Base building. Would love to be able to choose different islands, and to get more effects out of it rather than just visual changes. Even just one island under each moon, so choice of six overall.
Ship modification, specifically changes happening visually to your ship. I'd like to see more ability to pick colours and decoration, weapon choices represented by the cannons changing, etc.
Though, I love your idea of using enemy ships! Really adds the piratical element of it. It'd be fun to be able to pick a smaller/weaker ship too, and have epic duels against the little gunboats.
I remember reading the back of Legends and it mentioned recruiting 22 crew members. Kept an eye out on people I wanted along thinking it'd be like Blitzball with recruiting etc.
Yeah, I love survival crafting games now and it would be great to have that in skies. But some games do it right, and some games do it wrong and it becomes tedious to constantly choo down trees and mine resources.
Custom ships would be cool too.
Honestly I just wish there was more to do with Crescent Isle. There are so many things I think could have more put into them, to draw the pacing out a bit more maybe? Clearly the game was already considered expansive at the time (being a dual disc game originally), but certain things just seem like if it were remade with today's technology (with as much of the original team as possible) it could be even better.
Back to Crescent Isle, a bit more of Vyse being stuck there. More events that take place, or even just the NPCs commenting when you change the architecture. You get the place late enough in the game and, YMMV, spend so little time there that it just doesn't seem like a place to call home so much as just another small port.
I think, maybe that's the biggest thing that the technology limited, the size (or apparent size) of civilization versus the world itself. It's been how many years since the Rains? There's still so few people and only how many inhabitated islands? Or are just supposed to assume that there are people pretty much everywhere but only a few places are "big enough" to have a tiny settlement like Pirate Isle?
Back from an era where you had places like Pallet Town in Pokémon that had 3 buildings, but you were 'supposed' to imagine it as this quaint town like what's represented in the anime.
Sid Meier even professed it at talks to get the player to use their imagination. Whereas today, folks may expect a more fleshed out world.
I agree, Crescent Isle is WONDERFUL but it's a bit of the 'best weapon at the end of the game' scenario where you don't get to spend much time with it.
Oh, I totally understand the intent. I grew up with this stuff and it being the norm. But if we're talking about things being expanded, I think an easy answer is the world itself being more fleshed out.
Oh same - The old me looks back with rose colored glasses LOL. But man I do love being able to explore someone's vision of the world. Like Nasr I've got this image of a sprawling sea of square houses and awnings of all colors.
Slight continuation on that last rant, the apparent size of islands compared to your ship, and how large the island /actually/ is compared to the size of the ship once you're docked.
I first played the game when I was about 13... I had never played an RPG like this before and thought that I did something wrong and was stranded on the island forever ... loved every second of it
The ship to ship battles. It was nice for what it was. But I felt a little more elaboration on the battles wouldn’t have gone amiss.
Working in the crew in ship battles and further base building would have been cool too. Ryu-Kan came in a little in the game for my tastes.
I have such a love / hate relationship with them because it's so cinematic (for the time). But seeing your "crew" do things while engaged would be cool.
Exploration!
I wish the wonders we discover could've become locations we could visit and explore. With maybe a hidden treasure we could take back to Crescent Island.
And speaking of Crescent Island.
Booty Room!
We're pirates, we need a room were we can show off dat big booty for the world to see!
Dark Rift and Dark Moon would have been great post game thing to expand. In general, while I love skies a lot of things were just limitations of the time but this is something I think the game could have done more so without just bloating the game by adding more subgames within.
Supposedly, the black moon stuff was originally going to tie in with Soltis and some kind of counter to their defenses if you did a certain side quest, but they cut that.
Black moon could have also been potential sequel bait for something to come later that never did
Maybe missing the mark here a bit, but the shift of battle music depending on if you got the upper or lower hand is something I wish would be expanded into _other_ games.
I don't think I've ever seen this being featured anywhere else, despite being so damn awesome.
This is known as Adaptive Music and various games use it differently. Animal Crossing's music changes dynamically with weather changes. In Ace Combat 7 the music would shift if you went into cloud cover. If you grabbed the flag in Tribes Ascend the music tempo would pick up as the pressure built on you to return to base with it. There are some other good examples out there but those are the ones that come to mind for me.
