The graphics are nothing to write home about, but that should be expected, since the game originally was released nearly two-and-a-half years ago. Still, the visuals have been improved since the Dreamcast version, and the framerate is perfectly stable (a good 60 FPS). Though the graphics are a little dated, the art style is commendable, and there are some very pretty sights intact, especially in the later stages of the game. Character animation is good; facial expressions will change with a character’s emotions, especially with reference to the more important characters. Most NPCs don’t have varying facial expressions, but that doesn’t really detract from the experience, as you rarely find yourself looking them in the face anyhow. Unfortunately, the game lacks progressive scan support.

Perhaps a surprise to many gamers is the fact that Skies of Arcadia Legends contains no FMV whatsoever. All cutscenes - and there are a lot of them – are being done real-time. However, the result is very satisfying, and the fact that the cutscenes parallel the look of the gameplay really helps to keep the player in touch with what’s going on. In other words, you don’t have any of that drastic shifting from video to gameplay as you do in games such as Final Fantasy VII. Characters’ mouths don’t move when they speak in any situation, but that’s not too hard to forgive considering the general lack of speech.

Lastly on the graphics front are the obvious problems. Primarily, when flying around the world map, there is an awful lot of pop-in taking part, especially on reefs or sky rifts (which could have easily been fogged at the very least). Textures also show their age in some cases, but overall, they are much nicer than one would probably expect. However, probably the most noticeable of all of the graphical shortfalls is the texture-blending line that moves with your player as you travel on foot; it’s not that big of a deal, but it should have been removed or at least retouched after the Dreamcast version – at the very least blurred in an attempt to hide it. This line is essentially the visual transition from lower to higher texture detail – there are three or four of them as the distance increases – that takes place along the walls and floors of on-foot locations in the game. It is very sharp, and quite noticeable. All shortfalls aside, though, the graphics really are quite pretty, and the game should not be judged by its forgivable inadequacies in that category.

Gameplay is unique in many ways, but largely traditional. You fight two types of battles: Hand-to-Hand Combat and Airship Battles. In Hand-to-Hand Combat, of which you will be doing the most, you have access to Attack, Defend, Magic, Run, Items, S-Move, and Focus (I’ll get to these last two in a moment). Each playable character can be equipped with a weapon, armor, and an accessory (like relics in some RPGs – they serve special purposes). Each player’s attack is selected separately, and there are no real-time elements to the battles. In other words, you should expect something along the lines of selecting the “Wait” command rather than “Active” in Chrono Trigger: You can spend as long as you like in the menus, or just standing around, without worrying about the enemies recovering and launching a nasty attack on you.

But the Airship Battles are what really set this game apart. Though not quite as common, Airship Battles result when you engage combat with a foe that must be fought from inside your airship (you don’t have a choice, airship battles are always fought from the airship and hand-to-hand battles are always hand-to-hand). In the event of an Airship Battle, you will be presented a four-by-four grid in which you will select your actions for an entire turn (four actions in total). The Y-axis of the grid lists the characters in your party (up to four), and the X-axis represents four different moments during which you can choose to attack or perform other operations. Each character can perform one action per turn. The level of danger to your ship in each moment is represented by the color of the box along the X-axis (green, yellow, or red). Likewise, icons on the X-axis also indicate moments where you have a tactical advantage, thus implying that your attacks will do more damage than normal. You have a number of different types of weapons at your disposal, from Primary Cannons (which fire on one turn and do good damage), to Secondary Cannons (which fire across several turns in conjunction with other cannons), to Torpedoes (which you can set to hit up to three turns after they fire), to Crew members, and much, much more. Crew members are people separate from your party that can ride along on your ship with you in later stages of the game. You can recruit them from just about anywhere you travel and use them in battle for special actions. All in all, there are 22 different potential crew members in the game, as well as a handful of playable characters that you can have in your party. Each character’s attributes will influence the effectiveness of attacks on the enemy, also, so you’ll want to have your most powerful party member fire the cannons. Overall, the Airship Battle system is very deep, and refreshingly unique.

