Video Game / Skies of Arcadia

The age of exploration has dawned upon the world of Arcadia. Brave adventurers set sail across the vast skies in search of treasures untold. And, where there is treasure, there will be Air Pirates...

Skies of Arcadia is a Role-Playing Game for the Sega Dreamcast, featuring pirates who sail the skies rather than the seas.

Vyse and Aika are two young and eager pirates flying under the flag of the benevolent Blue Rogues, virtuous bandits who only target the bloated and corrupt Valuan Empire. Rounding out the main trio is a Mysterious Waif called Fina, who was captured by Imperial troops while on a quest to recover the six Moon Crystals that have been scattered throughout the floating islands forming Arcadia. Of course, the Valuan Empire are also after the gems for their own purposes: they act as ignition keys to six ancient, almighty colossi that hold enough firepower to easily Take Over the World.

The game received an Updated Re-release for the Nintendo GameCube called Skies of Arcadia Legends. It reduced the random encounter rate to a more sensible level (and increased the XP rewards accordingly), added in new Optional Bosses, Discoveries and Sidequests, and inserted the content that was originally tied to the Dreamcast's VMU minigame.

It also received a manga adaptation, which keeps the game's core story elements, but also takes some creative liberties as well; Vyse is also a lot more reckless, and Fina is more angsty.

While a revival is still up in the air, Sega hasn't forgotten about the game; they've made the full soundtrack available on Amazon and Spotify, cameo versions of Vyse, Akia, and Fina were playable characters in Valkyria Chronicles, and Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed included Vyse as a playable racer and a track based on Arcadia's airships and floating islands.

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This game contains examples of:

• Abhorrent Admirer:
  • Vyse is quite the playboy of the skies, but he attracts his share of creepy admirers, as well: the butterball moneylender Osman, the Ixa'ness demons, the rich, small, elderly bachelor Daikokuya...
  • Aika infamously picks up one in the form of Vigoro, who spends the whole game crudely hitting on her and whose introduction demonstrates a fundamental lack of awareness that no means no.
  • High Priest Isapa is a Dirty Old Man who won't stop hitting on Fina and Aika both.
• Ability Required to Proceed: Your ship will need to be made of sturdier stuff to surmount the rock barriers, sky rifts, tornadoes, howling vortexes, even bigger sky rifts, and glaciers.
• Abusive Precursors: The Silvites caused the Rains of Destruction once when humanity didn't live up to their standards. They almost do it a second time, but they get called out on it.
• Adaptation Expansion: The Piastol expansion in Legends shines some light on Ramirez's character. Specifically, how he ended up joining the Valuan military after his expedition to Arcadia ended in a crash landing, and the events that destroyed his trust in anyone but Galcian.
• After the End: The story incorporates post-apocalyptic elements a surprising number of times for how cheery the game is. In truth, the Rains of Destruction wracked the planet many centuries ago and threaten to destroy the world again if the heroes can't stop them.
• Alas, Poor Villain:
  • Despite his blind, fanatical devotion to Galcian, Fina still remembers Ramirez fondly from their childhood together. Immediately after defeating him, Vyse opts to give him an honorable sailor's funeral.
  • After their Heel Realizations and subsequent Heel-Face Turns, Gregorio and Belleza both suffer untimely fates and are mourned.
  • Also all of Valua. Despite the fact that Empress Teodora and Alfonso did that whole enslaving and taking over the world thing, you can't help feel sorry for the population of the country in general. Most of the people that died in the Rains of Destruction in Valua were innocents, be it the snobby Upper Valuans or the impoverished Lower Valuans.
• All Your Base Are Belong to Us: Multiple times. First, Galcian lays waste to Dyne's base. Then the Delphinus is (briefly) recaptured by Belleza and Kangan's traitorous forces during her coup d'état in Yafutoma. Last but not least, Ramirez traces Vyse's ship back to Crescent Island and destroys his base again.
• Amazing Technicolor Wildlife: We only see two varieties of huskra: bright mauve and red.
• Amazon Brigade: The Ixa'ness are a splinter tribe that broke off from the mainland of Ixa'Taka. Being a militant matriarchy, they routinely kidnap toothsome males to keep their birthrate up. In the GameCube version, a pack of Ixa'ness hunters take a shine to Vyse.
• Anti-Nihilist: Turns out Daccat was this. After Vyse and co. are put through Hell and back after being separated and coincidentally solving their half of a trapped deadly dungeon, they find a single gold coin in the chest with a note from him reminding the finders of The Power of Friendship. It's likely he decided to spend nearly all of his fabled fortune before he died to make the most of it. Although it seems like a heartless prank at first, turns out the treasure was famous enough that a single gold coin from it is worth a ton of money.
• All That Glitters:
  • Aika works a job as a barmaid, buys her own dinghy, sails all the way to Valua's coastline, finds Daccat's atoll amidst a sea of identical islands, endures a deadly maze, and what does she have to show for it? A troll message left by Daccat and a solitary gold coin! (Inverted, as the coin can be sold for a tidy sum, but Aika doesn't know it at first.)
    "Some bag of bones is rolling in his grave laughing at us! We ran around like idiots the whole time, and we're still poor!"
  • The "gold-paved" kingdom of Rixis. If Aika could punch an entire city in the face, she would do it.
• All Your Colors Combined: Exemplified by the special move Prophecy, to which all four party members contribute at once.
• Always Night: Toyed with in Valua, where the Yellow Moon creates thunderstorms which constantly shroud the continent in darkness. Averted in the game's ending when Enrique and Moegi return after the Rains to help rebuild, showing sunlight piercing though the clouds.
• Animated Armor: Guardian, the boss of Shrine Island, is a giant mecha, a tough cookie in its own right, and you face more of them in the final dungeon, except this time, they're in mint condition.
• An Interior Designer Is You: After getting your own pirate base, you can design the buildings in various styles (more Western or more Japanese), depending on the carpenter you choose to build them.
• Anti-Grinding: The bounties level up with you, and exponentially besides. Best not put off fighting them too long...
