Piracy! Although not to be encouraged as a means by which to distribute and acquire games
per se, it sure as buccanners and bowsprits is a fantastic topic for a videogame to be
about. A couple of years ago, Assassin's Creed: Black Flag summoned a little more sensationalism to mainstream gamers' appreciation of digital doubloons and Caribbean capers. Today though, pirate-themed games are back on the fringes - and if you like Japanese roleplaying games (JRPGs), the pickings are slimmer than a finely shaven pegleg.
Yet there are two JRPGs that immediately spring to mind whenever piratical play is pondered, and it is here that we shall discuss their delights in the salubrious spirit of retro game review jocularity. Indeed, whilst my dear and esteemed Teege
hones his Tekken talents and immerses himself in JRPGs of yore, your humble Mr White has mustered all hands to deck to pit Skies of Arcadia against Rogue Galaxy. Aye, me hearties - you read that right!
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| Skies of Arcadia - where belt buckles happen to your sleeves. |
Skies of Arcadia and Rogue Galaxy are often compared, with the former being a Sega game that set sail on the good ship Dreamcast before its remastered rerelease on the GameCube. And although Arcadia is a world of magical steampunk airships and swashbuckling derring-do, Rogue Galaxy - for PlayStation 2 and, more recently, revamped for a high-definition Trophy-enabled rerelease on PlayStation 4 - is an interstellar sci-fi romp featuring some plucky space pirate hijinks. It was developed by Level-5, ingenious inventors of massively popular games like Professor Layton, Inazuma Eleven and Yokai Watch.
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| Rogue Galaxy - when your ship's sterncastle is an ACTUAL CASTLE. |
Pit Skies of Arcadia and Rogue Galaxy side by side, and a number of similarities are starkly apparent. For one, the central protagonists are pirates in each game - although not the true definition of piracy, insofar as the attacking of trade vessels and the general penchant for violence is concerned. No no - both games are more akin to those Saturday morning animes we all grew up with, with chirpy shipmates and a general sense of the jolly lot of them being naught more than playful rascals out for a caper and a big load of mythical treasure. Similarly, both games have splendid flying frigates and galleons as a central means of transportation, and both feature evil empires that are planning to unleash ancient evils in an eternal lust for conquest. See? Told you it was like a Saturday morning anime.
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| Aika - Skies of Arcadia |
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| Kisala - Rogue Galaxy |
With oh-so-frequent random enemy encounters, mighty boss battles, and even similarly attired female deuteragonists with indefatigably chirpy personalities, both Skies of Arcadia and Rogue Galaxy could be assumed, at first glance, to be riffing off one another. Yet play each side by side, and their differences soon become apparent. For one thing, where Skies of Arcadia favours the turn-based battles of RPGs of yore, Rogue Galaxy has a frantic and fast-paced battle system that has you and your party members dashing around, urgently attempting to outwit foes who hit like trucks full of ouch-juice.
Furthermore, both games have a broader reach than their anime-eque plots alone. Rogue Galaxy has a rather opaque yet versatile item manufacturing metagame, not to mention bounty hunting and an insect battling and breeding tournament none too dissimilar to a certain monster-catching franchise that's celebrating its 20th anniversary this year. Meanwhile, Skies of Arcadia features bounty hunting too, but also a fully realised Discoveries system befitting its world's 'Age of Exploration' era - and you're fully able to pilot a variety of gorgeous sky-ships, in contrast to Rogue Galaxy's singular, impressive yet only-flown-in-cutscenes interstellar galleon. Indeed, Arcadia then throws ship battles into the mix - often challenging and highly strategic, factoring in rival ship captains as well as ancient gargantuans from beyond recorded history. Add to that the crew recruitment metagame Arcadia offers - wherein each member adds new capabilities to both ship and terrestrial battles - as well as the ability to capture an island and set up a customisable pirate base, and it's clear that Arcadia is the world you're going to want to explore.
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| Getting boots this fine takes ages! |
That said, both games offer oodles of secrets, yet Rogue Galaxy suffers a little from its dungeon-crawling modus operandi - the 'space pirate' motif could easily have worked as any other setting, as planets are essentially RPG towns and surrounding dungeons, though these are all wonderfully realised. Well, except for the Gladius Towers, a mid-game double-dungeon of mind-numbing length and tedium, whose constant random battles and labyrinthine structure doesn't so much scream 'filler and padding' as bring the enjoyable jaunt of the whole game screeching to an utterly deplorable standstill. Rogue Galaxy is an excellent game, however, and its rerelease via PlayStation 4 has allowed new audiences to appreciate its fun and finery.
Its status as a more modern game in the first place also has allowed Rogue Galaxy to age better from a technical perspective - the game has full voice acting of a uniformly high standard, and holds up well today. The same can be said of Skies of Arcadia, but there's no doubting it's showing its rough edges far more nowadays. If only they'd make an HD rerelease of it like they do with, you know,
everything else ever.
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| "Look, desert planet or not, a jacket wouldn't have killed you." |
Indeed, though Arcadia is the better game - only one planet to explore, but you get to explore it fully, whereas Rogue Galaxy's title is misleading with regard to its scale and scope - Skies of Arcadia is very rarely encountered in the wild. Chance upon a Dreamcast or GameCube edition of the game, and you'll be expected to drop anywhere between £60 - 120 for the pleasure of play. It's a price well worth paying for one of the most unique and enjoyable RPGs ever committed to the digital realm, of course - but in terms of accessibility, Rogue Galaxy wins out. You can cheerfully download it to a PS4 at your leisure.
Both games are fine interpretations of piracy through the fantasy filter, albeit without any freeform
debauchery or raiding or cannonfire or anything beyond thrilling heroics. Why, Rogue Galaxy's pirates are so law-abiding that renewing your travel visa in order to legally fly your starship is a plot point!
We'd love to see sequels to both Skies of Arcadia and Rogue Galaxy, yet their dear mother corporations seem to have their eyes on other prizes - painfully reducing blue hypersonic mascots to laughing stocks and making games about kids with magical watches going ghostbusting, last we checked. It's a shame, but if you've never played these fine piratical capers, we urge you to do so - stories woven around a golden age, formed in the videogame industry's golden age itself.
White Mason Reviews covers everything from restaurants and comedians to bars and videogames - if you've a product, an experience or an idea ready for our appraisal, feel free to get in touch!
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