YMMV / Skies of Arcadia

• Angst? What Angst?: Vyse is this trope crystallized. His hometown is destroyed? His base is destroyed? He gets separated from his friends? He shrugs it off and fixes it. This trope is so incredibly strong when it comes to Vyse, it becomes contagious. Wherever he goes, angst will fade.
• Anticlimax Boss:
  • Baltor the second time around, especially after De Loco.
  • Lord Zivilyn Bane's one of the easier bounty fights, but can be rough if you're not expecting it and go in unprepared.
  • If one does all the sidequests before the final boss fights, the group will be so overpowered that it will feel ridiculously easy. The final ship battle in particular uses magical attacks almost exclusively and lacks Contractual Boss Immunity to Silence.
  • Yeligar, the Yellow Gigas, is made out to be an incredibly powerful beast that had to be completely sealed away by the ancient civilization and multiple characters will tout at its supposed destructive power. In practice it is one of the easier ship boss battles in the game with its low damage output and lack of debilitating mechanics. The only attack that might cause trouble is its highly telegraphed Wave-Motion Gun which you can completely shut down if you blast it with your own first, something that you will have no trouble doing at every opportunity and which at least one prior ship boss battle already taught you how to do.
• Awesome Music: Now has its own page.
• Canon Fodder: Lots of jokes about literal cannon fodder aside, there are a lot of little details throughout the world of Arcadia that the fanbase has pounced on. Of particular not is anything related to the possible Black Moon.
• Cliché Storm: If you had to look at the game on paper, it'd be hard to see what all the fuss is about. It's an extremely standard turn-based RPG that follows the One True Sequence (or at least appears to) one hundred percent, it has your typical "race with the bad guys to collect the magic crystals in the world" plot, only a handful of the characters really undergo any substantial Character Development, and the villains are an Evil Empire staffed mostly by some of the hammiest, most straight-forward and one-dimensional Card Carrying Villains ever. But it pulls off each and every single one of these cliches and tropes so well that the game is far more than the sum of its parts, especially considering it came out in the wake of a whole slew of overly dark and edgy Final Fantasy VII imitators, where these old cliches felt like a breath of fresh air after being smothered by the new ones so pervasively.
• Complacent Gaming Syndrome: One of the criticisms of Skies of Arcadia is that its late-game battles are basically identical. Aika uses Delta Shield (blocks magic), Enrique casts Justice Shield (reduce all damage by half), Fina uses Focus to charge the SP Meter or uses items to heal the party that get around Delta Shield, occasionally pulling out Lunar Light in emergencies, and Vyse either also uses Focus or attacks an enemy with Pirate's Wrath. Rinse and repeat, ad infinitum, until either everything is dead, or you have a full SP bar to use Prophecy, which will almost always cause something to be dead. There's very few enemies or boss battles that provide a counter to any part of this strategy. And while it's absurdly effective, it can take the edge off of fights when you know that most enemies can't get around it.
• Complete Monster: Admiral Galcian is loyal only to power. When first seen, Galcian is a military man working for the nation of Valua and its empress Teodora. A ruthless man who tries to wipe out Vyse and the heroes at any cost, Galcian pursues an agenda of hunting down moon crystals to enhance his own personal power. After finding the superweapon he's been looking for, Galcian reveals his true colors and uses it on Valua, his own nation. His reasoning is that if he obliterates the most powerful country, the other nations will fall in line.
• Cult Classic: Few remember the game these days and even fewer have played it, but damn near everyone who did loved it. Widely considered easily the best JRPG on the Dreamcast and one of the best on the GameCube.
• Demonic Spiders: Gravers, dangerous South Ocean monsters with instant kill attacks that come very early in the game, before death-resistance really proliferates, and in a part of the game with its own problems that make encountering lots of them likely.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Many minor characters make the cut, such as Belleza and Gregorio with their Heel Face Turns, as well as crew members such as Don, Hans, Urala, Kirala, Ilchymis, and Lawrence. However, most fans would agree that the best example is Gilder, a womanizing, Badass Longcoat and Cool Shades wearing Gunslinger. He even acts as The Lancer for Vyse, and is probably the most popular of the three possible fourth party members despite having by far the least to do with the overall plot.
