Skies Of Arcadia Dev Says Remaster Or Sequel Depends On Sega

Sega is really sitting on a lot of great IP's these days that are going unused.

Not going to lie NintendoLife, at first I thought that title said a sequel or remake was announced. You had me about a thousand percent happy for a moment until I read it again. I absolutely wish that the Sega would remaster, re-release, make a sequel, anything. I am extremely tempted right now to do nothing but just tweet Sega a link to your article. Literally the only negative I had from playing that game was the understanding that the battles were far too frequent. Slide that encounter scale down to 50% and that game could easily sell like crazy on the switch. Or even better, give players control over the encounter rate.

I still own the physical retail of this game on Dreamcast. Bought it on release.

I would happily pay full price for a full HD remaster

Instead of making awful Sonic games nobody wants, give us a true Shining Force, Phantasy Star, Golden Axe, Skies of Arcadia, Gunstar Heroes, Skies of Arcadia, Crazy Taxi, Outrun, Afterburner, and so on. SEGA is the greatest mishandeler of IPs, on par with Konami.

I just couldn't get into this game. I tried to like it but around the point where you have your first battle in the airships i got frustrated and quit. i don't know what i was doing wrong but i kept dying and had enough. Maybe i should give it another chance.

I really do not know what is SEGA waiting for...

Sega, shut up and take my money!

@Axlroselm legit.

My first time playing this game was over the Summer on the Gamecube. I think a remaster would greatly benefit the game because there are a lot of things that didn't age well, but it's a good game underneath all of that. My biggest problem with the game is how slow everything is. The wait time in ship battles is the worst, but pretty much every action in the game, from getting on ladders to actions in battle, has this awkwardly long delay.

I also thing removing random encounters in the overworld would help a lot. It's a game centered around exploration, and there's a lot of space to move around since you have the freedom to move in the x, y, and z axis, but its just not fun to do when there's a random encounter every few seconds. You sort of "unlock" this feature later in the game but it's only when you fly above the clouds or far below, and there's not much to explore there so it sort of defeats the purpose. Adding a few more things in the overworld to discover along with this change would be nice too.

Every once in awhile you'll see an article like this pop up here on Nintendo Life. Aside from being obvious clickbait, they typically don't accomplish much other than stir up the frustration of fans.

It goes without saying that Skies of Arcadia...and a proper, SRPG Shining Force, old school JRPG Phantasy Star, Dragon Force, Panzer Dragoon Saga, or any number of other incredible and beloved Sega IPs from not just RPGs but all genres...would receive overwhelming enthusiasm from gamers. But we've been saying this for 20 years now. If Sega were interested in producing and promoting anything other than Sonic, maybe they'd listen, but sadly we don't live in that reality.

If Kenji Haruta wants to make another SoA game, he should pitch it to Sega, because history shows they certainly don't listen to us, the fans. I mean, they had to have a Kickstarter to get Shenmue 3 made, for crying out loud. The Panzer Dragoon remake (as well as others) had to be outsourced to other developers because Sega themselves just don't care.

Marking anniversary milestones of franchises we haven't seen in years or decades is empty and pointless. They do serve one purpose Sega would rather not confront, however: to remind everyone of how long it's been since they were one of the most prolific and dynamic publishers in the entire industry. Now they're scarcely even relevant anymore because they just keep trotting Sonic out ad nauseam like some old, tired celebrity from a TV show today's generation never saw and couldn't care less about, to try and connect with an audience who purchased a Genesis, Saturn, and Dreamcast for FAR MORE than just Sonic the Hedgehog. It's the same as if Disney had only been releasing Mickey Mouse-related films and merchandise for the past 20 years just because he was once (and still arguably is) the face of the company. They simply don't get it, and I highly doubt they ever will.

Just polish up the original and drop it on the Switch eShop for a reasonable price and I am sold.

My heart sank when I saw Vyse and crew on the first thumbnail on NintendoLife. I usually know better than that, it caught me off guard.

A sequel or remastered for PC and/or Switch would be excellent. I would buy it day one if it ever happen, now if only Sega care.

