Spudd 64’s Top Ten Favorite Video Games of All Time: 6

Talented artist and incredible friend, Spudd 64 is counting down his top ten favorite video games. Enjoy!

- Kyle

To those who know me, it is no secret that summer is my favorite season. To me, every other month pales in comparison to those summer months. In a strange way, Skies Of Arcadia Legends feels like summer to me, which is probably why it is so high on my list of favorite videogames of all time. Lush green islands floating in bright blue skies, amazing airships sailing on warm breezes, and a world-spanning adventure that brings you from deserts to jungles to metal cities and long lost outposts and even legendary kingdoms thought to be the stuff of imagination. Looking back, the graphics may seem a little bright and crude, but to me that was and still is what is so charming and wonderful about the game. A hallmark of simple game design is that any player at all can project themselves and their world onto a simple and universal character design. When we see a smiley face drawn on a piece of paper, we all recognize it as a human face and feel like it could be anyone. Compare that to the ultra realistic graphics of a character like Solid Snake and, well, it’s pretty obvious that Snake looks like Snake and doesn’t look at all like you. So to me, these bright and simple games are just about perfect. I mean, look at this screenshot below. You can almost feel that warm summer breeze and the hot sun on your skin and smell the freshly cut logs of the house and the slightly damp dirt beneath the characters feet. Skies Of Arcadia Legends had me from the very first minute.



Originally released in 2000 for the sadly defunct Sega DreamCast system, Skies Of Arcadia was re-released, with a great deal of extra content, as Skies Of Arcadia Legends for the Nintendo GameCube. I played both versions and while I loved each iteration, I would have to say that the extras added to the GameCube version make that one slightly superior in my eyes. Immediately, the game was appealing. I mean, you got to play as Vyse, the son of a Blue Rogue Sky Pirate, and you just knew that at some point in the game (thankfully sooner rather than later) you were gonna get behind the spoked wheel of your own airship and sail the skies! You even had a cool lens on your eye that looked like a pirate’s patch!

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At first, the whole idea of the world of Arcadia seems hard to wrap your head around. Everything looks fairly real and realistic. The first houses you see are built from logs. Ladders look like ladders. Crates look just like real world crates. But in Arcadia, all the land – and I mean ALL of the land – consists of huge floating chunks of rock drifting through an eternally blue sky. Look down from the edge, and there is nothing but an endless ocean of clouds (referred to later in the game as “Deep Sky,” which sounds awesome).



But the most impressive thing about the world of Arcadia is just how massive it is. Early in the game, the player map encompasses most of the sky islands around Vyse’s home, and that seems like quite a bit. Little by little, that map expands and expands until a vast sky sea yawns, simply beckoning with adventure. And the places you visit in the game are nothing short of mind-boggling and beautiful…



While I enjoy a wide variety of videogames, from the simple to the dark to the cute to the violent, all of the characters in Skies Of Arcadia Legends are quite simply so irresistibly charming that it is just impossible not to like them. They are, each and every one, optimistic, upbeat, cheerful, funny, spirited and adventurous. I know, that may seem really cheesy as you read it, but it adds so much to the games. These aren’t tragic heroes, burdened with great powers and crushing flaws, these are hilariously cool kids that you would want to hang around all the time if you knew them.



Even the villains in the game, the nefarious Valuan Empire, are a riot. The Royal Family of Valua and its oddball assemblage of scientists, admirals, and other rogues, are nothing short of delightful. You almost feel bad having to fight them. I mean, look at Alfonso here and tell me he is not, well, you know…



The game also succeeds with what were, for the time especially, quite memorable monster designs. From the smaller bosses like this one, named (oddly enough) Antonio…



…to the colossal and terrifying Gigas. Similar, in some ways, to the Weapons of Final Fantasy (i.e. Omega Weapon, Ruby Weapon, etc.) the Gigas are gigantic organic weapons that can only be summoned by the Moon Crystals. The Valuan Empire seeks to find these Moon Crystals to awaken each of the Gigas’ and use them to conquer Arcadia. The Gigas were incredible to fight against because of their bizarre design and their colossal size. Here Vyse witnesses the awakening of the Green Gigas Grendel…

Looks a lot like an EVA Unit from Neon Genesis Evangelion, doesn’t it? Here’s a closer look at the monstrosity, fully enraged.



And they get even stranger. This is the awakening of the Red Gigas, Recumen. What you thought were just funny pillars in front of the Temple of Pyrynn…



…turn out to be this wobbly gargantua. The best part though, and you know you were waiting for this, is that because they are so massive, these Gigas boss battles are ship battles! Yes! Combat changes completely, and you must make wise decisions such as when to repair your ship, when to charge your cannons, when to fire, when to use bombs and torpedoes, and much more. It adds a completely different dimension to the game, and is just a whole lot of fun as well.

You do your share of ship to ship battling with the Valuan Armada too, and one of the things I love so dearly about Skies Of Arcadia Legends is that the learning curve is so perfect and the rewards so awesome. In some RPGs, by the time you’ve achieved the ultimate weapon or the ultimate spell of the ultimate ability, all that remains is an hour or two of game play and a showdown with the final boss. Not so in Skies Of Arcadia Legends. In what seems like just the right amount of time invested in the game, Vyse, Aika and Fina gain control of the most advanced battleship in Arcadia, the Delphinus. Faster, more powerful, and more fun to pilot than any other ship in the game, you get to take the Delphinus into head to head battles with the toughest ships in the game.



Man, I could go on and on and on about this game. I haven’t even mentioned the Discoveries that you can make by sailing your ship over every corner of the map, finding long lost islands and bizarre ancient ruins (and earning a nice chunk of money too), or all of the fabulous side quests you can take on, hunting down rogue pirates for bounty. Plus there are daring escapes from Valua, love interests galore, court intrigue, long lost civilizations shrouded in the mists of time, harrowing journeys through the stormy Dark Rift, an area of the sky seas battered by storm clouds and terrible typhoons and…well you get the picture.

I can not praise this game highly enough. Every second of Skies Of Arcadia Legends is pure RPG fun, plain and simple. With the notable exception of Final Fantasy X and Earthbound this is far and away my favorite RPG ever, and even Vagrant Story is a distant runner up. If you have a Dreamcast or a GameCube, do anything you have to in order to get this game. You’ll thank me!

- Spudd 64