• Apocalypse How: Of the possible and actual apocalyptic events in the game's course and history, classifications would be:
  • The Rains of Destruction which ended war and much of humanity 1000 years ago, the potential Rains that the Silvite Elders sent Fina to enable , as well as Ramirez's intended revenge for Galcian's death: Class 2, Planetary Societal Collapse.
  • Galcian's commanded destruction from Soltis: Class 0, Regional Societal Disruption.
• Arbitrary Headcount Limit: Four characters at a time, three of which are always Vyse, Aika, and Fina. For most of the game, this is justified by having the characters come and go as the plot demands, but even after Gondor has called for aid you can still only bring four people with you, with the rest stuck doing nothing on your airship.
• Artistic License – Space: There are six moons, each in a geostationary orbit over a different part of the planet. They're pretty evenly spread, despite the fact that a geostationary orbit requires the object to be directly above the planet's equator. (Though it's debatable whether Arcadia even has an equator, being doughnut-shaped... possibly.)
• Aristocrats Are Evil:
  • Alfonso is the only Valuan Admiral without any sense of honor (except De Loco, who is demonstratively insane), and it's made clear that the only reason he even got the job is because he comes from an extremely prominent family.
  • Averted with Enrique, who's a good guy despite being a Prince, and by Illchymis, who wants to heal the sick. This trope is also what causes Ramirez to go mad: He winds up siding with a Four-Star Badass who earned his position, rather than inheriting it.
• Arm Cannon: The Guardian robots have cannons that extend out from their palms.
• Armies Are Evil: The Valuan millitary is one of the primary enemies of the game, and they get even worse once Galcian turns on his own countries and his forces follow him.
• Attempted Rape: Vigoro gets very sexually aggressive with Aika. Of course, this being a T-rated game, he doesn't get far and the dialogue isn't explicit in the localization. It's more suggestive in the Japanese original, where he goes shirtless.
• Avengers Assemble: Two "Crew Specials" are unlocked in battle once the Delphinus is in use. Prophecy is a standard Ultimate spell. Blue Rogues, on the others hand, calls forth the pirates currently assigned to Vyse's ship.
• Awesome, but Impractical:
  • For her Omega Psyclone attack, Aika throws her boomerang into the air, jumps up maybe one hundred feet to grab it, somersaults, and throws multiple copies of it into the ground, which creates the fiery outline of a hexagon, which then explodes and turns every bit of ground as far as the eye can see into a pit of magma. Then that explodes, dealing... half as much damage as Vyse whacking someone in the face with the Vorlik blade would. It's mostly useful for clearing out weaker enemies while grinding when your spirit generation isn't quite high enough for a first-turn Rain of Swords yet.
  • Prophecy and Blue Rogues. The former calls down a moon on your opponents for a huge amount of damage to all enemies. The latter calls members of your crew to either deal damage to your enemies or heal your party. Either attack also makes enemies skip their turns. However, you can only use these attacks after the story event where you get the Delphinus, you have to charge your spirit points to max, and the attack takes all your spirit points. By the time you've completely filled the spirit bar, you could've probably done comparable damage just whacking your enemies with basic attacks and a few special moves. That said: Prophecy can be very useful against most Bounty fights, where a safe strategy is using defensive Supers while healing and focusing every round to max out your SP bar and then bringing your opponent to near-death in a single turn.
  • Most super moves fall into this category, due to being either too situational to get much use or outclassed by other super moves that do better damage relative to their spirit cost or simply have more useful effects.
  • Magic, overlapping with Too Awesome to Use due to the fact that it costs both MP and the precious Spirit Points you're saving for special attacks. Even more so in the later part of the game, where you'll likely be spamming Delta Shield (which blocks both incoming and outgoing magic) to block incoming stat-reduction yellow spells and instant-death silver spells.
• Beautiful Void: There are many of these present throughout the entire game, even including parts of the overworld. If an area is uninhabited, it has a high chance of being one of these. The City of Glacia deserves special mention.
• Beehive Barrier: The Dome of Light that protects Soltis. Also, taking "evasive action" is represented as this.
• Betty and Veronica: Loosely speaking, hauntingly beautiful waif from another world Fina vs. Action Girl childhood friend and partner-in-crime Aika, respectively. However, it is downplayed — neither girl actively pursues Vyse, but both get Ship Tease with this one.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Rupee Larso. Nice kid, doesn't like violence... but when you get his HP down below half, he can pull out his Berserk Rupee attack for devastating damage (unless you've finished off Barta already).
• BFS:
  • Grand Admiral Galcian uses a giant sword, which looks out of place because nearly every other hand weapon in the game is realistically proportioned.
  • Vyse's Vorlik Blade certainly isn't ideal for holding in one hand. And the Sky Fang is about as big as he is.
• BFG: Lots. Big ships have big cannons after all.
  • "Harpoon Cannon, FIRE!"
  • "Moon Stone Cannon, FIRE!"
  • Vigoro's flagship, the Draco, is more cannon than ship. It's even bigger than the Moonstone Cannon (especially in diameter), though still less powerful.
  • The bottom of Galcian's floating fortress, the Hydra, is a massive Wave-Motion Gun.
• Bilingual Bonus:
  • Given that the Valuan Empire draws heavily from the era when Spain was an absolute world power, this occurs. Alfonso, Gregorio, Enrique, and Teodora are typical Spanish names. "Belleza" means "beauty," and the "loco" in De Loco's name means "crazy." Also, Gordo the Round's name, "gordo", is actually Spanish for "fat," while "Domingo" is the Spanish word for both "Sunday" and the name "Dominic."
  • The name of Ramirez's flagship, the Monoceros, despite sounding like it would be type of rhinoceros, is in fact Greek for unicorn.
• Black-and-Gray Morality:
  • Vyse and the other Blue Rogues may be Just Like Robin Hood in that they only steal from armed ships, but they're still pirates. They're a light shade of grey, but grey nonetheless.