There is one aspect of both types of battle that is particularly unique: The Spirit Meter. Each turn, your party will accumulate a certain amount of Spirit Points (SP), a substance that is required to perform special actions, such as Magic and S-Moves (and in Airship Battles, the use of cannons and other general attacks). An S-Move is, basically, an action unique to that character that consumes a certain amount of SP. Each character can learn three to five S-Moves, which are acquired permanently using items called “Moonberries”. Moonberries are uncommon items that can be found in chests and occasionally after fighting a battle.

Unlike in most RPGs, all magic spells require only 1 MP, but each spell uses a certain amount of SP as well. In other words, you won’t be able to continually bombard enemies with magic or other special attacks unless you strategically allocate your SP to allow you to do so. All special attacks (and in Airship Battles, almost all attacks) are pulled from the same pool of SP, which is used by the whole party (each character also pulls from the same pool). You also have an action at your disposal called “Focus”, which allows a character to recover a few Spirit Points; however, you won’t be able to make use of those recovered points until the next turn.

There is one problem with the game’s battle system, and that is the speed. Oftentimes you will find yourself engaging in hand-to-hand battles with simple enemies and fighting for far longer than you would have liked; I would probably consider this the game’s biggest flaw. The camera takes far too long to center on the next attacker, and after the attack finishes, the camera pauses for another quick second to display the damage. The Z Button can be pressed to skip your party’s S-Move animations, but nothing else can be skipped – not even the enemy’s S-Move animations. Magic Spells, while usually rather short in execution, must always be viewed in full. However, the problem is most apparent in battles where there are many weak foes that tend to cast a lot of spells – you must watch every action performed by the opponents, however long, or repetitive, it may be. The same problems apply for the Airship Battles.

When you’re finished with a battle, you will earn gold, any items the enemy dropped, as well as both experience and magic experience (I’ll get to this in a moment). As you might expect, characters gain levels based on their earned experience, and in turn, their attributes increase. Each character can also select, at any time, an element to imbue their weapon with (there are six; one per moon: Red, Purple, Blue, Yellow, Green, and Silver). After each battle, magic experience is allocated to whatever element the character currently has equipped. After earning enough magic experience, the character will learn a spell in the field of magic that corresponds to that element. Also, a Fire-imbued sword will do more damage to an Ice-imbued enemy, so the elemental selection holds a tactical purpose, as well.

Random Encounters occur both on foot and in flight, but fortunately, they have been greatly reduced in the GameCube version of Skies. Consequently, the experience earned from each battle has been pushed up a notch. Also, in the later parts of the game, you receive magic that will help you to rid yourself of the simple enemies before they can start testing your patience. Eventually you will discover ways to avoid random encounters whenever possible, as well, so the problem is somewhat alleviated as the game progresses. Nevertheless, the battle speed remains a problem, and it is something that should be at least considered before committing a purchase.

The sound effects are a mixed bag. On one hand, you get a pretty good sample of the general necessary stuff (swords slashing, magic casting, etc), but on the other hand, some of the sounds show obvious signs of compression. The compression artifacts of the accompanying audio for the S-Moves are particularly obvious, but again, it isn’t really too much of a problem. While there isn’t very much voice acting in the game, you will occasionally hear characters vocalize their emotions through quick phrases as things take place. However, more often than not, the voice acting that does exist is more annoying and distracting than anything – due more to bad compression and placement than quality. For example, you might read, “Well, I guess I feel a little better, thanks for the support,” and hear the character say “Thanks!” simultaneously. It feels a little goofy at times.

The music, on the other hand, is well above average. You will find yourself humming along with some of the emotional and movie-like tunes in the game – which sound quite good, considering the fact that ninety percent of them are MIDI. While some of the songs become a little tired after hours of play, most of them are sufficient, and a good selection of them are excellent. There is some degree of dynamic music in the game, as well. When your airship travels into different lands, the percussion tracks will change to accommodate the nature of your environment. In boss battles, the music will change according to whether you are winning or losing; while this is a nice touch, it should be mentioned that the “winning” and “losing” loops are quite short, and become very repetitive in long battles. Finally, four songs are orchestrated, though none of them is heard in-game.