Possibly the greatest game ever made.
Gamplay/Story: Skies of Arcadia tells the story of a young air pirate named Vyse. Vyse and Aika (his childhood friend) find a girl named Fina during a raid on an imperial vessel. Along with Fina, Vyse and Aika decide to leave home in order to leave their mark on the world. The unique world of Skies of Arcadia is made up of floating islands hovering over an abyss that no one can possibly come out of. People travel on giant, flying boats from island to island.
SoA uses a typical turn-based, random battle system but with a few alterations that make things a lot more interesting. They have added a circular elemental system based on the elements that make up the world. There are six moons that surround the world of Arcadia and each one is affiliated with a certain color/element. For example, the red moon is the fire moon and reigns over the desert area in Arcadia. You can switch weapons elements any time in battle in order to defeat the enemies which are also affiliated with a certain color. Also, to use special attacks, you must fill up a meter at the top of the screen that effects all your characters. So say, for example, if Vyse uses a special attack, it could use up too much energy so that Aika can't use her special attack. There is also a focus move that will charge up your energy at the cost of your turn. All in all, it's pretty balanced and very fun to play. After a while though, the battles do get very repetitive as the random battle rate is very high. Overall though, the game is very fun and has an incredible story with plenty of twists to it. Graphics: The graphics are a nice cell-shaded tone which maintains the games "light" feel. There isn't anything spectacular about it but there isn't anything wrong either. The character designs are nice and all are very different and cool looking.
Sound: The lack of real voice-overs is very dissapointing for a game like this. They do have voice-overs all the time, but they are only stupid little things that sum up what they are saying like "hmm..." if they are serious or "uh huh!" if they agree with someone. Stuff like that that really wrecks the mood. It really would have been better if they just left out the voice-overs all together rather than leave in these choppy, repetitive things. The music is very well done, however, and you will be humming it by the end of this game.
Value: Skies of Arcadia is quite a long RPG with plenty of side quests and secret bosses. There is even downloadable content from SegaNet (i'm not sure if you can still access it or not since I believe that SegaNet has been shut down.). All in all, this game will last you quite a while, especially if you want to do the side stuff. Even if side stories don't appeal to you, the story is at least a good 40 hours long. SoA is an instant classic that should be played by every RPG fan.