  • The villains cover much of the spectrum: Belleza is an Anti-Villain who is fine with espionage and betrayal, but generally tries to avoid murdering people due to her Tear Jerker backstory. Vigoro can pull a Heel–Face Turn despite coming scarily close to raping Aika. Gregorio is a Punch-Clock Villain and honorable guy who pulls a Heroic Sacrifice to save the heroes. Ramirez is presented as a Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds. Galcian, Alfonso, and Empress Teodora are basically pitch black. De Loco is insane.
• "Blind Idiot" Translation: The Spanish translation has many lines that are misinterpreted by the localizers or bizarrely changed, and the characters using wrong pronouns more often than not. One cannot help but assume that they were given the English lines without any context, as with many other Sega localizations back then.
• Blood Knight: Vigoro says he doesn't care whom he works for or to what end, as long as he gets to fight.
• Body to Jewel: This becomes a vital development when the location of Silver Crystals is found to be inside the bodies of Silvites.
• Optional Boss: The Bounties in the port; special mention should go to Lapen, Daikokuya, and Lord Bane. Piastol has to be fought four times before finally giving up, and she gets much stronger with each iteration. Vigoro also gets an extra battle after his change in occupation.
• Book Ends: The game starts with Vyse and Aika retrieving a large Moon Stone from Shrine Island, which turns out to be the entryway to the final dungeon.
• Boring, but Practical:
  • Aika's Delta Shield is pretty much the only way that you can survive some of the Wanted Battles and later boss fights, as many endgame bosses will be using the instant death Eterni spells every other turn. Gilder's Aura of Denial has a similar effect. By association, a late-game accessory you can get, the Valuan Medallion, falls under this; while it doesn't provide a massive status buff, it negates Eterni spells.
  • Enrique's Justice Shield is also effective for the more physically demanding boss fights, as it cuts any physical damage in half for that turn.
  • Drachma's Spirit Charge is a souped-up Focus. It's very useful when he's in your party in the early stages, and he only can't use it if he's Fatigued. It loses some value once the boss fights get harder, however, and you can also rack up some Auras of Valor (an item that boosts the spirit gauge to max) with a bit of luck during random encounters.
  • Fina's Lunar Winds and Lunar Cleansing spells. The former, while a weak attack, removes enemy buffs, while the latter is more or less a Curia spell that heals all of your party members. Both also cost very little SP.
  • Vyse's humble Cutlass Fury, with you from the very start of the game, deals impressive damage for its 7 SP cost, and will be a mainstay in boss fights until your spirit generation is high enough to make regular use of Pirate's Wrath.
  • Battle objects replicate the effects of Magic, but have none of its drawbacks. They don't cost MP or SP, and can be used even when the Delta Shield is on. Outside of a select few occasions and spells, you'll be likely to spam objects, especially to heal and resurrect.
• Boss Corridor: Most the game's bosses get one, namely Blelgock (blocking the ladder leading out of the sewers—and surrounded by skulls, to boot), Rokwyrm (slaying the serpent transforms his corpse into a makeshift bridge over magma), Rik'Talish (a mountaintop shrine), Sinistra and Destra (the centerpiece of Captain Daccat's fun house), Tortigar (an underground spring), and the long slope leading to Soltis' laser cone—where Galcian/Ramirez is waiting. The corridor in Soltis is actually visited twice: once when the continent is underground, and again after it rises. A boss awaits Vyse at the end of both trips.
• Bowdlerize: The original Japanese version of the Dreamcast game was changed on localization to the West. All of these changes were carried over to the GameCube port. All of these changes were also carried over to the Japanese version of the aforementioned port as well, with a lot of kanji being replaced with hiragana so that younger players could read the dialogue.
  • Rum was the mainstream drink, which was changed to juice called "loqua" in the U.S version. See entry for Frothy Mugs of Water.
  • Several blatantly drunk characters were removed, e.g. a bald man on Sailor's Island with what appears to be vomit stains on his mouth.
  • Bellena's provocative outfit was censored somewhat.
  • Aika almost getting raped by Vigoro in a Valuan prison cell was toned down heavily, and Vigoro's shirtless outfit in that scene was replaced with his usual armor.
  • Before the final battle, Ramirez grips his sword's blade out of rage, making his hand bleed.
• Bragging Rights Reward: All of the quests to earn the Three Secrets, each of which also includes another boss fight.
• Bread and Circuses: Lower City is full of peasants with no prospects, no food, and no hope. They sustain themselves on the rotten food left behind by the nobles. (One little girl has never even tasted non-stale bread.) The men work all day building battleships until their knees buckle and their backs break. The only pleasure in life, the only thing which keeps them going, is witnessing enemies of the state being beheaded in the arena. This is as democratic as Valua gets; the coliseum is placed directly between Upper and Lower City.
• Bridge Bunnies: Aika and Fina are the two constant companions on the bridge.
• Broken Aesop: Daccat's treasure turns out to be a single coin and a corny note about how friendship and teamwork are the real treasure. That single coin, however, just so happens to be a valuable antique worth 20,000 gold at the nearest Sailor's Guild.
• Broken Bridge: The Valuans went a little overboard in Ixa'Taka with the "Iron Gate". It's a big honkin' padlocked fence stretched between a massive cleft, high enough that no western ship could possibly pass over it. Once Vyse sends them packing, the fence is unlocked.
• But Thou Must!: You can't change the plot by refusing to do things, but you can drop your Swashbuckler rating by trying. Eventually, though, the game starts offering up win-win decision trees. Sorry, but thou must.
• Call a Rabbit a "Smeerp": Dog = Huskra.
• Calling Your Attacks: The S-Attacks.
  "Moons, give me strength!"
• Captain Obvious: In the Moonstone Mines:
  Alfonso: I didn't mean to interrupt one of your intellectual monologues. I came to tell you that Vyse has broken into the mines.
  De Loco: ...And you figured this out all by yourself? What gave it away? Was it the alarm? Maybe it was the sirens.
