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Eternal Arcadia:
Platform: Dreamcast Publisher: Sega Developer: Sega Projected Release Date: September 2000
While we've seen a great selection of fighting and racing games come out for the Dreamcast thus far, RPGs have been far and few between in North America. With a couple of randomly generated dungeon (RGDs) games (Evolution and Time Stalkers), as well as Seventh Cross (a strategy RPG) and Elemental Gimmick Gear (an action RPG), pickings have been slim. The fact that none of these games are even traditional RPGs has been a real sticking point for many. Thankfully Sega has two games in the works that could satisfy gamers' hunger for some traditional RPGing, one game being Phantasy Star On-Line, the other Eternal Arcadia.
Taking place in a land of floating islands and flying sailing ships, Eternal Arcadia centers around a lad named Vyse, and his friends Aika and Fina (both female), who are members of the Blue Sky Pirates. Now the name of their little organization doesn't mean that these pirates are a bunch of wimps that only go out when the weather is nice. In this world there are two rival pirate factions, the aforementioned Blue Sky Pirates, and the Black Sky Pirates. The blue pirates are like Robin Hood in that they don't attack helpless, unarmed vessels. Instead they take the more noble approach of attacking military vessels, and the like, collect the booty, and give it to the needy. The Black Sky Pirates, on the other hand, attack whomever they please and keep the treasure to themselves. Recently a new continent has been discovered, and with it a number of Moon Stones. Moon Stones are magical items of great power that can be made into weapons and items, thus making them quite valuable. As such they've become a hot ticket item, and a power struggle has grown in an effort to gain control of these stones.
The visuals are shaping up to bring quite the wow-factor to the game. With nice crisp imagery, amazing use of lighting effects, and the sheer amount of things happening on screen, eye candy looks to be in abundance here. Character design too is fresh with characters look halfway between "super deformed" and realistic. Sega is also putting a lot of work into the soundtrack, creating a sweeping orchestral score.
At the guts of any good RPG is a solid battle system, and Eternal Arcadia's is looking rather interesting as it uses traditional battle options (like melee fighting, spell casting, and item use), but incorporates a points system to add challenge to the battles, discouraging players from relying on a "go to" spell that clears the field every time, and other such mundane battle practices. Basically there are points eaten up for using special attacks and magic attacks represented by two bars, the Guts bar and the Kojyutsu bar. The Kojyutsu bar always lowers by one and is only depleted when using magic or special attacks, but the Guts bar lowers accordingly with the power of the spell or special move. So cast a weak spell and you'll only lose a little guts, while casting a devastating one or using a special move will eat up a lot more Guts points. The guts bar replenishes itself over time, but can be done quicker by selecting the Charge option. With this adjustment on the battle system it should help keep players on their toes.
Being developed by a number of the people who worked on the Phantasy Star series Eternal Arcadia has a large stable of talent creating it. This alone should be enough to garner a lot of attention. Thankfully Sega has announced that the game should be hitting store shelves in North America in September of 2000.
Previewed by Kaspian May 8, 2000
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