Posted: Wed Sep 01, 2010 8:02 pm
Never actually played PSO, and I only ever played a demo of JSR, so I can't really comment on those two. Skies Of Arcadia, on the other hand, I can give an honest opinion about.
I liked it. I really liked it. But I could never say I really loved it. There wasn't much wrong with it, but what few flaws it did have were enough to stop it from being one of all time greats for me.
It was mostly the battle system that really bugged me. The fact that you had to select your commands for your whole party one after the other, then watch everything unfold would have been so much better if everyone moved a lot quicker. They just moved far too slowly for my liking. Having to fight a large group of enemies, especially, often felt like torture, since it took ages for even one round to finish. I got so bored watching everything, that I often wished that I had the option to skip not just the animations for the special moves,but the animations for the entire round full stop. I found some of the bosses to be a bit too cheap as well, particuarly the bosses in Valua City. The whole Moonstone thing was a nice touch. I liked being able to switch elements on the fly, so if I was using an element that wasn't working against an enemy, I could change it to a more effective one. However, there was one thing that really bugged me about it in the early stages in the game- when Drachma first joined your party, it was impossible to see what colour Moonstone he was equipped with while he had his default weapon. That meant I had to either guess what colour he was using, or squint at his icon on his status, as the background of that also changed colour according to what Moonstone you currently had equipped. And I didn't always find that very helpful either. Thankfully, Drachma's later weapons did show you the Moonstone equipped on them, so you could switch them and know what they were, but that didn't change the fact that I found switching Moonstones with him in the early stages of the game were a real pain in my opinion.
I didn't find the ship battles much better. Sure, they were impressive to watch, but god, did they take a long time to play out. Again, selecting my commands for the round, then spending five minutes watching it unfold wasn't really my idea of a good time. Also, once you had enough money to max out on the best repair kits, there was little to no strategy involved. Just attack on the red squares for maximum damage, then heal yourself right afterwards, and that's all you really needed to do to win. Once again, they were technically stunning, but I felt it just got so tiresome after a while.
Then there was the game world itself. For most of the part, it was great. Extremely vast, with lots to see and do. But there were a couple of points in the game where the entrance to the next destination in the game was extremely hard to find. There were times where I found myself aimlessly flying around the area trying to find the point where I had to enter the next dungeon, and that got really annoying, especially when you had random battles to worry about as well. Along with the battles, this point really spoiled my enjoyment of the game for me.
For all it's faults though, there was a lot I loved about it as well. Despite the problems finding my way at times, the game world was very impressive, and I liked the amount of sidequests to do. I thought having to recruit crew members for your ship was a great touch, and was executed brilliantly as they all had their own uses. The dungeons themselves were great to explore, and I enjoyed the puzzles, especially in that area where you had to switch between Vyse and Aika in order to progress. The graphics were also well realised, and the soundtrack was great.
The characters were certainly cliched. You had your spirited leader who's always cheerful, the tomboyish girl, the mysterious girl from an ancient race, the gruff but ultimately good hearted old man, the ladies man, etc. But they were all so likable that none of that mattered. What I really liked about them was the fact that these were characters you would genuinely want to go on an adventure with. There's very little, if any, angst or whining, which made a refreshing change from your average Final Fantasy game. Even some of the villains actually came across as sympathetic, which is always a good thing in an RPG if you ask me.
The story was also cliched, but again, that didn't matter. It's hard to make an original RPG storyline anyway, and Skies Of Arcadia's story was very good. Everytime I switched the game off, I couldn't wait to boot it up again to see what happened next. Compare that to Final Fantasy IX, which was the other big RPG that year. The only reason I ever completed FFIX was because I forced myself to. I didn't care about any of the characters, I found the story extremely boring, and I really didn't like it. Arcadia, on the other hand, despite what I thought were serious faults, kept me hooked from start to finish- I genuinely wanted to finish it. And that, I think, is one of the most important factors in an RPG.
There's a bit more I could talk about, and maybe I'll touch on a few more points later, but writing all this has taken me an age, and I'm getting a bit tired. So I'll just say that while I disagree that SoA is one of the best RPGs ever, I do think it's a very good game, and one that's well worth playing.