• Cash Gate: And one that's actually ingrained in the story and not a side quest, like the other fetch quests that Vyse and co. go on. After the second escape from the Grand Fortress, Gilder hires an engineer and a builder to build a base for Vyse and co., and they need a combined total of 100,000 gold to get started. Thankfully for the player, it's at this point in the game that money becomes plentiful thanks to special loot, bounties, and gold-dropping enemies. In fact, the single lousy coin that serves as Daccat's "treasure" can be sold for 20,000 gold at the sailor's guild in Nasrad, which alone is 1/5th of your required total.
• Cast of Snowflakes: Apart from a few Mooks and (some of) the shopkeepers, just about everyone, from the main characters to random citizens, has their own character model. Hell, even the two uniformed guards in front of Nasrad's and Yafutoma's palaces look different from each other.
• Cataclysm Backstory: The Old World ending due to the Rains of Destruction.
• Chef of Iron: Gordo and his crew are originally pirates obsessed with plundering high-quality ingredients and world-class cuisine, and their bounty suggests they're fairly successful ones at that. After their loss, they settle down and go straight, opening up a bistro staffed by the same pirate crew. They show up during the final battle, when all of Vyse's former allies and enemies are joining forces to fight off Galcian's armada.
• Chokepoint Geography: Until Vyse gets the Delphinus, sky rifts ensure that there's only one path out of each "ocean". The Dark Rift cannot be breached at all, effectively carving the planet into quadrants. (You can eventually fly over it).
• The City Narrows: Valua's Lower City is a hive of thieves, beggars, and hatred, all wrapped in a cocoon of rusted-out metal and pollution...in stark contrast to the agricultural simplicity of Pirate Isle. There's even a Pow lookalike wandering the streets; but instead of happily greeting you like the previous huskra did, it just growls.
• Cleavage Window:
  • Fina has a small chest window that shows some cleavage. It even has a non-fanservice purpose: the exposed skin is right above Fina's shard of the Silver Moon Crystal. What else would it be above?
  • Bellena's bust window leaves little to the imagination.
• Climactic Elevator Ride: Three examples:
  • At the end of Rixis, a lift transports you to the ziggurat where the Green Crystal is or at least used to be stashed. When flying the upgraded Delphinus, you can see that the temple lies just above the cloud line.
  • Princess Moegi has a hidden escape pod which runs on blue crystals. It leads directly to the high-altitude Tenkou shrine.
  • Dangral Island leads down to hell, rather than up. The second Vigoro duel happens in mid-transport. Later, after Galcian revives Soltis, the elevator jams, and Vyse has to hurry across the collapsing railway.
• Colony Drop:
  • The Prophecy Crew Special command drops one of the moons onto the enemies Vyse and co. are facing.
  • Near the end of the game, The Silvite Elders drop the Silver Shrine from space in order to help Vyse and co. past the Beehive Barrier and into The Very Definitely Final Dungeon.
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience:
  • Blue Rogues and Black Pirates. Guess which faction of Air Pirates are Just Like Robin Hood and which are the evil cutthroats.
  • The moons, moonstones, and civilizations, all six colors: Green, Red, Purple, Blue, Yellow, and Silver, with a lone discovery in the Dark Rift implying the existence of a Black Moon.
  • Galcian's admirals. It's like watching a Gothic reenactment of Dick Tracy: Alfonso is yellow/white, Gregorio is brown, Vigoro is blue, Belleza is pink/red, De Loco is green, and Ramirez is silver/black.
  • The main characters also tend to wear specific colors. Vyse (blue), Aika (yellow), Fina (silver/white), Drachma (green), Gilder (red), Enrique (purple). This also applies to some of their Super Moves as well.
  • During the Blue Rogues special attack, the background color indicates whether the featured crew member is attacking (blue) or healing (red).
• Combination Attack: Once you become captain of your own ship and have maxed out SP you can perform two special moves. The first, Prophecy, requires the party to consist of four members that aren't asleep, unconscious, or otherwise incapacitated. The four all say part of the invocation, "In dire need, We call forth, The power, Of the Ancients," which summons a moon down on the enemy for massive damage. The second, Blue Rogues, only requires Captain Vyse to be activate. He calls forth every single member of the crew on board to attack the enemy and heal the party. There's a maximum of eleven roles on the ship and some roles can be filled with either an attacker or a healer.
• Compensating for Something: Vigoro's ship has one very large cannon.
  Vigoro: Hey, Vyse! My cannon's bigger than yours!
  Aika: Talk about trying to compensate.... That guy's got a complex.
• The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard: The reason why you'll be using Delta Shield every turn for the last third of the game is because if an enemy uses a Silver Instant Death spell, it will wipe out at least two of your four party members. Worse still is that even though you choose your actions at the start of each battle round, the computer is under no such restriction. Therefore, it will use an instant death spell the second you decide not to use Delta Shield.
• Contrived Coincidence: The Daccat's Island portion overall manages to cause Aika and Fina to repeatedly miss Vyse by inches, only for the three of them to end up hacking through opposite ends of the same dungeon, which was designed to require teamwork, clearing out obstacles in one another's paths.
• Convection, Schmonvection: The final part of the Convection, Schmonvection dungeon involves you dumping water on a Lava Pit to cool it off so that you can walk on top of it.
• Cool Ship: The Delphinus has elements of both a Cool Boat and a Cool Plane, given how ships work in this game it's more or less a giant floating battleship.
• Counter-Attack: In addition to enemies, your party members will counter-attack on ocassion too, a rarity for the genre. Vyse can also enter a stance where he will be guaranteed to counter-attack every time he's hit for one turn.
• Crescent Moon Island: The aptly-named "Crescent Isle" is a small, deserted landmass floating in an uncharted area of Arcadia. The protagonist, Vyse, gets shipwrecked there and separated from his party around the mid-point of the game. Later, when Vyse becomes captain of his own battleship and pirate crew, the Blue Rogues, Crescent Isle serves as the Rogues' base, with the player able to upgrade it into a functioning headquarters.
• Crystal Prison: The Silvite Elders intentionally seal themselves in crystals as a form of life support.
