However, I give credit for giving the most control over the encounter rate of any game. Supposedly the GC version has less random attacks, but it still seemed pretty high to me, especially when searching for discoveries. I did notice the blurring effect, it seemed the game was in dire need of some anisotropic filtering.
I played the GC version and didn't notice any issues with the sound, so I don't think the downsampling was an issue. If you choose to do them it definately adds difficulty to the game, but then the end boss is dissapointingly easy. It took nearly an hour for some of these battles. They are super-hard optional bosses similar to the Weapons of FF7. Well, the GC version definately fixed that with the addition of the bounties. One of my friends played the DC version and said his only complaint was that it was too easy. You'd think that Sega Overworks, after going through the trouble of porting this whole game, downsampling all the sounds, and adding the additional content, they would bother to fix obvious and ugly rendering flaws. The area surrounding the character will look fine, and further down the hallway will look fine, but in between there is a blurry portion that walks down the hallway with you. In interviews prior to the release of Legends, the producers of the game had said that the frequency of such random combats was going to be toned down, because it was the major complaint about the original-but it hasn't been toned down at all.Īs a port, there's one major problem, though: On GameCube hardware, the mip-mapping bias of the game's renderer causes a very noticeable band of blurry textures in situations like walking down hallways. My own words are useless here, so I'll just quote the Gamespot review: I guess it should be noted that I'm talking about "console" RPGs and that, for me, Fallout and PS:T where some of the most boring titles I've ever played - View image here: - (but lets not go down that path)Īpparently the GC has "fixed" the high random encounter rate and there are a few other features that seem worthwhile. and (2) any recommendations for my next RPG based on the comments above. So, I present two topics for discussion: (1) The awesomeness of Skies of Arcadia and how anyone who's looking for a good rpg and hasn't played it should really go play it. I was thinking about trying SO3 next, or trying to complete Wild Arms 3. I didn't really enjoy FF7|8, but I did enjoy FF9 (though not as much as Skies). So, this is probably now my second favorite RPG, right after FF3/6, and seems to have just what I'm looking for in an RPG, though I'm not really sure what that is. Some of the environments/atmospheres in the game come near my all-time favorites. The final several hours (other than containing one of three specifics points mentioned above) were very entertaining, if a little easy. At 3 points in the game the random encounter rate was aggravatingly high, but otherwise (gameplay and aesthetics) I was thoroughly satisfied. Overall I really don't have any complaints.