Definitely looking forward to Friday's show!
I liked it. I really liked it. But I could never say I really loved it. There wasn't much wrong with it, but what few flaws it did have were enough to stop it from being one of all time greats for me.
It was mostly the battle system that really bugged me. The fact that you had to select your commands for your whole party one after the other, then watch everything unfold would have been so much better if everyone moved a lot quicker. They just moved far too slowly for my liking. Having to fight a large group of enemies, especially, often felt like torture, since it took ages for even one round to finish. I got so bored watching everything, that I often wished that I had the option to skip not just the animations for the special moves,but the animations for the entire round full stop. I found some of the bosses to be a bit too cheap as well, particuarly the bosses in Valua City. The whole Moonstone thing was a nice touch. I liked being able to switch elements on the fly, so if I was using an element that wasn't working against an enemy, I could change it to a more effective one. However, there was one thing that really bugged me about it in the early stages in the game- when Drachma first joined your party, it was impossible to see what colour Moonstone he was equipped with while he had his default weapon. That meant I had to either guess what colour he was using, or squint at his icon on his status, as the background of that also changed colour according to what Moonstone you currently had equipped. And I didn't always find that very helpful either. Thankfully, Drachma's later weapons did show you the Moonstone equipped on them, so you could switch them and know what they were, but that didn't change the fact that I found switching Moonstones with him in the early stages of the game were a real pain in my opinion.
I didn't find the ship battles much better. Sure, they were impressive to watch, but god, did they take a long time to play out. Again, selecting my commands for the round, then spending five minutes watching it unfold wasn't really my idea of a good time. Also, once you had enough money to max out on the best repair kits, there was little to no strategy involved. Just attack on the red squares for maximum damage, then heal yourself right afterwards, and that's all you really needed to do to win. Once again, they were technically stunning, but I felt it just got so tiresome after a while.
Then there was the game world itself. For most of the part, it was great. Extremely vast, with lots to see and do. But there were a couple of points in the game where the entrance to the next destination in the game was extremely hard to find. There were times where I found myself aimlessly flying around the area trying to find the point where I had to enter the next dungeon, and that got really annoying, especially when you had random battles to worry about as well. Along with the battles, this point really spoiled my enjoyment of the game for me.
For all it's faults though, there was a lot I loved about it as well. Despite the problems finding my way at times, the game world was very impressive, and I liked the amount of sidequests to do. I thought having to recruit crew members for your ship was a great touch, and was executed brilliantly as they all had their own uses. The dungeons themselves were great to explore, and I enjoyed the puzzles, especially in that area where you had to switch between Vyse and Aika in order to progress. The graphics were also well realised, and the soundtrack was great.
The characters were certainly cliched. You had your spirited leader who's always cheerful, the tomboyish girl, the mysterious girl from an ancient race, the gruff but ultimately good hearted old man, the ladies man, etc. But they were all so likable that none of that mattered. What I really liked about them was the fact that these were characters you would genuinely want to go on an adventure with. There's very little, if any, angst or whining, which made a refreshing change from your average Final Fantasy game. Even some of the villains actually came across as sympathetic, which is always a good thing in an RPG if you ask me.
The story was also cliched, but again, that didn't matter. It's hard to make an original RPG storyline anyway, and Skies Of Arcadia's story was very good. Everytime I switched the game off, I couldn't wait to boot it up again to see what happened next. Compare that to Final Fantasy IX, which was the other big RPG that year. The only reason I ever completed FFIX was because I forced myself to. I didn't care about any of the characters, I found the story extremely boring, and I really didn't like it. Arcadia, on the other hand, despite what I thought were serious faults, kept me hooked from start to finish- I genuinely wanted to finish it. And that, I think, is one of the most important factors in an RPG.
There's a bit more I could talk about, and maybe I'll touch on a few more points later, but writing all this has taken me an age, and I'm getting a bit tired. So I'll just say that while I disagree that SoA is one of the best RPGs ever, I do think it's a very good game, and one that's well worth playing.
Definitely looking forward to Friday's show!