• Cutscene Boss:
  • You'd think that if there were just one enemy in the entire game that you should be allowed to fight, it would be that smug jerk Alfonso. Instead, he goes out with the Empress when Valua gets totaled. Of course, by then, you've put him through the Humiliation Conga so many times, a boss fight with him would probably be a joke, anyway...
  • Teodora herself qualifies for this. She's the main antagonist for much of the game, yet she is never even shown in anything but her throne room. She never even meets Vyse and the gang in person before she is smashed.
• Derelict Graveyard: The Dark Rift is littered with ruined ships that tried to pass through it. Have fun.
• Developer's Foresight: Dialog with several NPC characters and ships and Vyse's internal monologue upon inspecting certain objects changes throughout the game to reflect where the player is in the story. Some conversations will also happen differently depending on dialog choices the player made and optional events they've seen — for example, Osman joining the crew of the Delpinus plays out differently depending on whether Aika and Fina tried to get a loan from her while separated from Vyse.
• Dirty Coward: Alfonso would have you believe it's just egotism, but no, he's missing a lot in the bravery department.
• Dirty Old Man:
  • Daikokuya, an old man, openly flirts with Vyse following their fierce battle. At this, Vyse (a romantic, pulp-adventure hero) looks ready to pass out.
  • Elderly High Priest Isapa openly hits on both Aika and Fina. Aika even calls him a "dirty old man".
  Aika: The two things I hate most right now are dirty old men and ghosts.
• Distracted by the Sexy: Vyse has his eyes glued to the Sultry Belly Dancer Bellena until Aika snaps him out of it.
• Down in the Dumps: The trash heap of Moonstone Mountain. As the dungeon is full of trapdoors, you'll be seeing a lot of this room. The encounter rate is also jacked up to rub salt into the wound.
• Dual Boss: Sinistra and Destra and Jao and Mao are fought together.
• Dub Induced Plothole:
  • Downplayed, but in a few cutscenes, the characters' behavior and gestures don't align as well with their English dialogue as they do with the Japanese original. Case in point, Aika's response when Enrique reveals that the ship that they were facing and she found disgusting belonged to Vigoro. In the Japanese version she makes a expression of dismay and then comments that she had a hunch of it. Hence her making a dismayed face and clutching her head before switching to an irritated face. The localization changed it into Aika making a jab about how Vigoro must be Compensating for Something, yet kept her facial expressions and gestures the same.
  • In the localization, when Vyse interrupts Vigoro's Attempted Rape of Aika, he asks this one if he should leave them alone, which can be interpreted either as him being strangely jokey in such a situation, or as him misreading the act as consensual, despite hearing Aika's scream minutes ago. In the Japanese original he acted more in line with the events, asking Aika what was going on with a serious and alarmed tone.
  • When rescuing Fina at the Grand Fortress, Vyse makes a solemn oath on his honor as a Blue Rogue to protect her, despite the fact he has a pretty informal personality and never did such a thing at any other point in the game. In the Japanese original he was far more casual and in line with his character, merely telling her that he would always come in her aid when she needed him.
  • One of the NPCs in Nasrad states that Valua's prince ran away from the queen, even though he's clearly still among the royal family and on speaking terms with her a few cutscenes later. This was a mistranslation; in the Japanese original he was instead calling the prince spineless.
• Easily Conquered World: Only Nasr possesses a fleet to withstand Valua, and Ramirez makes short work of them. Justified in that Valua went through a sky rift and attacked from the rear, which was unprotected and took them by surprise, as no ships capable of crossing sky rifts existed up until that point.
• Easter Egg: Playing the Dreamcast disc in a CD player will yield a message from Vyse, Aika, and Fina that warns you not to play it like a regular CD. It's made even funnier because they're self-aware they are characters in a video game.
  Aika: Hey, wait a minute, what do you think you're doing?! This is a Dreamcast disc!
  Fina: There is game data on track 1, so please don't use this disc in a normal CD player.
  Vyse: We can't save the world from a CD player, so just put us back in a Dreamcast so we can do our job!
• Eggshell Clothing: Maria's pet Hamachou wears an eggshell piece as a hat until growing too big for it.
• Eldritch Abomination: The Gigas, gigantic biomechanical beings built by humans. They're capable to taking down multiple ships each, and it's stated that if they hadn't been stopped by the Rains of Destruction, they would have destroyed the world.
• Eldritch Location: The Dark Rift, a high-pressure storm system that can't be crossed the way regular rifts can even with a fully-upgraded ship and remains even after the other rifts have calmed. Inside it is an alien landscape full of corridors that connect in odd ways, strangely-oriented landmasses, and plants and creatures very much unlike the ones seen anywhere else in the game. At its heart is a moon stone that doesn't match any of Arcadia's six moons, said to belong to a lost Black Moon.
• Elemental Nation: The societies under each moon.
  • Nasr, which lies under the red moon, is a desert nation.
  • Ixa'Taka, which lies under the green moon, is composed of hunter-gatherers who take advantage of their land's fertility.
  • Little is known of the civilization that used to live under the purple moon, but their capitol, Glacia, was carved directly into the ice.
  • Yafutoma, which lies under the blue moon, is largely seafaring.
  • Valua, which lies under the yellow moon, is heavily industrialized.
  • The civilization that used to lie under the silver moon was incredibly powerful but gripped by nihilism.
• Elemental Powers: Each color of magic represents a different element, and each has a different effect.
  • Red magic is fire-elemental. It attacks all enemies and buffs offensive stats.
  • Green magic is nature-elemental. It heals allies and poisons enemies.
  • Purple magic is ice-elemental. It attacks a single enemy and confuses or silences them.
  • Blue magic is wind- and water-elemental. Offensive spells are area-of-effect, and non-offensive spells buff the speed stat or put enemies to sleep.
  • Yellow magic is electric-elemental. It attacks all enemies in a line or debuffs the enemy.
  • Silver magic is void-elemental, giving it power over life and death. It can cure status ailments, resurrect fallen allies, or deliver a one-hit-KO to enemies.
• Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors: The Moon Stones in your weapons all correspond to other elements, six in all. Also applies to magic.