@LordGeovanni the only huge random encounters were on worldmap. In dungeons it wasn't all that bad. Sometimes.. I was like.. well where are the enemies. But if they fix world map huge randomencounter to normal it would be perfect. The thing is they did scale it back on Gamecube, but then in dungeons you hardly had enemy encounter. I had to run more frequently than it was supposed to. It damaged it. They only need to fix world map randcom encounters. Leave the dungeons as they are

I see I'm not the only one who got hit by an emotional roller coaster reading the title. I still own the GC version and would by a remaster and sequel in a heartbeat.

@JayJ agree. i wish Sega focus more on the IPs they haven't touch in awhile.

@Damo Sorry if it came across the wrong way; it wasn't meant as a knock on you or NL. But even some previous comments here speak to the fact of how quickly many users clicked on this article almost out of reflex upon seeing that thumbnail or anything SoA-related.

I guess what I meant by my post was that I feel these sorts of remarks by former developers are pointless unless there's another game or a remake actually coming. People don't want to be reminded of what's painfully obvious; they want to either hear actual news or perhaps a potential means of having their voices heard. I know you guys are just reporting on the remarks of an industry professional; that's your job. But remarks like these, while getting lots of clicks and comments, don't really count as news, at least in my book.

SoA Developer: “it depends on Sega”
Sega: “Does it have Sonic in it?”
SoA Developer: “no”
Sega: “jog on”

Rant time. This is one of the things that bothers me about videogame nowadays. There has always been reluctance when rereleasing older niche videogames to the current market.
Before the online market I got that in a way since it was more difficult to do compared to movies. They needed to adapt the game to current hardware, reprint copies, send them to retailers and market them much more agressively. But now? There is nothing against Sega just rereleasing ALL of it's old games again on PC on Steam or whatever. Even the "bad" ones. Same with Nintendo (on their own eShop they don't have to pay fees for) or almost all videogame company you can think of. Sure, probably not all of those games got a following that would make it worthwhile in the short term but still. The costs of doing it are not high nowadays so it would probably be profitable. And it would make for great filler for subscription services. But they don't do it for some reason.

@AtlanteanMan

I am purely, purely being devil's advocate here, because I want these games as much as you.

But do we consider that any of the franchises that have seen reboots, ie Dreams, Panzer Dragoon, Shenmue, Phantasy Star etc have been successful? I think it's most likely that Sega is aware of a vocal minority, but probably thinks that a highly-acclaimed RPG that sold poorly (roughly 150k on DC, 200k on GC) isn't worth the time to update it. And from a business standpoint it's hard to argue against.

Everyone: When will the greatest game of all time be on available on modern consoles?

Sega: The wait is finally over, Fantasy Zone is finally coming to Switch

My heart raced when I saw the picture...

Then I read the headline.

@Damo Semantics aside, I never intended to make a mountain out of a molehill here. Like a lot of other (especially longtime) gamers I'm just frustrated by the state of things with Sega. Seemingly every year they come up with at least one or more Sonic-related games, promotions, or anniversaries, all while basically ignoring the requests to revisit more of their mountain of beloved IPs. As vyseofhr stated, there are obviously business reasons for their behavior, but I firmly believe they grossly underestimate the demand for many of those franchises to make a return. Just look at the runaway success of the Eiyuden Chronicles Kickstarter from members of Konami's original Suikoden team as one example; classic JRPGs in particular have seen their fan bases swell over time, both by reputation as well as younger players experiencing them for the first time.

A SoA Kickstarter (or one for any number of other classic Sega franchises) would likely reach or exceed the numbers of Eiyuden Chronicles. Sega is leaving untold money on the table with their myopic focus on Sonic.

Sakura Wars got a new game in the series recently after many years of quiet. so Its not impossible for SOA to someday get re-released or a sequel .

@Gerald Haha. Exactly.

Time for us to harass Sega.

I froze with excitement for a split second when I saw that headline. Then I read it again. That would be great....
It would also be great to get the Shenmue series...but who knows.

They have been saying this for years don’t understand Sega at all they just pump out the same stuff over and over then moan cos it doesn’t sell good job I have the original on Dreamcast but it’s improved on the GameCube not so many random battles

Is there anyone worse at wasting their IP than Sega at this point?

