Downsides to SoA

Again, something I thought might be a fun topic. I googled SoA as I do on occasion and read a review that wasn't that kind. Mainly it attacked the gameplay like random battles sucking and the walking being awkward. I did find this funny though.

reviewer wrote:

I spent 30 seconds just trying to get Vyse to face a ladder in his bedroom.

Honestly, the random battles seem to slow down the game and like this reviewer said, it doesn't make sense in an airship. Honestly, the game is great enough to look past most of its flaws, but if you had to improve one thing in this game, what would it be?

KingGilder wrote:

Again, something I thought might be a fun topic. I googled SoA as I do on occasion and read a review that wasn't that kind. Mainly it attacked the gameplay like random battles sucking and the walking being awkward. I did find this funny though.

reviewer wrote:

I spent 30 seconds just trying to get Vyse to face a ladder in his bedroom.

Honestly, the random battles seem to slow down the game and like this reviewer said, it doesn't make sense in an airship. Honestly, the game is great enough to look past most of its flaws, but if you had to improve one thing in this game, what would it be?

I totally remember that ladder being awkward. But without random battles in the air how are you supposed to level up while you're on your way to pastures undiscovered? I just took it to mean that random flying things crawled up the hull and onto the deck. It made sense enough.

I think I'd change the voice acting. Either make it one way or the other- Either they talk or they don't- the random "yays" and "uh-huh"s annoyed me after a while...

the-shadow-kitty wrote:

I totally remember that ladder being awkward. But without random battles in the air how are you supposed to level up while you're on your way to pastures undiscovered? I just took it to mean that random flying things crawled up the hull and onto the deck. It made sense enough.

I think I'd change the voice acting. Either make it one way or the other- Either they talk or they don't- the random "yays" and "uh-huh"s annoyed me after a while...

I agree on the voice acting, but those never really bothered me. But I guess the leveling up thing makes sense and the climbing on board does, but when you have a full crew, why does the person at the helm have to run down and fight? But oh well. It's a game after all.

lol. Woulda loved ta see that. U make the series, and I make a series about u making it

I always found it amusing that after the Ship Battle with Rami/Zelos, you got a Captain's stripe. But you couldn't use it... because obviously it's all cutscene and battles.


I don't know why, but as a kid I thought that when I completed it it would leave the file free to just ship around, looking for stuff. Instead I have multiple files saved at points I like.
I have a file set before you enter the Soltis so that I can look for Discoveries etc, a file so that I can see Aika kiss Vyse over and over (I'm a bit sad when it comes to that) and a couple of others at pivotal scenes.

Oh- some games when you change equpment the character changes. I would have loved it if that happened in Skies. The first time I played it I swapped Vyse and Aika around so she had his eye patch and he had her shorts, I thought it would look hysterical, but sadly nothing happened....
(Enrique can wear some of the dresses. THAT would have made my day- wait, my LIFE)
Did anyone else get weird spelling mistakes in Aika's journal about Fina and Ramirez? It replaced all the apostrophes with H's I think...

To be honest I think because it was the first RPG I ever completed I hold it as a standard, and if a game doesn't meet my SoA standards I get upset.

The random battles while you're traveling from Nasr to Ixa'Taka. Those are SO ANNOYING! You get one about every ten seconds, and some of those monsters are just stupid hard to kill for no good reason, and often use cheap tricks (like eterni spells) to slow you down. Why is that such a random-battle dense area? It's bad enough that you have to sail much slower through it.

The walking around can be kind of awkward, too.

i completely agree with ramirez. the winds would always blow me into the drifts and it would take forever because of all the enemies. its also annoying how long it would take to find the discoveries in the south ocean. i'd nvr took so long to find one single discovery anywhere else.

Really? Some of those other ones were absurdly hard to find, like the Flutterflies (shudder), and a few others that were so stupid hard to find that I gave up. The discoveries in the South Ocean are stupid easy to find once Soltis re-emerges, because the winds have died down and you can go above/below the clouds to spot them before you go for them. The only downside to that is that you get like no money for them, money that would probably go toward Sacrum crystals in Ixa'Taka.

I also didn't like the "voice acting." They should have either had the voice actors read out everything, or just had no voices at all. I had the same issue with Tales of Symnphonia: some of the voices in cut scenes weren't there (Like at the Asgard Human Ranch...the one time Raine actually uses a mildly profane word [dammit] we don't get to her it) but they were most of the time. But in Skies of Arcadia, I think the only voice acting was during special moves, Aika going "Huh?", Fina giggling, Vyse's random "Let's Go!" or "uh-huhs," Drachma's grunting, and Ramirez (or Piastol) saying "Die." Well, I know there's more voices, but you get the point.