• The Empire: Though, like most JRPG examples, Valua can only lay claim to a continent of wasteland and a few islands to their south. Their only major colonies at the start of the game are Esparanza and Ixa'Taka; acquiring governorship of the latter is viewed by Alfonso as a horrible punishment. They do eventually manage to conquer their rivals in Nasr, though Vyse and company foil attempts to turn Yafutoma into a puppet state, and they ultimately lose control of their own military and get reduced to a rump state by an ambitious general planning to take over the entire world.
• Encounter Bait: The Black Map is an equippable accessory that increases the random encounter rate, and also makes it impossible for enemies to run away.
• Encounter Repellant: The White Map is the counterpart to the Black Map — it lowers the random encouter rate and makes it easier for you to run from a fight.
• Eternal English: Played straight. All six cultures of the world (all of them centered under its six magical, oddly colored moons) are vastly different and some are quite physically isolated from the rest, and yet it seems that they all speak English/Japanese, even the Silvites (who live in an orbital satellite) and Yafutomans (who are separated from the rest of the world by the Dark Rift).
• Evil Brits: The Valuans, by and large, despite their Spanish names, draw most heavily on traditions of British villains as Evil Colonialists that are either coldly self-interested intellectuals, self-absorbed fops, or honorable old gentlemen too loyal to a corrupt system to change it. Their divided capital, where fat and complacent uptown rich live in ignorant luxury, while the lower half of the city is a smoggy, industrial sprawl of urban blight which literally never receives sunlight under cloud cover caused by the aftereffects of heavy industrialization, is a twisted exaggeration of Charles Dickens's Gilded Age London.
• Evil Chancellor: Kangan in Yafutoma.
• Evil Counterpart: An Optional Boss in Legends, which consists of counterparts to Vyse, Aika, and Fina, complete with black and red palettes. They were a travelling group of actors who figured out they could just impersonate the heroes and make off with the riches, which was effective enough to dent the real Vyse's reputation down to "the Fallen Pirate". Once you teach them a lesson, they promise to go clean and use their old acting gig to tell Vyse's heroic stories to others instead.
• Evil Laugh: Pretty much all of the Valuan antagonists, apart from Gregorio.
• Expy:
  • Drachma and Rhaknam are Captain Ahab and Moby Dick respectively.
  • Vyse is one of Captain Harlock.
  • The Delphinus is the Space Battleship Yamato with a different name.
• Failure Is the Only Option: The first battle against Ramirez is like this. Reviewers have noted that by this point in the game the player should be able to kick his ass if he didn't have infinite HP, making it more like just giving up the fight rather than being overpowered.
• Fanfare: The demo mode music.
• Fanservice with a Smile: Gordo's Bistro features a buxom, grinning waitress with a painted-on miniskirt.
  • Aika and Fina become stranded in Nasr at one point, and require money to buy a ship and go looking for Vyse. They get jobs as...barmaids. The bartender and his customers are distraught when they later quit. (Mind you, their waitressing is all done off-camera, so the extent of the fan service is entirely speculative.)
• Fantasy Conflict Counterpart: Valua vassalizing Ixa'taka is a direct reference to Spain's colonization of Central and South America, with Ixa'takans being forced to work Moonstone Mountain's titular Moon Stone mines like the Spanish did with indigenous Americans in its silver and gold mines.
• Fantasy Counterpart Culture: Soltis and Glacia don't bear any particular resemblance to real-world cultures, but the five surviving civilizations all do:
  • Valua is primarily 16th-century Spain, with a dash of Victorian Britain.
  • Nasr is the Ottoman Empire.
  • Ixa'taka is Native Central and South America, and like them is a newly discovered continent to the Valuans. Its Japanese name, "Montesuma", directly references the last Aztec emperor.
  • Yafutoma is Japan, with a light smattering of China.
  • The Mid-Ocean islanders are Caribbean pirates.
  • Cape Victory is Australia.
• Fetch Quest:
  • The hunt for the fallen moon stone at the start of the game, and later, the hunt for Daccat's Treasure. Both are necessary sequences in the plot and not actually detours.
  • The quest to help a woman in Esparanza get reunited with her mother in Maramba (in Nasr), which involves each of them asking you to get things from/for the other.
  • Getting all the moonfish in the GameCube version. You get awesome rewards and backstory for every few fish you bring, so it's not too frustrating most of the time.
• Fighter, Mage, Thief: The core trio fit this archetype. Vyse is a physical Lightning Bruiser with poor magic stats, Aika is a Fragile Speedster who can't quite match either of her companions' offensive stats, and Fina is a Squishy Wizard.
• Fight Woosh: The screen breaks when you hear the woosh. In the Dreamcast version, this woosh was preceded by the console's trademark loading noise; since the random encounter rate is ungodly high in the Dreamcast version, this was something of a godsend. Simply opening the menu and changing a weapon when you heard the fight load would stop the fight from happening.
• Final Boss Preview: Galcian and Ramirez can be fought at multiple points in the game — but can only be beaten in the final level. The other fights are just there to illustrate how unstoppable they are.
• Final Dungeon Preview: By the end of the game, it's revealed that the first dungeon of the game - the ancient Shrine Island - is actually just a small chunk of the lost floating continent of Soltis, and once Soltis returns from Deep Sky, Shrine Island becomes the entry point to the final dungeon.
• Finishing Each Other's Sentences:
  'THE TIME HAS COME...'
  '...FOR YOU TO DIE.'
  • "IN DIRE NEED!" "WE CALL FORTH!" "THE POWER!" "OF THE ANCIENTS!"
• Fire/Ice Duo: Sinistra (fire) and Destra (ice).
• Fixed Forward-Facing Weapon: The Delphinus is armed with the Moon Stone Cannon, which is basically an Expy of the classic Wave Motion Gun. Essentially, the Moon Stone Cannon is the keel of the Delphinus.
  • Vigoro's ship is more gun than ship, with no way to aim without turning.
  • Zelos' eye, which is eerily fixed on the Delphinus during your fight.
