Is Arcadia one of the most overrated JRPGs ever?
I've just finished the Yafutoma section and I don't get the hype at all. Most enemies in the game are super low-effort, both design-wise and how they behave in battle (hurr let's all spam Run, durr), and aren't interesting to fight at all, and too many of the spells in the game are status effect spells that don't work against bosses so there's no point in using them anyway. Take away "muh airships" and this would be a pretty crap game, to be honest.
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Combat is mediocre
Setting, characters, story, and style are all fantastic and why it is remembered as a classic. Taking away muh airships and you've taken away what everybody loves about it.
It's strong if you go in with no expectations and remember this is one of the (if not the actual) very first truly 3D JRPGs.
If you go in expecting a masterpiece you'll get burned.
It's the same thing as Tales of Symphonia. A solid 8 with very obvious issues that becomes far less fun if you buy into the hype.
normal battles are pretty easy but they make up for it in numbers. gc version lowered the amount
>Tales of Symphonia. A solid 8 with very obvious issues
Black person what
Symphonia has a strong underlying structure and was the foundation for later Tales games, but it has writing problems, presentation problems, some pacing problems, some weird numbers, a few too many ridiculously guide-reliant secrets, and the combat system needed some tweaking (which it got in Abyss and Vesperia). Fun game, but if you come at it expecting a masterpiece you're gonna be let down.
Half of that shit is in nearly every JRPG homie
>Nearly every JRPG isn't a masterpiece
Yeah. No shit, moron.
>(which it got in Abyss and Vesperia)
Abyss is not any better in the combat department than Symphonia
What it brought to the table were:
1: Field of Fonons, which is a style over substance mechanic that's unreliable to set up.
The actual effect it has on gamplay is sometimes your attack is a little prettier due to a happy accident, but mostly your casters are just worse then they should be because their base spell list got neutered so some spells could be FoF activations (which you'll never see trigger)
2: Jumping the gun on adding Free Run to the series before developing enemy AI that could actually deal with the player using the mechanic, which screwed the intended difficulty. (they did get this more right in Vesperia as you pointed out, but they honestly should have waited until then to implement it at all)
free run is cringe
should have kept the 4 dudes in a row battle system
The first fully 3D JRPG is The Granstream Saga
>hey Ganker recommend me some JRPGs
>how about X or Y they were kino
>WTF Ganker YOU TOLD ME X AND Y WERE THE SECOND COMING
lol come on now I've been in countless SoA threads to see people touting it as one of the best JRPGs ever.
Compared to its contemporaries it was really damn good. In hindsight you're comparing it to stronger games both well before its time and after. The context of its release matters. Same deal as a lot of early 3D games.
People definitely overrate it, but it's solid and way above average. It kicks the shot out of your Evolutions, Legend of Dragoons, Golden Suns, etc.
This is one of those games I would have dropped in original HW because of how ass the combat is. But with that solved, the game is good.
The 100k wall is bullshit and left me a bit overlevelled.
The only times the combat is utilized well in that game is during the bounty hunt side quests. It doesn't help that the world map's encounter rate - even on the supposedly tweaked Game Cube version - is awful.
At least the white map isn't the last thing you get in the GC.
And I imagine there has to be a GC version with DC audio at this point.
>And I imagine there has to be a GC version with DC audio at this point.
Nope. The GC version needed a completely different approach because of hardware differences from the Dreamcast. No one's bothered with a fix yet.
Not even for emulator?
No. Someone would have to re-engineer the game's audio engine from scratch. The game does not have the kind of large, dedicated following to incentivize that kind of work.
Not unless SEGA ports it to steam
Yeah, the bounties are awesome. They've been the best part of the game for me so far.
Yeah, they were my favorite part of the game. What really sucks to me is how boring the ship battles ended up being. I thought they were a really neat gimmick at first, but they sort of devolve into tedious time wasters where you watch airships do fly-bys like 50 times over.
