Introduction
Well, I will begin with a brief history of the game. The game was originally released for the Sega Dreamcast in November of 2000. The game was hailed by many to be one of the best games for the system, not to mention one of the greatest RPG adventures on console to date. It was released for the GameCube on January 29, 2003. With its release comes the release of the GCs first really epic RPG experience. With that I will get to the review!

Graphics - 8.0
The graphics of the game are some of the most amazing RPG graphical elements seen in any RPG, unfortunately with RPGs that can get to a visual achievement of games such as Morrowind or Dark Cloud 2, this game seems a bit out of date. If you are very big into getting eye candy, this game still has its moments, but in today's day, they are few and far between. Everything runs in real time, and as such there are no rendered FMVs or anything, but with the quality it has, there is no need for having pre-rendered animations. Fortunately the game still looks great in comparison to some of the ‘lesser' games of today, and still has amazing animation, facial expression to match almost any emotion the character is feeling added to some still very impressive visuals.

Sound - 8.0
The game has quite excellent music. You can feel the fact that you are sailing across the vast skies and are a noble pirate (as opposed to an evil one) in search of adventure. The battle music is intense, and the dungeon music can be as cryptic as necessary to get the full feel and environment around you. The actions and attacks all have great matching sound bytes which are very nice. What is really lacking in the sound area is actual voices. There is a lot of dialogue so the lack of this isn't really something that should be significant, but what they use as an alternative to actual voice does get very cheesy. In the game, they have some pre-recorded bits of sound where they have the main characters saying things such as "Yeah!" or "No." or "Uh-huh." in sometimes very emotional situations. The repetitive, but not overly repetitive use of these sound bytes becomes very corny indeed.

Control - 8.5
The controls are pretty generic for an RPG, but in some occasions, the controls aren't really as intuitive as one would like. There are many different modes of control to the game; there is standard ground navigation, ground battle, air ship navigation, and air ship-to-ship battle. For the battle sequences the game controls like a dream, but for navigation, sometimes they take a bit of getting used to. Since the controls are just fine and relatively unimportant overall being that they are not annoying, I will use this to talk about the battle mechanics and control a bit. The battle mechanics are some of the most innovative I have ever seen for an RPG. The ground battle for the most part plays out like any RPG, but there are little distinctions that make it outstanding. It is a turn based battle system, where the creature/character's turn is ranked by their respective speeds. All orders to characters are issued before the battle begins for each turn to make the attacks or whatever. There is a little nifty counter-attack feature that all characters have where they counter any attack made on them and also deal damage to the attacker. What really makes the battle system unique however is the field and how attacks deal damage. During battle on the field, your characters will run around towards each other or enemies as they would in any battle, and your position on the map effects how certain attacks or actions are assigned. If someone does a big fireball attack say, then everyone in the path of its attack will take damage from it, or if enemies move around and position themselves differently so less/more enemies get hit, then it is all part of the battle. There are also more than just attacks and spells. It combines many different means of attacks. You have spell points which are points you can allocate to using spells that you learn as your weapon proficiency goes up in six different modes of fighting, or you can use Special Attacks. Your party generates Special attack points every turn and at the beginning of every battle, these special points can be used for any special attack that the player has learned. This avoids conserving mana or wasting too much time with annoying battles. Oh, and you can also skip those repetitive long animation sequences for big special attacks by a simple push of the start button. The ship to ship battle is amazing. It takes an innovative control scheme. You and the enemy get a 4x4 grid on which each one of your 4 characters can make an attack/defend/spell/whatever. You can equip your ship with a slew of different weapons as fit to your liking, and then use these attacks however you please. For example, you could take a torpedo that has a 1 or two turn delay on, and you fire these with a 2 turn and 1 turn delay respectively. This way both torpedoes will hit the next turn. Also on the next turn you decide to shoot the cannon which hits immediately. This way you can hit three times in one turn, and you can position yourself in such a way that you can do critically damaging move as opposed to a normal move. The game mechanics play out and work so well, that almost every battle in the game plays out wonderfully and is still fun.

Challenge - 8.5
The challenge to this game isn't low either. The game will prove to be difficult at times for everyone, no matter how hardcore you think you are. Unfortunately, the game has random battles. The random battles can get annoying and add a repetitive challenge that really doesn't add anything but simply takes away the amount of time you want to spend running around and exploring rooms and dungeons as a whole. The dungeons have good level design and enemies and puzzles that will cause you to sometimes think for a bit, but never really create such a challenge that you will want to forever stop playing. The game will provide a long ample game to play with a good learning curve where difficulty rises at a good rate throughout the game.

Fun Factor - 9.5
The game is thoroughly enjoyable, from the exploration and storyline to the battle and dialogue. There are a lot of things to do, and there are many different elements to the game that add enjoyment everywhere. When engaging in storyline and significant dialogue, what you say matters. You gain the trust and admiration of your team, your crew, and other characters throughout the game depending on what you say. The game has a clever means of tracking this and gives you a ranking based on how well you do this throughout the game. It is an element that even makes dialogue exciting and is very innovative and a welcome element to any RPG. The game play is fantastic overall and this lengthy game will give countless hours of enjoyment from the simple straightforward storyline to the myriad or side quests that you can complete. The GC version has many additions most in the form of side quests but only one actual plot development. The side quests are all very entertaining and equally rewarding for the time invested in them. The types of side quests range from being those that work towards finding a specific food for a bird across the large world to watch it grow and evolve and give you rare items, to hunting down the top wanted pirates that sail the skies. There is charted and uncharted land alike. You can go searching for new locations and discoveries within the game to chart more of the large world. You can work to get a full crew for your ship and get stronger and faster. There is a lot to do that can add countless hours to a game that even without side quests is quite lengthy and very enjoyable. The story isn't something totally new, but it still keeps you interested and excited for what happens to everyone. The game is very fun, and very enjoyable for any RPG fan.

Conclusion - 9.0
This amazing game provides the RPG experience that many people on the GC were sorely missing since the days of the SNES. The game boasts beautiful graphics, amazing sound, some of the greatest ingenuity for battle and game mechanics to date, but unfortunately having been released nearly three years ago, a lot of aspects of the game that may have been flawless then are rather timid now. This doesn't at all take away from the enjoyment achieved by this game, but it is still an issue that can be noticed. Is it worth the 50 bucks? If you haven't played the game before, then definitely get it. And, if you have played the game before, and really enjoyed it, then it is also recommended. However, if you played it and enjoyed it but don't think you would really care to play through it again, then there may not be enough here for you to really come back for. The addition of another whole "side plot" and the addition of a few extra side quests is not quite enough to really come back again for if you weren't too impressed to begin with. Overall however, this game is definitely recommended and it should definitely be part of your GameCube collection.

Mar 10, 2003 | 0 comments
Anuj Agrawal