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Skies of Arcadia and Shenmue might be headed to XBLA/PSN

J

jett

D-Member
Skies of Arcadia is a fun, inoffensive, by the numbers RPG. I own it for DC, not sure if I'd want to play it again to be honest. I think I'd be more interested in an anime adaptation or something.

I'm definitely in for Shenmue, I have such good memories of that experience. It'd be nice to play it in japanese with subtitles. :p
 
A

Aeana

Member
I think Skies of Arcadia has a lot of problems, but it does at least offer something that not many other RPGs do: a nice adventure story and experience. Really, it's only games like Grandia and Trails in the Sky, and in some ways, Dragon Quest, that really do it well. Skies got that part really right. In particular, Skies of Arcadia feels like Laputa in game form, and I am all for that.
 
P

Phoenix Fang

Banned
EviLore said:
Now everyone will get to see how bad both of them are!
Click to expand...

gallery_83989_34767_13866101784c036b943f758.gif
 
R

Ravidrath

Member
I actually think Skies' story and setting are very charming, but the translation is a little flat.

A retranslation or at least a strong editing pass for characterization and humor could help it out a lot - localization has come a long way in the last decade, and this game should benefit from that.
 
Z

ZombiePlatypus

Member
Paco said:
Please be Skies of Arcadia Legends.
Click to expand...

What improvements did Legends have?


nny said:
It will be weird to play Skies of Arcadia without having the motor in the optical drive whirring warning you that a battle is about to start. Maybe they'll add that as DLC.
Click to expand...

I didn't play a lot of SoA, but I definitely remember the DC kicking things into full gear before a random battle happened. It's probably not gonna feel natural at first without all that warning noise. :3
 
P

Psxphile

Member
BrainZEROX said:
A new character for the team too:

02.jpg
Click to expand...

Was... she actually a new team member? I know when previews first started coming out about Legends and this girl was Big Change #1 it certainly seemed that way, but I read some impressions years later (I already had the DC version) that made her out to be more of an occasional annoyance to the party than anything else.

If anything, I would like that they adapt the Legends version just to see what her deal was. But... with better audio of course.
 
S

Spieler Eins

Member
Aeana said:
I think Skies of Arcadia has a lot of problems, but it does at least offer something that not many other RPGs do: a nice adventure story and experience. Really, it's only games like Grandia and Trails in the Sky, and in some ways, Dragon Quest, that really do it well. Skies got that part really right. In particular, Skies of Arcadia feels like Laputa in game form, and I am all for that.
Click to expand...

The sense of adventure in this game is unmatched, even if the story and some mechanics are average.
The first time you get to
sail your own ship and build your own headquarters
is... amazing.
 
T

The Awesomest

Member
Psxphile said:
Was... she actually a new team member? I know when previews first started coming out about Legends and this girl was Big Change #1 it certainly seemed that way, but I read some impressions years later (I already had the DC version) that made her out to be more of an occasional annoyance to the party than anything else.

If anything, I would like that they adapt the Legends version just to see what her deal was. But... with better audio of course.
Click to expand...

No, he's lying. She is 1/2 of the biggest addition in Legends. You fight her about 4 times and get backstory on Ramirez in the process. The other half is this doctor dude who you have to collect "moonfish" for, which can be found in cities and dungeons and are always obtainable, in exchange for nifty items and backstory on Ramirez. Doing that unlocks her fights.

The other biggest changes are a slightly reduced encounter rate, an island with the final moon shard thing for Cupil and battle records, additional ship bosses, better fingers, the Three Secrets, two of which are a cool weapon and an additional fight with an admiral, and of course the bounty hunting sidequests.
 
M

Mr Swine

Banned
I hope that there are improvements to ShenMue since last time I tried to play it I couldn't play more than 30 minutes :/
 
EviLore

EviLore

Expansive Ellipses
Staff Member
PrinceOfApathy said:
Woah, even in all of my cynicism and downright hatred for Skies, because the game was an embarrassment to humanity, as I said in the thread before...ummm. Shenmue was an actually half decent game.
Click to expand...

So I guess you didn't get the bug where when you took a slightly different (but perfectly appropriate) forklift route than what the devs coded for you to take you'd never trigger the appropriate scripted event and instead get an infinite loop of the same "day" with no indication of what's going on or what you're supposed to do differently.
 