I found the flutterflies on accident. lol. they ran into me one time when i was bored and just flying around. i actually kinda liked the voice acting but, there were some parts that it kinda ruined the moment when they made a sound. it would be better if they just had voice acting altogether in the game.

Theres a downside to SoA? haha jk
yes the random battles in airship wasn't to cuddly for me haha xD

I don't think you're supposed to actively hunt the flutterflies, because every time I've ever found them it was by pure chance. It's probably the single hardest discovery to find hands down. the only other one that I can think of that's nearly as challenging is those weird birds in Yafutoma, because they're so small and they move around like the flutterflies.

All discoveries have set locations and courses. I've found em all usign a cheat guide ;D

Makes sense, because if discoveries had random paths they would be almost impossible to find and probably very hard/annoying to program.

I never did find all of the discoveries, even with guides. For some stupid reason, I could never find the Bottomless Pit, which is listed as either very easy or ragequit hard in two different guides. The sad this is, it has a set location, but I never could find it.

It's been a long time since I've played it, but I think that the location was somewhere in deep sky, with little to no other markers next to it.

4dojo wrote:

It's been a long time since I've played it, but I think that the location was somewhere in deep sky, with little to no other markers next to it.

the bottomless pit is located in deep sky in the vortex region of the map. its kinda hard since its located next to one of those wind drifts. kinda located close to the west side of the vortex.

I remember it now. That was one of the last ones that I found, as well as oneo f the hardest

the-shadow-kitty wrote:

I don't know why, but as a kid I thought that when I completed it it would leave the file free to just ship around, looking for stuff. Instead I have multiple files saved at points I like.
I have a file set before you enter the Soltis so that I can look for Discoveries etc, a file so that I can see Aika kiss Vyse over and over (I'm a bit sad when it comes to that) and a couple of others at pivotal scenes.

Wow, I thought I was the only one who kept multiple files so I could go back and see the cut scenes later! One of my favs is Maramba Tavern when Vyse is oogling Beleza's garzongas, lol. Sad much? Heck yes!

Ok, so here's something that always bothered me. My roomie and I were actually talking about this over tequila shots of all things last weekend, lol. So, SOA is a pirate game, right? Why in the world can't anyone learn some sort of steal ability?! I had the same problem with Rogue Galaxy! Both pirate games, and no one steals. What is up with that?

Lydi wrote:

So, SOA is a pirate game, right? Why in the world can't anyone learn some sort of steal ability?! I had the same problem with Rogue Galaxy! Both pirate games, and no one steals. What is up with that?

How did this never cross my mind before? A steal ability would be awesome.

KingGilder wrote:

How did this never cross my mind before? A steal ability would be awesome.

Seriously! It doesn't make sense! I love nearly every aspect of this game, but I always wondered why you couldn't learn to steal items in a pirate game, haha. I usually got that Vyse the Battle Lord or whatever rank for grinding enemies for hours just to get items, all the while sitting there thinking it would be so much easier if Aika used Frisk attack or something, lol.

Lydi wrote:

KingGilder wrote:

How did this never cross my mind before? A steal ability would be awesome.

Seriously! It doesn't make sense! I love nearly every aspect of this game, but I always wondered why you couldn't learn to steal items in a pirate game, haha. I usually got that Vyse the Battle Lord or whatever rank for grinding enemies for hours just to get items, all the while sitting there thinking it would be so much easier if Aika used Frisk attack or something, lol.

Something about 'Aika used Frisk' amused me more than it should have.

KingGilder wrote:

Something about 'Aika used Frisk' amused me more than it should have.

Agreed.

And yeah, didn't they do that in the old FF games? Or was it another SNES game I was thinking of? A steal attack would be awesome. They could have applied it to Marco in ship battles, etc.

I loved Marco, by the way. I was so happy for him at the end of the game. Such a little scruffball, but so lovable.
"heh, Marco needs to work on his spelling!"

the-shadow-kitty wrote:

Agreed.

And yeah, didn't they do that in the old FF games? Or was it another SNES game I was thinking of? A steal attack would be awesome. They could have applied it to Marco in ship battles, etc.

I loved Marco, by the way. I was so happy for him at the end of the game. Such a little scruffball, but so lovable.
"heh, Marco needs to work on his spelling!"

What comes to mind is FFX, Rikku could steal items. And in another RPG like Arcadia, Arc Rise Fantasia, a character could steal. But in an actual pirate game, no steal ability. Now that it's been brought to my attention, I think it's kind of silly.