• Escapist Character:
  • Gilder. Too cool to be real and yet, a fan favorite. See above for the reasons.
  • Vyse can count as this. Unfailingly optimistic and driven, ends up personally exploring the entire world and becoming a world-famous pirate to the point of imposters showing up to cash in on his fame, thwarts an evil empire and the man who tried to seize control of it, and then the man after that who tries to destroy everything, and then sails off into the sunset with two potential girlfriends who don't show a hint of jealousy towards each other.
• Game-Breaker:
  • Justice Shield halves the damage from the majority of attacks at a high priority and reasonable SP cost. It's part of the cornerstone of the turtling strategy that can slowly grind through even the harshest boss fights for a reason.
  • Delta Shield blocks all magic attacks and is invaluable against instant death attacks. It does unfortunately also block your own healing spells and the like, but both Fina's powerful healing S-Moves and the functionally identical items you'll eventually be swimming in, as noted below, work just fine.
  • Pirates' Wrath deals massive damage for a not-unreasonable amount of SP for the point you get it. It can devastate bosses, especially if Vyse's equipment is up to date or he's been juiced up on stat-boosting items.
  • Most Bounty fights can be easily dealt with by spamming Justice Shield and Delta Shield every round until you max out your SP meter, and then casting the normally Awesome, but Impractical Prophecy for massive damage. It probably won't TPK your opponent, but they'll definitely be seriously hurting and easy pickings to finish off, and it probably will wipe out any annoyingly sturdy minions.
  • Lunar Light fixes everything. It heals everyone to max, revives all fallen allies with max health, AND removes all status ailments, all in a nice 18 SP package. By the time you're able to get it, you'll be generating that much in two turns, tops.
  • Moonberries in general. Depending on how thorough your exploration is, on top of a little bit of luck from enemy drops, you can easily pump Moonberries into Aika or Vyse to have them learn strong single-target or crowd-clearing magic attacks in no time at all. With a few Focus turns, you can simply wait out the enemy to unleash very powerful S-Moves just a few hours in the game.
  • Items in general can replicate any magic effect, are dirt-cheap by the mid-game, consume no SP and get around Delta Shield.
  • Recruit Ilchymis, upgrade the item shop at your home base, and he'll be able to sell you seeds. As in, the items that provide the given party member with a permanent stat boost. And given the Money for Nothing nature of this game, you can very easily pump your party members full of seeds and transform them into stupidly broken Arcadia-walking deities.
  • Magic Boxes cast a spell on demand for free (albeit with a chance of breaking) but also don't factor in the user's Magic stat, allowing them to be used as the primary damage source for underlevelled characters during a speedrun.
  • The Magic Shells used by your ship are completely unblockable, allowing you to do things like cast Silence on the final airship boss (who mostly spams magical spells).
  • Fighting the black looper Elcian in the Dark Rift. It's a fairly simple fight compared to the other bonus bosses, yet grants a boatload of XP and magic XP, and unlike other bonus bosses, it reappears whenever you leave and re-enter the Rift. It doesn't appear until very late in the game, but it makes level grinding a breeze if you need to do it.
  • Torpedoes typically have their high power and ability to hit on "target lost" turns balanced by poor accuracy. Recruit TikaTika as a crewmember and they'll become perfectly accurate, making them the primary damage source in the late game during speedruns.
• Goddamned Bats: Loopers, in all their forms. They're nearly impossible to hit with normal attacks, but have magic defense so high that spells and Aika's (magic based) S-moves are near guaranteed to do 0 damage, they frequently buff the other enemies in the battle, and often run away before you can actually hit them with a Special attack and/or kill them, especially early in the game. Ironically, they're more likely to die if they attack you than if you attack them, since your counter-attack rate is likely to be higher than your hit rate against them, which is why Skull Shield is a good move there. And worst of all they grant a lot of Magic XP so you'll ''want'' to try to secure the kill. It's only when you start fights with 14 SP and can immediately use Vyse's "Rain of Swords" S-move, which deals physical damage and cannot be evaded, that they suddenly become easy to farm.