• Floating Continent: Most of the landmasses are floating above the cloud layer, though Soltis has been on the actual surface for a while now.
• Fog of Doom: A signal that Rhaknam is near is a sudden fog.
• Foreshadowing:
  • There's a wanted list of Air Pirates with a lot of names written on it at Sailor's Island. Drachma's name is on it, as well as a few you'll meet later.
  • You can see a verdant-looking Soltis in Fina's narrations.
  • In Deep Sky, if you squint as you're riding up or down the vortex tunnel up until you reach the bottom/top, you can see the actual parts of Soltis beyond the tunnel walls. However, it's only fully visible when lightning flashes.
  • After getting a base, Aika comments that Fina is sounding more like an Air Pirate each day, and that by the time they're done, she'll be dressed like one and Cupil will be wearing an eyepatch. All of this is true in the ending.
  • Every time Admiral De Loco is defeated, he'll angrily try to reassure himself that said defeat is just a bad dream (which always fails). A distraught Enrique tries to do the same after Valua is destroyed.
  • Starting from the beginning of the game you'll meet Foreign Merchants that are East Asian-coded as opposed to the European, Middle Eastern, and indigenous American-coded inhabitants of the other nations. It foreshadows not only the existence of Yafutoma but also their ability to simply sail over the Dark Rift separating them from the rest of the world.
• Friendly Pirate: All of the Blue Rogues in Skies of Arcadia qualify, but especially protagonist Vyse. They're so warm, inviting, and generous, the only way you'd really know they're pirates is because they attack a Valuan Empire vessel in the prologue.
• Frothy Mugs of Water: Loqua. It's stated that it's juice treated with moonstones, but the story uses it in place of liquor or beer, and the tavern in Esparanza has a couple of people who are Drowning Their Sorrows in it. Whether or not it has psychoactive properties similar to alcohol is just ambiguous enough to avoid getting anyone into trouble with the ratings board. In the Japanese, it's more openly liquor.
• Game Mod:
  • Hold B to Skip Encounters is exactly what it seems; a mod that disables Random Encounters while the button is pressed. It is only compatible with the Legends version.
  • Skies of Arcadia: Legends Maeson is a rebalance mod that significantly reworks character stats, items, S-Moves, Magic, and ship combat to be much more difficult, while making aspects of the game more useful as a whole. It also contains Dummied Out equipment that went unused in the game. The latest version of the patch is also compatible with the above Skip Encounters.
• Gangsta Style: At short range, Gilder fires his pistols rotated about 90 degrees. At long range, he uses a more sensible two-handed grip. Somewhat justified, since "short range" for Gilder essentially means placing the barrel right in the enemy's face.
• Ghost Town: Esparanza. Founded as a colony on the new frontier, it was once a magnet for explorers and commerce. Eventually, the sailors gave up on uselessly crashing their ships into the Dark Rift, leaving behind a few penniless stragglers to keep Valua's flag flying. The Empire cut its losses and withdrew from the city, leaving it to rust. Happily, the headstrong Vyse kicks the residents back in gear by barging into the tavern and telling them how it's gonna be: The Delphinus is going to pass through the Dark Rift, with or without their help. The washed-up helmsman, Don, has the option of joining the crew and discovering a safe passage through the rift. In the epilogue, he's running his own ferry service between Esparanza and Yafutoma.
• Giant Mook: The Giant Looper is a giant version of the Looper enemies.
• Giant Space Flea from Nowhere: An overweight, acid-spewing rabbit, a giant robotic penguin with a death-ray, a floating tortoise that could make itself invincible, and a cockatrice-esque giant bird all appear suddenly (being as invisible as a random encounter at first), are dispatched by the heroes, and die without comment from anyone. Some fit the area more than others, but many are placed because the game says there must be a boss wherever the level ends. The Bleigock (the aforementioned "acid-spewing rabbit"), a gigantic blob in the game's sewer level, is of particular note. Not only does it appear out of nowhere, but after beating it, you immediately have to fight a boss that is related to the story. That sequence sticks out is one of the toughest parts of the entire game, partially because it happens so early and your healing options and resources are comparatively limited. It thematically fits, eating the corpses thrown down from the arena, but it appears in an unassuming empty room guarding the ladder to another boss fight.
• Global Airship: You get several throughout the game that allow you to traverse the world, though the Delphinus is the only one that can (eventually) fly absolutely everywhere without restriction.
• God Guise: Fina is treated as a goddess upon stepping into Ixa'Takan territory. This stems from the fact that an ancestress who looked just like her helped subdue the Green Gigas was in their cave paintings and carvings.
• Goggles Do Something Unusual: Vyse's "eyepatch". In Legends, he can get a lens for it made out of moonstones which can help him look for moonfish since not only can it make them visible, but it also makes a noise when one is nearby.
• Gondor Calls for Aid: The ending, when absolutely everyone you met that has a ship shows up to help Vyse and friends. This is particularly impressive, as Gondor did not even call for aid. When the events that lead Vyse into a Heroic BSOD occur, Drachma, Gilder's crew, as well as all the Air Pirates in the game, both Blue Rogues and Black Pirates alike, as well as the Yafutoman navy and the Tenkou, and finally Vyse's father all just show up unnannounced at Vyse's base because they know he is the only guy crazy and determined enough to take on Galcian's Armada. In a sense, Aid calls for Gondor.
• Gotta Catch 'Em All: The Moon Crystals, the quest for which forms the bulk of the plot; Moonfish, a sidequest; Chams, to get the Infinity Plus One Blob; the discoveries; getting 1000 fish for one of Vyse's ranks; hunting down the 8 bounties...
• Grand Theft Prototype: The Delphinus was intended to be a prototype for an all-new fleet of Valuan warships. When Vyse jacks it, he puts a serious crimp in their plans.
• Green Rocks: Moon Stones, also available in Red, Blue, Purple, Yellow, and Silver are all rocks containing great magical power. Also the mysterious Black Moon Stones with the power to reverse energy; they're only mentioned in passing and have been a fertile ground for Epileptic Trees in the fandom.
