Niahak's Place

I’m still playing Skies of Arcadia.

Even when Super Mario Galaxy (which is excellent by the way) ate into my time, Skies was in the back of my mind.

When my old addiction to the Three Kingdoms games kicked back in, Skies was still lurking about somewhere.

Even after two LAN parties, I still had an occasional urge to play it.

I’m now about 25 hours in.  I can’t say other games haven’t done this (Persona 3 and Lunar 2: Eternal Blue being the other two in recent memory), but Skies of Arcadia ranks up there among the highest current-gen games I’ve played.

And yet, I’m not sure why.  The battle system is sort of neat, but it’s all been done before, more or less.  It’s not particularly interesting.  The music is okay, but lurks around the level of “ambient”; instead of evoking emotions, it just emphasizes what you’re supposed to be feeling.  Two of the characters, at least, have shown very little depth.  Two more have been entertaining, but somewhat cliched.  The final two are sort of fleshed out so far.  It’s nothing on the level of the Personas, but it’s better than some RPGs.

I think it’s the world (see previous posts) and the situations that have kept me into the game.  I’ve reached the point where there’s a lot of exploration.  Even to find where you’re supposed to be going, which doesn’t often happen in games.  Even WA5, in which wandering around on the world map was vaguely pleasurable at times, you didn’t get the vague directions of “Oh, it’s rumored to be on the other side of this giant whirling vortex nobody’s been past.  Good luck!”.  I actually felt somewhat like a seasoned explorer after finding my way through said giant whirling vortex, to say nothing of how I felt once I actually found the place on the other side.

Not much else to say, really, other than I recommend that everyone who reads this try this game sometime.  It may not be for you.  But I’m not big on exploration normally (for example, the “exploring” systems in WA3 and F really just frustrated me), but Skies feels absolutely great.

I have also rediscovered my love of Kohan: Immortal Sovereigns.  Just about once a year (since I picked it up for $10) I play through the campaign.  It’s another game with a world that really does feel real (if not realistic); it’s got a good deal of history that ties into the campaign, as well as some pretty good voicing and some cool situations.  If Zelazny’s Amber series were made into a game, I would love it to feel like Kohan.

Not the sequel, though.  Please, not like the sequel.

I’m usually not a huge fan of lists and rankings.  When I try to rank games myself, I always go back and change the scores up later – like back when I thought WA:ACF was the awesomest thing ever, or when I thought the first Suikoden was better than Suikoden III.  Of course, I could always use the “I was young and stupid” approach, but this was within the past year or so.

However, this post at GAF caught my eye: a top 100 list as voted by readers of Japan’s biggest videogame magazine Famitsu.

Granted, it’s not a great list; I could name a half-dozen games offhand that I think belong on there, but then I’m not Tanaka Six-pack.  I actually doubt such a list voted by, say, readers of Electronic Gaming Monthly would be better.

So instead, I thought it was more interesting to look at what was on there that I didn’t expect.

I’ve been continuing Skies of Arcadia.  I still love the flowing islandscape-of-sky.  Sadly, other addictions have burst in on this one, shutting down my gameplay of it…

First is Super Mario Galaxy.  Though I’m still not convinced it is the greatest game ever, it’s the best Wii game I’ve played so far (since the only other ones I’ve played are Sports and Super Monkey Ball, this isn’t saying much).  It actually has a feel vaguely like Skies, since it takes place on islands in space.  The perspective issues (where you, say, go upside-down but the camera angle remains unchanged) annoy me, but everything else about this game is great, for a platformer.  I’m only a little ways in so far, though.

After all, my other addiction has set in.  I finally caved in after I saw Romance of the Three Kingdoms XI used for $30.  Though the manual smelled vaguely like smoke and the game wasn’t in great shape, it plays fine – all too fine.  I started a game on easy to get used to it; playing Sun Jian in the Anti-Dong Zhuo Coalition, I’ve leapfrogged up from Jiang Dong to central China in order to confront Dong Zhuo early.  I managed to split his forces in half, but now I’m trapped holding two gates against Dong Zhuo’s stronger Western half while praying Cao Cao manages to seize Luoyang.  The combat in this game is nearly as intense as in IX; planning is essential, and having a decent supply line is key.

I’m looking forward to confronting Yuan Shao once Dong Zhuo’s taken care of, though.  He’s set himself up almost exactly as in history, and I’m guessing he’ll start whittling Gongsun Zan down to size before long.

Even though I bought Ys 3 for SNES recently, I haven’t managed to beat it yet due to these games stepping in and stealing my free time.  Maybe I’ll get a chance this weekend.

Oh, you may not have noticed but I just created a smallish section for Destiny of an Editor, an officer editing tool for the NES classic (in the minds of about a dozen people, myself included) Destiny of an Emperor.