon damage or double your spirit the next round.
There is one exception however to super moves, there is a situational attack that does massive damage. The Harpoon Cannon in the early game, and the Moonstone Cannon in the late game. You have to make the right choices for this to be a thing, also it can show up just for story.
The top of the 4x4 grid has symbols and colors. Most of this isn’t explained. Green is a safe turn for you, you can still be attacked but you will take less damage, generally the enemy won’t use its super moves here. Yellow means you will take increased damage, and red means you will take 2x-3x damage, the enemy will use super moves here more than usual. There is also a C! emblem that will show up, these are your crit squares. You will do extra damage on them, so you can pile up all your damage here. The last symbol will be your special attack.
Sometimes between rounds you will get a dialogue choice on what you should do next. This can determine what colors/icons you will get for the next turn.
So, the idea is the find a C! square, then stack secondary cannons and torpedoes on that square, then for that spot have Vyse use a main cannon, they will all hit at once for massive damage. Especially if you’ve used Incremus.
As you can see, everyone has a specific thing they are good at, and you can only do most of it with support from your friends (or a moonstone cannon.) Mechanically you are absolutely most effective when everyone is going for the same goal and helping one another.
THE STORY
I’m not going to be summarizing the entire story of the game. I think a lot would get lost in its retelling and this would lose some focus. Though I will cover some points that I think are important and how they relate to the core themes I see through the game.
The Power of Friendship
One of the first things the game establishes is how good of friends Vyse and Aika are and how capable they are because they are friends. Then it establishes that Fina is not a detriment to this dynamic, but that they can help her because they’re friends, and her differences are beneficial. This goes on to be true.
This also extends to the rest of the game where you use other cultures, their knowledge, and their expertise to become stronger as a group and inspire others. Other cultures, in turn, use your knowledge and begin forming connections with each other. This is usually after they mess something up or something bad happens and you clean up shop.
Through your whole adventure you show people that who they choose as friends is meaningful and their choices matter. With support you can do whatever you need to do. By contrast the villains are always at each other’s throats, trying to gain their own power by themselves, to be better than the others around them. This does ultimately bring about their downfall. For example, Belleza tries to use subterfuge to get you to give her the crystal, it works but that is her only strength. You defeat her with your strategic wit, or rather Drachma’s strategic wit, and save the day. You defeat Vigoro multiple times because he only knows strength, but you have friends that support you, your strength is friendship bonds and spirit, even when you fight him in ship combat.
Environmental Determinism
This is mostly explored between Ramirez and Fina, but each culture contributes to this theme as well. Nasr is red and fiery; they live in a desert. As a culture they have this fiery passion for everything they do, and they are confident in the power the red moon lends them. It’s no surprise that red spells also give you strength.
The Silver Civilization has power over basically everything. Life, death, time, metal, they were the most technologically advanced civilization. They were literally superior to everyone else, so they created their Gigas Zelos who is basically the master of the universe. The Silvites believe only they can judge the world, and after other civilizations made their own Gigas, decided people were worthless and nothing good would ever come from humanity. They launched themselves into space and called down the Rains of Destruction, destroying most of the planet. They sent Fina and Ramirez to the surface to see if humans had gotten any better, and to gather the Moon Crystals. If they were judged unworthy, they were to cause the Rains of Destruction again.
This is the games opposed positions as well, are humans worth it? Should we start over by killing everyone? Obviously, the game answers these questions with yes, humans are worth it. Which is Fina’s side.
Fina and Ramirez as mentioned before, found themselves in very different groups and environments when they came to the surface. In fact, by the time Fina was sent Ramirez had already cut contact with the Silvite council in space and was already going to destroy the planet. Hence why Fina was being attacked at the start of the game. I would argue their environments absolutely set their trajectory through the game. Which fits nicely into the original theme of the power of friendship, and how that can even shape the type of person you will become.
CONCLUSION
There are a lot of minor stories and plot threads that explore a whole number of nuanced and interesting topics. The main thing that permeates the whole design, however, is friendship and how differences make us stronger together. From mechanics to characters to the story, the one thing that holds true is that with the support of your friends, you can save the world. And that it manages to work AS a mechanic is brilliant.
Also has the best flag ever.
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