R

Roto13

Member
EviLore said:
So I guess you didn't get the bug where when you took a slightly different (but perfectly appropriate) forklift route than what the devs coded for you to take you'd never trigger the appropriate scripted event and instead get an infinite loop of the same "day" with no indication of what's going on or what you're supposed to do differently.
Click to expand...

That would presumably be fixed for the port.

A much better reason to hate Shenmue is its clunkiness. Manually dialing a rotary phone? What the fucking fuck?
 
X

XxSlasherMcGirkxX

Member
EviLore said:
So I guess you didn't get the bug where when you took a slightly different (but perfectly appropriate) forklift route than what the devs coded for you to take you'd never trigger the appropriate scripted event and instead get an infinite loop of the same "day" with no indication of what's going on or what you're supposed to do differently.
Click to expand...

Welp! That sounds pretty bad. Honestly even without playing, I'm sure that Shenmue by and by is not a good game this day and age and maybe even so back in the day. HOWEVER, this game was a cornerstone of SEGA a long time ago that had an interesting production and at the time state of the art premise. If it is good or not at the time it was still a marvel that captured many peoples hearts and with it's sequel's cliffhanger ending that people still clamor for to this day and age has me intrigued. I would possibly consider a purchase just based on this front as I and I'd imagine many others have never played these games.
 
J

jay

Member
EviLore said:
So I guess you didn't get the bug where when you took a slightly different (but perfectly appropriate) forklift route than what the devs coded for you to take you'd never trigger the appropriate scripted event and instead get an infinite loop of the same "day" with no indication of what's going on or what you're supposed to do differently.
Click to expand...

That's a feature!
 
R

Rpgmonkey

Member
Would totally buy SoA HD. Bonus points if they lower the encounter rate a bit more from the GC version's level.

Few games have ever gotten me as hooked as much as Skies did.
 
A

Alrix

Member
I've been trying to hunt down a decently priced copy of Skies of Arcadia Legends...my brother owned it once long ago but I never played it more than an hour or so sadly.
 
M

MightyHedgehog

Member
I never understood the complaints about the encounter rate in SoA. It was the stupid cinematics for special attacks and load times that drug the combat down. Besides, those new ship upgrades are some of the best moments in the game, especially when you can start avoiding all random battles by flying above them. I mean, that's a total 'fuck yeah!' moment that would never have happened if the encounter rate were lowered considerably. It's that challenge, that tension, that gave value to something you've discovered or earned. And what are RPGs if not opportunities to experience a satisfying sense of achievement through surviving danger that brings an important sense of adventure? With nothing much to lose and never enough opportunities to threaten the player's investment, the value of the experience drops, the thrill dies. No, I don't think the encounter rate was all that bad at all.
 
P

Pachterballs

Banned
skies of arcadia is going to get a lot of hate when it hits

all the raving nuts who talked about it like it was ambrosia; but when I got to it; it was borderline unplayable and annoying as all fuck. The combat isn't even that great. I tried to get into it but couldn't.

shenmue's great though. I'd rebuy it.
 
Meicyn

Meicyn

Gold Member
Pachterballs said:
skies of arcadia is going to get a lot of hate when it hits

all the raving nuts who talked about it like it was ambrosia; but when I got to it; it was borderline unplayable and annoying as all fuck. The combat isn't even that great. I tried to get into it but couldn't.

shenmue's great though. I'd rebuy it.
Click to expand...
What's funny is that your description of Skies is the exact description I'd give Shenmue.
 
E

Elfforkusu

Member
Pachterballs said:
skies of arcadia is going to get a lot of hate when it hits

all the raving nuts who talked about it like it was ambrosia; but when I got to it; it was borderline unplayable and annoying as all fuck. The combat isn't even that great. I tried to get into it but couldn't.

shenmue's great though. I'd rebuy it.
Click to expand...
Skies has a terrible generic combat system, and being an RPG with random battles you end up in that dark horrible place far too often. The rest of the game is good.

For the first half of the game, it's not enough to overcome the boring battles. But then... uh, something happens. Holy crap is the 2nd half of that game amazing.
 
P

Pachterballs

Banned
Parn said:
What's funny is that your description of Skies is the exact description I'd give Shenmue.
Click to expand...

ha.

I can why/how people can have issues with Shenmue. Its an odd game; you walk around a japanese town. You do innane shit like play with a cat + collect toys of a vending machine. But at the time; on the dreamcast; playing it; it felt like a vital gaming experience.

game did um, whats the word - push the whole QTE lexicon into gaming so it also has fundamental gaming history significance.
 
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