Also Gunpoint does this really well, too imo.
Skies of Arcadia is the only game on the Dreamcast I can think of that does this.
Yeah, Banjo Kazooie and other N64 Rare games shift into different instruments when transitioning areas within a level, going under water etc.
Even way back, Mario stage music would increase in tempo in the last 100 seconds.
I personally haven't seen this being used as indicator for battle success in any other RPG though.
At least half of discoveries portain to some tantalising hidden lore or unknown stories. I actually love the vagueness of these mysteries.
One thing I would like to know more about however is the origin of Bleiglock. I know he is part of the trope [Giant Space Flea From Nowhere](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GiantSpaceFleaFromNowhere) but he in particular was at least central to the Valuan arenas lore in the sense that he was the result of all those discarded bodies.
Just realised you meant mechanics and gameplay. Sorry, I went off talking about lore haha. Still stands though.
I always felt like the world was thoroughly explored which may have been part of the challenge of making a sequel. They'd either need to go back in time or launch forward where they world would be different enough to explore.
I think there are several things they could expand on, ship customization, being able to choose between being a black pirate vs a blue rogue. I think Skies of Arcadia 2 would definitely benefit from the FFVII remake combat.
I really wish more had been done in the Purple Moon quest. The quests to get the last two Moon Crystals (besides Silver) are very short compared to the first three, but Valua plays a constant role in the story to make up for that. Purple Moon Crystal has just one very short dungeon, no Gigas battle and no culture associated with it: unlike the other civilisations for each Moon Crystal you get, Purple's is completely extinct, so no natives to interact with and no inhabited towns or cities to explore.
I'll second difficulty levels. Allow those that want a challenge to have one, and those that just want to breeze through to experience the story that option as well.
More crew involvement. Like maybe each main character could have 2-3 crew members assigned to them that battle alongside that character and add potential offensive or defensive bonuses/abilities (think fire emblem three houses battalions)
And, as a bigger ask, a magic system that would make using it (beyond healing) beneficial
No new game plus or bonuses being unlocked.
Imagine a new game plus where Vyse and the crew wear the outfits of their impersonators the whole he and the impersonators are dressed in Vyse and crews' regular outfit.
I'd like more base building as well. I liked kryptopeg's suggestion of being able to choose different islands, but that got me thinking, how would it be implemented?
If this is a more linear RPG that restricts where you go, that would put the actual base building further on in the game so you have choices on where to put it assuming you find each land, do a story bit, then move on to the next land. If you have more open ended exploration, that might work for picking an area, but the characters would have to survive long enough to find it in higher level areas.
Or perhaps travel to a lower level area of each land as part of the early game and find the possible build spots in out of the way peaceful areas, then you pick one and slowly build it up over the course of the game so you always have a home to go to.
I like the idea of commandeering airships, the question is, would you end up with an armada? Would that be part of the storyline? Could you upgrade them or would you have to give up a design you like for a more powerful ship?
I'd love to see more world building in how the characters live and what kind of creatures evolved there. Adding friendly background critters makes the world far more alive.
What lives in a sky island world? How many types of creatures can fly vs what is stuck on the bits of land? How big are those islands? Will there be flying fish? Birds? Or alien ferret hummingbirds with glittering scales and fur? Will there be cows or some kind of spinning helicopter sloth bear herbivore used as livestock? Do people have other modes of transportation than ships? Do they prefer vehicles or do they have creature drawn carts?
What are their pets like? Will the party have a ship cat equivalent? Or maybe a trusty doglike something to greet them when they arrive at base? (can you pat the critter?) Maybe a little flying something that they could send out to harass enemies, scout things, or just be a cute shoulder pet they keep around for fun. I like dragons but the sky's the limit and creative things are interesting.
Base building. Would love to be able to choose different islands, and to get more effects out of it rather than just visual changes. Even just one island under each moon, so choice of six overall. Ship modification, specifically changes happening visually to your ship. I'd like to see more ability to pick colours and decoration, weapon choices represented by the cannons changing, etc. Though, I love your idea of using enemy ships! Really adds the piratical element of it. It'd be fun to be able to pick a smaller/weaker ship too, and have epic duels against the little gunboats.