They seem super inconsistent too. Like, the damage you deal and receive is all over the place.
The most boring part is you being able to heal with the same magic spells and dodge being OP. Attack on green, heal on yellow, dodge on red, super on super, and you can win the final battle with the Little Jack.
The random encounters suck but how many jrpgs actually have interesting random encounters? The genre is not good at it at a whole, they're filler and always have been. They are at least relatively quick and painless thanks to aika being able to use all-target attacks for free after a couple hours into the game.
The game makes up for it with everything else.
>how many jrpgs actually have interesting random encounters
Dragon Quest 3-5
The better SMT games
Pokemon occasionally
It's really difficult to do well, but it can be done. The problem is that fixed encounters are easier but require better level design and most projects these days go for fixed encounters without design accommodations, leading to actually worse results than mediocre randomized fights.
a game that was released on two dead unpopular systems can't be considered overrated because no one played it
I'd say the biggest issue with the game is random battles in the sky zones when you're trying to find 'discoveries', there should be a barrier that disables random battles around discoveries
other than that the game is perfect, nice to have a jrpg where the main characters arent depressed
That's great anon, how does that make it overrated though? The game being a 7.5~8.3ish out of 10 still means its a good game. And I don't think I've ever heard ANYONE say its one of the greatest JRPGs of all time. Maybe one of the most memorable simply due to the setting characters and story, but that still wouldn't make it overrated.
Is it worth playing through twice to appreciate Vanilla vs Legends differences?
Hahahaha, NO. The GC has everything the DC version has and a cubic ton more, especially on the QoL area, and if you are derriere damaged because of the shittier audio you'll get bored of before you get to 1% completion, just search for a rip.
I dunno, sometimes the version with less content is still worth a shot just because it's different in interesting ways. Like how the NES, SNES and GBC versions of Dragon Quest 3 all have enough value to play once each, or how FF12 and FF12IZJS/TZA is essentially a different game. If it's literally just less content, better audio and slightly tweaked numbers I can see why it's not worth trying twice. Maybe worth looking at for a replay years later, though?
It literally is less content, better audio and much more terrible numbers. In the DC, the repel is the last thing you receive, and by then you can just fly higher.
I like the setting, characters and the ability to assemble your own crew is really unique and only really Suikoden had something similar to it (RIP)
I dont mind the combat, random encounter rate is definitely too high though
>Better battle system
>better story
>better graphics
>no grinding
>voice acting
>released simultaniously
Yes, Sega was never good.
>Comparing other devs to GameArts at its peak
That's not even remotely fair.
I'd agree that Grandia 2 had the better gameplay, but it was worse than Skies of Arcadia in pretty much every other regard. And that's not even getting into how much of a disappointment that game was compared to its predecessor.
story
grandia 1 has a better story and better characters tbh imho than this. but g2 was still a good game for sure.
Why not just buy it on Steam? The Grandia 2 remaster isn't total crap like Grandia 1's.
>buy
no way gay
i emulated it a couple of months ago already. ive been on a big old game kick just playing all the stuff i missed growing up because i spent my early teens playing unreal tournament.
How good are the DC emulators nowadays? Last time I tried playing G2 it was ass.
But i played both on Dreamcast around the same time and absolutely loved both for different reasons. Grandia still has one of the best turn based combat systems imo and i dont think ive played another game that had the same feel of exploration skies had towards the end of the game
>Most enemies in the game are super low-effort, both design-wise and how they behave in battle (hurr let's all spam Run, durr), and aren't interesting to fight at all, and too many of the spells in the game are status effect spells that don't work against bosses so there's no point in using them anyway
nobody plays SoA for the combat, so this is most likely a (you) problem.
This, for me it's all about the story, characters, atmosphere and being able to build a sick pirate base and recruit people.
The most powerful status effects rarely work against bosses in any jrpg
yeah because most JRPGs are shit
the good ones let you do it
It's another episode of Ganker seething about JRPGs and shilling action games again.
What are you talking about?