Skies of Arcadia is a traditionalist--some might say reactionary--Japanese Role-Playing Game that follows the premise of "Sky Pirates" performing daring feats in a sky-locked world in which "airships" have taken the place of conventional watercraft, and Air Pirates rule the skies. I haven't played through an entire RPG in years, and I'd forgotten what an investment of time and energy it is. It's still incredible to me that games like this can be such cultural events, even outside of their birthplace of Japan (which I understand is a mine of idiosyncratic delights). But this game has such a magnitude of the quality that I would describe as "utterly winning"--it's almost bursting with magic and gallantry--that I couldn't help but be won over. I'm actually playing Skies Of Arcadia Legends--an enhanced port of the original from Sega's failed Dreamcast system to the Gamecube. It's the definition of a cult classic, and I'll certainly see it through to the end.
Ubisoft's Beyond Good & Evil might be the ultimate archetype for the critically-adored-total-flop, a game whose sales were almost inversely proportional to its review scores. Intended as the first part of a trilogy, it was the dream project of the auteur Michel Ancel, creator of the classic Rayman series. I have fond memories of the exhilarating Rayman 2: The Great Escape, and I'd played the underwhelming Rayman 3, the first in the series without Ancel's direction (he was working in BG&E instead) about a month ago, so I was eager to try this vaunted favorite. All I've ever heard about it, when it's brought up in retrospectives of the last console generation, is How terrific it was, What an accomplishment, What a unique vision brought to life so incredibly, and how None of you bastards bought it. Oh, well. So I finally got around to playing it this summer, and it's pretty easy to see why it wasn't a huge hit. Simply put, the game has no "hook"--no simple gimmick that grants it an edge in the competitive market. Far from the explosive light shows of smashes like Gears of War and Halo, it's an action-adventure that really asks the player, at the outset, to give it the benefit of the doubt. When it came out, it was no wonder gamers flocked to snazzier fare, not coincidentally including Ubisoft's own Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (a personal favorite). That said, the game is bone-deep greatness: the graphics, music, and gameplay are all not only solid but original and wonderful in design and execution.
Unfortunately, four or five pretty brilliant hours into the game, I've run into an infuriating glitch where, with a digital screech and a flip to a green screen of death, the game freezes every time I try to take a photo of an animal. Since taking pictures of animals is, like, one of the main components of the gameplay, this would be a problem. I can live with the occasional glitch or error of design, but when a game repeatedly refuses to allow me to experience it, I stop giving it the benefit of the doubt. So back on the shelf it goes, another masterpiece tossed to the wayside. Summer apathy, in bloom.
