Mi ami Vyse.

Image credit: Sega

Usually, I’d start one of these retrospective things with a wiggly line transition to the past for a bit of the old nostalgia-tickling scene-setting. The trouble is, my one overriding memory of Skies of Arcadia is so powerful I can barely remember anything else about the game at all. I can’t, for instance, recall where I was when I played it, or even when; and I’m certainly not going to be able to tell you what it was about in anything but the broadest strokes without a trip to Wikipedia. What I do know, though, is Sega’s beloved RPG - set in a vibrant world of swashbuckling skybound pirates - was brilliant. And I can say this with absolute certainty.

Part of the problem, for me at least, is that Skies of Arcadia was a brilliant game on a brilliant console positively awash with brilliant games. Sega’s ill-fated Dreamcast was home to some of the most vividly oddball, wonderfully unforgettably games ever made. All I need do is close my eyes and I can immediately picture cresting furiously over a hill to Offspring’s All I Want in Crazy Taxi; I’m still looking for sailors on a Saturday night, almost certainly thanks to Shenmue, and I’m pretty sure I’ll have Space Channel 5’s wah-wah-waaaaaaah opening number, or the synth-sting WAMP WAMP WAMP of Rez’s Area 1, rattling around my head on my deathbed.

Image credit: Sega

In contrast to all that high-concept weirdness, Skies of Arcadia - with its fairly traditional Japanese-style role-playing systems - seemed pretty ordinary, when in reality it was anything but. For its development, Sega assembled a talented team who’d previously worked on the likes of Panzer Dragoon Saga, Phantasy Star, and Sakura Wars. But I don’t need Wikipedia to recall its world - a sort of Steampunk Age of Discovery - was thoroughly transporting; a vividly realised phantasmagoria of skyfaring pirates and swashbuckling adventure that felt fully realised from the word go as you followed the relentlessly optimistic Vyse, Aika, and other members of the Blue Rogues pirate crew. And while the specific story beats are lost in a fog of memory some 25 years on, I still remember the dramatic ship-to-ship battles and the thrilling sense of wonder traversing its imaginative expanse of floating islands, from the desert port of Maramba to the Valuan Capital.

None of this, though, is what immediately comes to mind when I think of Skies of Arcadia. And it’s here I should probably mention I absolutely detest random battles in RPGs. When Final Fantasy 7 came out on PS1, I pretty much sprinted home from my local video games store, irrepressibly excited and high on the hype of it all (its western debut was a big enough event it even made the BBC News). Yet I only managed about two screens before the random battles got too much and I packed it all in. And even to this day, I’ll take the most circuitous route imaginable if it means I can avoid a patch of long grass in Pokémon. But Skies of Arcadia was full of random battles, to the point it often felt like you could only ever move a couple of feet before another one kicked in. So notorious was the frequency of fights in Skies of Arcadia, the GameCube version significantly reeled them in.

Image credit: Sega

But still this isn’t what I remember most vividly about Skies of Arcadia. Instead it was the noise. I’ve no idea if this was a common occurrence or if I just had a particularly wonky machine, but each random turn-based battle was heralded by the sound of my Dreamcast’s disc-drive violently whirring into a screeching fury as it began loading the encounter in - a sort of ten-second early warning the dreamy wonder of exploration was about to be slapped into focus again. And it wasn’t long before that sound - that grinding harbinger - was haunting my dreams. In fact, I’m pretty sure the Pavlovian response is so deeply ingrained in my memory, I’d still feel the same sinking sense of despair if I heard it today.

*Screeching intensifies*

Lingering trauma might seem like a weird way to celebrate something’s quarter-century anniversary, but like I said, Skies of Arcadia was brilliant. And I know this with absolute certainty because I stuck out every single random battle, every flinch-inducing machine whir, and made it through to the end. And to this day, it remains one of the few RPGs I’ve had the stamina and patience to complete. And, if I’m honest, I lied a bit when I said there was only one thing I remembered vividly about Skies of Arcadia. Sure, the specifics might be hazy these days, but I can still recall the sense of wonder, the crew’s winning camaraderie, the effervescent spirit of their adventures, and the joy Sega somehow crammed onto those whirring, wailing discs. And that’s what’s stayed with me some 25 years on.