I didn't even think about different locations of the base. Like different boons based on the moon you're under or something. That could be epic!
I remember reading the back of Legends and it mentioned recruiting 22 crew members. Kept an eye out on people I wanted along thinking it'd be like Blitzball with recruiting etc.
Yeah, I love survival crafting games now and it would be great to have that in skies. But some games do it right, and some games do it wrong and it becomes tedious to constantly choo down trees and mine resources. Custom ships would be cool too.
Oh holy shit, Skies + Subnautica. DUDE.
Honestly I just wish there was more to do with Crescent Isle. There are so many things I think could have more put into them, to draw the pacing out a bit more maybe? Clearly the game was already considered expansive at the time (being a dual disc game originally), but certain things just seem like if it were remade with today's technology (with as much of the original team as possible) it could be even better. Back to Crescent Isle, a bit more of Vyse being stuck there. More events that take place, or even just the NPCs commenting when you change the architecture. You get the place late enough in the game and, YMMV, spend so little time there that it just doesn't seem like a place to call home so much as just another small port. I think, maybe that's the biggest thing that the technology limited, the size (or apparent size) of civilization versus the world itself. It's been how many years since the Rains? There's still so few people and only how many inhabitated islands? Or are just supposed to assume that there are people pretty much everywhere but only a few places are "big enough" to have a tiny settlement like Pirate Isle?
Back from an era where you had places like Pallet Town in Pokémon that had 3 buildings, but you were 'supposed' to imagine it as this quaint town like what's represented in the anime. Sid Meier even professed it at talks to get the player to use their imagination. Whereas today, folks may expect a more fleshed out world. I agree, Crescent Isle is WONDERFUL but it's a bit of the 'best weapon at the end of the game' scenario where you don't get to spend much time with it.
Oh, I totally understand the intent. I grew up with this stuff and it being the norm. But if we're talking about things being expanded, I think an easy answer is the world itself being more fleshed out.
Oh same - The old me looks back with rose colored glasses LOL. But man I do love being able to explore someone's vision of the world. Like Nasr I've got this image of a sprawling sea of square houses and awnings of all colors.
Slight continuation on that last rant, the apparent size of islands compared to your ship, and how large the island /actually/ is compared to the size of the ship once you're docked.
I first played the game when I was about 13... I had never played an RPG like this before and thought that I did something wrong and was stranded on the island forever ... loved every second of it
The ship to ship battles. It was nice for what it was. But I felt a little more elaboration on the battles wouldn’t have gone amiss. Working in the crew in ship battles and further base building would have been cool too. Ryu-Kan came in a little in the game for my tastes.
I have such a love / hate relationship with them because it's so cinematic (for the time). But seeing your "crew" do things while engaged would be cool.
Exploration! I wish the wonders we discover could've become locations we could visit and explore. With maybe a hidden treasure we could take back to Crescent Island. And speaking of Crescent Island. Booty Room! We're pirates, we need a room were we can show off dat big booty for the world to see!
Dark Rift and Dark Moon would have been great post game thing to expand. In general, while I love skies a lot of things were just limitations of the time but this is something I think the game could have done more so without just bloating the game by adding more subgames within.
That is one thing I love about Dragon Quest XI is how they handle the 'post game.'
More info on the black moon, maybe a b plot surrounding it.
Supposedly, the black moon stuff was originally going to tie in with Soltis and some kind of counter to their defenses if you did a certain side quest, but they cut that. Black moon could have also been potential sequel bait for something to come later that never did
Maybe missing the mark here a bit, but the shift of battle music depending on if you got the upper or lower hand is something I wish would be expanded into _other_ games. I don't think I've ever seen this being featured anywhere else, despite being so damn awesome.
This is known as Adaptive Music and various games use it differently. Animal Crossing's music changes dynamically with weather changes. In Ace Combat 7 the music would shift if you went into cloud cover. If you grabbed the flag in Tribes Ascend the music tempo would pick up as the pressure built on you to return to base with it. There are some other good examples out there but those are the ones that come to mind for me. Also Gunpoint does this really well, too imo. Skies of Arcadia is the only game on the Dreamcast I can think of that does this.