And Marco is an odd character to me. You either love him or hate him. And like most characters I find like this, you tend to, or at least I tend to hate them at first and then they end up being awesome. Like Niko, again in Arc Rise. He was such a waste of a character to me at first, and now I'm like emotionally attached to him. It's ridiculous, really.

KingGilder wrote:

What comes to mind is FFX, Rikku could steal items. And in another RPG like Arcadia, Arc Rise Fantasia, a character could steal. But in an actual pirate game, no steal ability. Now that it's been brought to my attention, I think it's kind of silly.

And Marco is an odd character to me. You either love him or hate him. And like most characters I find like this, you tend to, or at least I tend to hate them at first and then they end up being awesome. Like Niko, again in Arc Rise. He was such a waste of a character to me at first, and now I'm like emotionally attached to him. It's ridiculous, really.

Thinking about it, Aika did have an obssession with stealing things that played well in the game, you know, stealing the eyes of the discoveries in Ixa'Taka, and taking fruits and stuff from islands. It may have been just a mechanical response for the game to progress, but it did make me giggle when she'd weedle with Vyse to get her way. It would have been a fun move to use, especially on Valuan etc. I suppose the items at the end of a battle may have been stolen. They should change it to "booty" heh heh XD

There SO needs to be a remake of the game with al these bugs dealt with.

the-shadow-kitty wrote:

Thinking about it, Aika did have an obssession with stealing things that played well in the game, you know, stealing the eyes of the discoveries in Ixa'Taka, and taking fruits and stuff from islands. It may have been just a mechanical response for the game to progress, but it did make me giggle when she'd weedle with Vyse to get her way. It would have been a fun move to use, especially on Valuan etc. I suppose the items at the end of a battle may have been stolen. They should change it to "booty" heh heh XD

There SO needs to be a remake of the game with al these bugs dealt with.

I don't know if I'd call these bugs, but I think the Gamecube port really wasn't enough. They should have waited (I mean, the Dreamcast and Gamecube were in the same generation of consoles) and really done more with the game and added more. It really deserves it.

Also, Aika wasn't as great of a fighter, giving her a steal ability would be awesome. She didn't do much damage and her magic wasn't as good as Fina either. I really only had her heal and use other items.

One thing I really want in the game, though, is a command that just has everyone attack. Rather than have to press attack repeatedly. Or maybe something like Arc Rise has (again with this) where you can plan out moves (what characters do) and just use those over and over, two buttons, and an entire turn done. Rather than do it repeatedly. Arcadia was really tedious sometimes.

KingGilder wrote:

I don't know if I'd call these bugs, but I think the Gamecube port really wasn't enough. They should have waited (I mean, the Dreamcast and Gamecube were in the same generation of consoles) and really done more with the game and added more. It really deserves it.

Also, Aika wasn't as great of a fighter, giving her a steal ability would be awesome. She didn't do much damage and her magic wasn't as good as Fina either. I really only had her heal and use other items.

One thing I really want in the game, though, is a command that just has everyone attack. Rather than have to press attack repeatedly. Or maybe something like Arc Rise has (again with this) where you can plan out moves (what characters do) and just use those over and over, two buttons, and an entire turn done. Rather than do it repeatedly. Arcadia was really tedious sometimes.

Well, not bugs, but you know what I mean. The Gamecube remake was a tad iffy. The music was compressed, certain cut scenes weren't as pretty and one thing I noticed is on my disc at least, some of the death quotes were jarbled. Aika would just say "conscious..." which I found annoying.

....I don't know if this is because I spent a lot of time on her, but I always thought Aika was pretty good. She wasn't as strong as the boys but she made up for it by being pretty quick (especially when you put Flash Ribbon or equivalent on her) And I always found Lambda Burst pretty useful when bats infested your deck. I was disappointed when I got further in and, especially the fights with Ramirez, all she was rally useful for was Delta Shield. That kind of ruined it a bit for me because I'd got tricks up my sleeve for Aika, but couldn't use them.

Fina annoyed me because while she had a lot of magic and her healing moves were great, she was always the first to die! No matter what I do with her she's never as good as the others, by any shot.

But I am a bit biased and even though people rave about how amazing Enrique is, and his attack ratio based on his Spirit points used for Special moves is good etcetera etcetera, I stll just didn't like him. He annoyed me, thus for the final fights I used to take Drachma or Gilder. I just never got on with Enrique. I still sometimes call him "Wiggy-wiggy" to this day, but I don't remember why that nickname started.... D:

...Scratch that. I can remember HATING South Ocean with Aika. NUTHING ever worked. Until Lambda Burst. Ohh, Lambda burst, how I loved you...