• Goddamned Boss: Bosses, plural: Barta and Rupee. Daikokuya also counts. Both are fairly tough Optional Boss fights with unexpected gimmicks.
• Good Bad Bugs: In the Legends re-release Magic Boxes are bugged to always use the default Green element for attacks, allowing Pyri boxes to nuke encounters that would normally resist fire attacks like in the Temple of Pyrynn.
• Ho Yay: REALLY hard not to read something more than platonic onto Ramirez' feelings for Galcian towards the end.
• Low-Tier Letdown:
  • Domingo requires a fair bit more effort to recruit as a Lookout than TikaTika, but unlike his competition's incredibly powerful passive boost to Torpedo accuracy, Domingo's critical boost requires spending SP to activate, and struggles to compete with such a powerful benefit to a strong weapon time primarily balanced by its inaccuracy.
  • Pow's recruitment is as easy as talking to him, but Meridia's much harder to acquire Jester effect does literally nothing, since a ship's gold value is irrelevant.
• Moe: Belle is a pretty but ditzy girl who is trying to get the basics of her job down. Note that her job is naval artillery operator.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • In the beginning of the game, Alfonso kills his Vice-Captain in an effort to keep his reputation intact. It perfectly sums up what kind of villains you'll be dealing with in this game.
  • Galcian crosses this when he summons the Rains of Destruction on Valua, his own country, simply to demonstrate his superiority over the greatest military power in the world.
  • This is mentioned backhandedly in a conversation with a minor NPC, but Ramirez gets one when he has the entirety of the Nasr Royal Family dragged off to be executed for the amusement of Valuan citizens.
• Most Wonderful Sound: Mew...mew...mewmew...mewmewmewmewmewmewmew — received (1) Cham!
• One True Threesome: Not an unheard-of interpretation of the main trio's relationship, given how close they are as a trio by the end of the story. The game proper doesn't have anything conclusive to say about romance among them in any case, and to the extent there is any it's pretty balanced, which is probably why Ship-to-Ship Combat is very rare among the fanbase.
• Rewatch Bonus: Foreshadowing is extremely subtle, but nonetheless present. Stuff that seems innocuous at the time is often revealed to have huge significance. For example, Soltis actually shows up three times before it's introduced. Playing through the game a second time is an entirely different experience, as you'll now notice these little things and be hit with Fridge Brilliance.
• Suspiciously Similar Song: The Armada Battle theme sounds very similar to the first part of Mega Man 8's Wily Tower 3.
• Tear Jerker: The death of Rhaknam. Also a Heartwarming Moment with regard to Drachma.
• That One Attack: Just about every Optional Boss has at least one.
  • Legendary Punch and Berserk Rupee if you were stupid enough to attack Rupee first.
  • How the bloody hell did Lapen build a land-vehicle mounted Moonstone Cannon?
  • The Ixa'ness Demons' Chak Mal, which deals heavy damage to all characters and often inflicts various status effects.
  • Golden Flurry. Deals relatively high damage to all characters and has a good chance of inflicting Confuse.
    Daikokuya: "Money makes the world go 'round!"
  • Pretty much any of Piastol's attacks, but the most points go to Tempest Dance.
  • On a non-optional boss note, Ramirez's high-damage, full-party damaging attack 'Silver Eclipse' can easily put the party at risk of a wipe.
    Ramirez: Where there is light... THERE IS DARKNESS!
  • During the final encounter where Ramirez's fused with Zelos, Silver Nightmare, which allows him to possess a member of your party for one turn and use the character's own offensive S-Moves against the rest of the party. The move has 100% accuracy and automatically preempts every other attack and defensive S-Move; it can range from moderately annoying (if he possesses Fina and uses Lunar Winds) to very, very dangerous (if he possesses Vyse and uses either Rain of Swords or Pirate's Wrath). Most of his other S-Moves cause high damage, but are relatively easily countered.
  • And in the same fight with that, he may sometimes use Silver Tundra. It doesn't really hurt (at least no more damage per character as that other attack...) but boy does it ever look cruel. It involves a character being thrown into a tornado of ice that repeatedly cuts at them, then dropped down stomach first onto another icicle that impales them. OUCH.