Skys of Arcadia HD on Switch please

Am tempted to buy the GameCube version after reading this. I remember the battles being quite slow paced though, especially the airship ones.
A HD remaster would be nice with some tweaks.

They were willing to give Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz the remake no one asked for, but SoA Legends can't get a remake/port/goddamn anything, despite people actually showing interest for it.

I'd buy this remaster/remake in a heartbeat. But y'know... we are talking about SEGA here.

Man, I remember when I first bought this, it was the GameCube version and I picked it over Tales of Symphonia.

Still got it.

I really hope they remaster skies of arcadia legends. Its one of my all time favorite games

@Cynas the crazy thing is the encounter rate was much higher in the original. They also need to rework the magic system its a glaring weakness with the game and do some work on ship battles. None of these are hard to do so totally doable even if they put out a 4K remaster.

@GrandScribe I've heard about the encounter rate in the original, I can't imagine traveling the overworld with an even higher encounter rate. Although I did find the encounter rate to be pretty acceptable in dungeons in the Gamecube version. It would still be nice if they went the way of the DQ VIII remake and made enemies visible on the field.

I bought this day one for the Dreamcast. I thought it was tedious. The encounter rate was incredibly high, even by JRPG standards. Despite that, I WOULD buy it again if they released it again, and give it another shot.

Imagine if they said they were going to announce something SoA related, and they just announced an anime.

I have never played it! I would love to purchase a thoughtful remaster for Nintendo Switch!

I beat it twice, on the Dreamcast and the GCN, and I would love to play it again on the Switch. Add in some QoL features, give us higher resolution and frame rates, and I'm sure it'll sell well as the RPG is very well remembered. Take my money, Sega!

“change”? “changing”? That’s an odd way of putting it. It implies they are changing something that already exists. I can’t imagine what they meant by that.

@Cynas it would be nice if they put enemies on the field and if they made them more difficult and rewarding to defeat. Not much is more annoying in my opinion than boring encounters that give meh rewards.

@EdwardElric I wouldn't be upset about that SoA would make a terrific anime.

I played the Gamecube version this year for the first time and absolutely loved it.

I would absolutely die if they remastered this game. I didn't get a chance to play it on DC but when it came to GameCube it was one of my favorite RPGs on the console.

@JayJ Right?! I I remember when they said in an investors meeting that they would revisit previous IPs and make new games out of it....That was probably 2-3 years ago and so far that has not have happened.

EDIT: Just remember Panzer Dragoon. Ok there is one

Sega low key makes me upset when I think of certain things they do. I don't know who is responsible for power stone being trapped in limbo since that psp port but them and capcom need to get it together, they dropped Bayonetta for reasons, the sonic games on the wii will probably never see the light of day elsewhere (heard sonic colors was really good), and aside from Yakuza they just seem to exist right now.

Long time fan here. In fact it used to be my favorite game of all time. Still way up there for me, but to be honest I'd like to see some changes to the formula. I recently played through the original and while it still holds that magical feel of adventure, I feel like the battle system could use some sprucing up to make it more interesting. I got pretty bored spamming the same spells over and over again for hours upon end, plus the character interactions for me now at 37 are less interesting to me than they were for me when I was a teenager. So all in all, while a remaster would be great, I'd really love to see the series move forward and see them make a sequel. Just think what they could do with that wondrous world with today's technology! In a word it would be awesome. Who knows, maybe they could do both! Either way, anything SoA related I'm down for.

My only memory is borrowing it, starting it, enjoying it, giving it back due to my backlog at the time, and never being able to re-borrow it to play it since then. Still hoping everyday for another shot.

@Axlroselm You mentioned Shining Force. That makes us friends

@Zeldafan79 You should give it another try the ship battles are not hard though they do take a bit of time, as you progress thru the game the more people you recruit to work for your ship the more easier the ship battles get. I think this RPG is on the very top of RPGs out there. The story, the characters, the adventure, the music, they are all top notch. I particularly liked the characters and the feeling of a grand adventure always waiting out there. Sometimes I feel few RPGs give me that feeling.

I'll make it! Big fan of the original. 25+ years as a game programmer. Have officially ported at least one classic JRPG.