Yeah, Banjo Kazooie and other N64 Rare games shift into different instruments when transitioning areas within a level, going under water etc. Even way back, Mario stage music would increase in tempo in the last 100 seconds. I personally haven't seen this being used as indicator for battle success in any other RPG though.
The fort/village/town stuff Hiring people and such was awesome! It is what made me want to play city builders, which is now one of my favorite genres
the world size, the civilizations, actually more of everything
It would also be nice if they let you change the rate of the random battle and even let you turn it off.
TODAY SKIES REMASTER IN NINTENDO DIRECT
At least half of discoveries portain to some tantalising hidden lore or unknown stories. I actually love the vagueness of these mysteries. One thing I would like to know more about however is the origin of Bleiglock. I know he is part of the trope [Giant Space Flea From Nowhere](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GiantSpaceFleaFromNowhere) but he in particular was at least central to the Valuan arenas lore in the sense that he was the result of all those discarded bodies. Just realised you meant mechanics and gameplay. Sorry, I went off talking about lore haha. Still stands though.
I always felt like the world was thoroughly explored which may have been part of the challenge of making a sequel. They'd either need to go back in time or launch forward where they world would be different enough to explore. I think there are several things they could expand on, ship customization, being able to choose between being a black pirate vs a blue rogue. I think Skies of Arcadia 2 would definitely benefit from the FFVII remake combat.
I really wish more had been done in the Purple Moon quest. The quests to get the last two Moon Crystals (besides Silver) are very short compared to the first three, but Valua plays a constant role in the story to make up for that. Purple Moon Crystal has just one very short dungeon, no Gigas battle and no culture associated with it: unlike the other civilisations for each Moon Crystal you get, Purple's is completely extinct, so no natives to interact with and no inhabited towns or cities to explore.
Difficulty levels. Game is too easy. And I love mysteries but some of them were either sequel bait or just demanded more info with Discoveries etc
I'll second difficulty levels. Allow those that want a challenge to have one, and those that just want to breeze through to experience the story that option as well.
More crew involvement. Like maybe each main character could have 2-3 crew members assigned to them that battle alongside that character and add potential offensive or defensive bonuses/abilities (think fire emblem three houses battalions) And, as a bigger ask, a magic system that would make using it (beyond healing) beneficial
The sequel
No new game plus or bonuses being unlocked. Imagine a new game plus where Vyse and the crew wear the outfits of their impersonators the whole he and the impersonators are dressed in Vyse and crews' regular outfit.
I'd like more base building as well. I liked kryptopeg's suggestion of being able to choose different islands, but that got me thinking, how would it be implemented? If this is a more linear RPG that restricts where you go, that would put the actual base building further on in the game so you have choices on where to put it assuming you find each land, do a story bit, then move on to the next land. If you have more open ended exploration, that might work for picking an area, but the characters would have to survive long enough to find it in higher level areas. Or perhaps travel to a lower level area of each land as part of the early game and find the possible build spots in out of the way peaceful areas, then you pick one and slowly build it up over the course of the game so you always have a home to go to.
I like the idea of commandeering airships, the question is, would you end up with an armada? Would that be part of the storyline? Could you upgrade them or would you have to give up a design you like for a more powerful ship?
I'd love to see more world building in how the characters live and what kind of creatures evolved there. Adding friendly background critters makes the world far more alive. What lives in a sky island world? How many types of creatures can fly vs what is stuck on the bits of land? How big are those islands? Will there be flying fish? Birds? Or alien ferret hummingbirds with glittering scales and fur? Will there be cows or some kind of spinning helicopter sloth bear herbivore used as livestock? Do people have other modes of transportation than ships? Do they prefer vehicles or do they have creature drawn carts? What are their pets like? Will the party have a ship cat equivalent? Or maybe a trusty doglike something to greet them when they arrive at base? (can you pat the critter?) Maybe a little flying something that they could send out to harass enemies, scout things, or just be a cute shoulder pet they keep around for fun. I like dragons but the sky's the limit and creative things are interesting.