• That One Boss:
  • Belleza, in her flagship the Lynx. Potentially the third ship battle in the entire game, not counting the preceding Hopeless Boss Fight, Belleza is also the first to make strong use of both torpedoes and a magic cannon, buffing herself and combining her attacks for heavy burst damage. A good combo from her can knock upwards of 7,000 health off the Little Jack's 10-11,000 HP pool in a single round. To make matters worse, you fight her immediately after the Temple of Pyrynn and Recumen, so it's unlikely that you'll start the fight in good shape unless you start the battle knowing the trick to avoid damage.
  • Vigoro. The first time you fight him he isn't all that hard, but he tells you that you only won because he didn't have his cannon or his armor at the time. When you fight him the second time, where he does have his cannon and armor, you find out he wasn't really kidding.
  • Lapen. He summons three durable mooks at a time that can each cause relatively high damage. He has an immensely powerful area attack that can easily knock out several characters, even with damage-mitigating special moves in play. He has a single-character attack which usually causes instant death. Good thing you saved an Aura of Valor so that you can instantly get a Prophecy off on him. Right? ...Right?
  • Piastol: She's lightning quick, her Deluge S-move showers the party with dirks (which have a 45-50% chance of petrifying multiple targets), her Tempest Dance is almost certain to kill whoever she uses it on (unless you've used Justice Shield beforehand), and she can spam Eternum. Worse, her Deathhound casts Speed and Incremus on her, to increase her already ludicrous speed and attack power. Plus, it can heal her with Sacres (upgraded to Sacrum, during the final encounter), or poison you with Noxus. And, if all of that wasn't enough, she gets harder with each encounter! Be prepared to spam both Delta and Justice Shield every round... OR ELSE.
• That One Level:
  • Moon Stone Mountain. Feel free to rage at the memories of falling through floor tiles and having to walk all the way back again. Ixa'Taka generally is probably the worst-paced part of the game, with two big maze-like dungeons full of difficult enemies and light on save points, plus a village that, while colorful and impressive, can be difficult to navigate.
    • The flight through South Ocean to reach Ixa'Taka is no better. The strong winds constantly force you back and reduce your ship's speed to a crawl, and since Random Encounters are based on how long you've traveled rather than how far you've actually moved you can expect a battle after every other inch of progress. The only enemies encountered besides the latest Looper variant are Gravers, which have access to Eternum at a point in the game where you almost certainly do not have any Death resistance available. And you better be ready to hold the control stick forward after every battle, as remaining idle for even a second will result in the wind undoing much of your progress.
  • Mileage will vary according to taste but whether or not the Great Silver Shrine is a fun little Breather Episode or a boring slog depends on how you feel about three-dimensional mazes with sleek sci-fi imagery which can feel very different from the rest of the game's world and which is also devoid of random encounters.
• Values Dissonance:
  • Vigoro's character and especially his Attempted Rape of Aika would not be played for laughs these days, nor would the game play up his comparative redeeming qualities.
  • Daikokuya's homosexual crush on Vyse would not exist just to be the punchline to an Abhorrent Admirer joke.
• Viewer Pronunciation Confusion: Most westerners pronounce Fina's name as Fee-nah. The katakana that spells her name in Japanese release suggests that it's pronounced like the word "final" (without the L, of course).
• The Woobie: Fina. Over the course of the game she loses everyone she's ever known prior to coming to Arcadia, and ends up having to help personally kill the other remaining Silvite due to how insane and vengeful he'd become. She pulls through to the other side thanks to Vyse and Aika; it's one of the reasons fans see the trio as One True Threesome.
  • Also Drachma, once you finally find out his backstory. "They called him...Little Jack."
• Woolseyism: Chris Lucich and Klayton Vorlick, the two-man localization team, worked 80-100 hours a week every week for months to first put together a rough Japanese translation, then to essentially re-write the entire game from scratch to create something that would play better to a Western audience. The results speak for themselves; Skies of Arcadia remains a quotable and beloved title for its witty, earnest English dialogue even today, and even the some of the censorship changes like "loqua" have their fans.

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