• Guide Dang It!: It is impossible to find all the Moonfish, Chams, Treasure Chests, Crew Members and Discoveries for the shiny "Legend" title in the Nintendo GameCube version of the game without consulting some form of guide.
• Guns Are Worthless: Valuan gun troopers are generally amongst the weaker of enemies (even when compared to swordsmen) and Gilder, while a character firmly on the physical side of physical attacks vs. magic, is less powerful than Vyse and Drachma.
• Gunship Rescue:
  • The Little Jack comes to Vyse's rescue at the end of the monorail chase. Just as Galcian has Vyse cornered in the engine car, Drachma blasts it in half with a well-placed shot.
  • Happens again while escaping from Recumen. Just as our heroes are about to get fried, the Little Jack shows up and shoots it in the head, causing the attack to miss.
• Gunslinger: Gilder specializes in firearms. He even has a move called "Gunslinger".
• Guys Smash, Girls Shoot: The girls both fight with weapons that prioritize range over melee and have stats more oriented towards magic than physical combat, while three of the four guys fight with weapons that prioritize melee over range and have stats more oriented towards physical combat than magic (with Gilder and Enrique as the respective exceptions, though unlike the girls, Enrique's offensive S-moves use his attack stat rather than his will stat).
• Heel–Face Turn: Prince Enrique, Admiral Belleza, Admiral Gregorio, the Elders of the Silvite Civilization all come to the side of good upon seeing the error of their ways.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Admiral Belleza, Admiral Gregorio, and the Elders of the Silver Civilization all die facing either Galcian or Ramirez. Note a pattern?
• High-Tech Hexagons: The Great Silver Shrine and Soltis, especially its Beehive Barrier. The former is an advanced moon base where the Silvites reside and is shaped as a hexagonal prism. The latter is the lost continent where they used to live, and its surface is completely covered in a hi-tech silver architecture with with a giant hexagonal tower in the center. The Silver Moon is also strongly associated with the number 6.
• Homage: As the game opens, Fina is captured by a Valuan ship in a sequence reminiscent of Star Wars: A New Hope.
• Hopeless Boss Fight: It is possible to fight Galcian and Ramirez three different times before the endgame, but you really shouldn't. Luckily, with all three times, it's possible to avoid them, but the second time you are given the option to fight Ramirez on Crescent Isle, you actually have to fight him and lose to get a boost in your Swashbuckler rating.
• Hufflepuff House: The Purple Civilization. Very little is known about them, and they all just disappeared after the Rains, despite their capitol having survived intact. Unlike the other five, they aren't shown to have any descendants whatsoever. However, it is implied that they were all killed by Plergoth after his master died and they lost control of him, since they were unable to remove the Purple Moon Crystal. Interestingly, their dungeon contains trivia questions about them required to pass.
• 100% Heroism Rating: One of the benefits of a high Swashbuckler Rating is that NPC shopkeepers, especially on Sailors' Island, will gush over your celebrity status. In addition, getting the title Vyse the Legend, which involves getting 100% Completion, unlocks an optional boss fight and a few other perks.
• I Did What I Had to Do: King Ixa'taka summons Grendel to fight off the Valuans. Isapa's apology to Vyse implies that he and the King are extremely reluctant to summon the Gigas in the first place, but were left with no choice. He actually manages to keep Grendel under control which scares away Alfonso, but De Loco knocks him unconscious with the prototype Moonstone Cannon, forcing Vyse to take down a loose Grendel.
• Indy Escape: The Temple of Pyrynn features a pair of these. An endless flurry of stone spheres will roll down the slope, with small crevices in the flanking walls for Vyse to hide in.
• Industrial Ghetto: Lower City. They build the warships here, and workers are treated like dogs.
• Inexplicable Treasure Chests: There's treasure chests in weird spots but it's justified in the Maramba sewers, of all places. The weapons merchant knows the story of how they came to be there.
• Informed Attribute: The Tricyclone. Its entry in the Discovery Guide says that encountering it is essentially a death sentence. When you do encounter it, however, it's barely bigger than the Little Jack and is completely harmless. This is in stark contrast to South Ocean, which you can't even enter before upgrading your ship to withstand the currents from the massive cyclones that litter it.
• Ironic Name: The town of Esperanza, whose name means hope, doesn't really live up to its name. This might have been true in the past, when the city was first established, however, by the time your party gets there, it's anything but. Somber music plays in the background, the entire city is run down and rusting away, and its inhabitants are a jaded, despair-filled bunch. If the irony isn't glaringly obvious, one of the tavern patrons spells it out for you.
• It's the Journey That Counts: Daccat's "treasure"...or so it would seem, at first. You can sell the "treasure" later for 20,000 gold. The real point of the exercise is to reunite Vyse, Aika, and Fina. See? Greed really is good.
• Jiggle Physics:
  • Belle, one of the crew members you can recruit, has rather bouncy breasts.
  • For that matter, Bellena has some subtle jiggle physics.
  • For a male example, you have Pinta's belly jiggles.
  • Averted for your two female party members (and a vast majority of other female characters, including Piastol, an otherwise leather-clad dominatrix-looking type), who lack any bounce to their chests at all.
• Jolly Roger: The player can choose between three flag designs made by the main characters once they acquire a base: Vyse's is a skull with an eyepatch over a cutlass, Aika's is a cat's head with pigtails chomping a gold coin, and Fina's is a winged dolphin.
• Just Like Robin Hood: The Blue Rogues are pirates but they never steal from the innocent.
• Karma Meter: A variant with the Swashbuckler Rating. At various points, you're given a choice between whether to act aggressively or more cautiously. Your rating goes up for dashing bravery, but not Suicidal Overconfidence or boorish rudeness. This can get into Guide Dang It! territory, as some of the "brave" choices like infiltrating Valua would be suicidal by Real Life standards.
• Kill Sat: The Rains of Destruction involve using the power of the Silver Gigas Zelos to rain down innumerable amounts of Moon Stones unto the planets. This was used to destroy the previous civilizations by the Silvites for their constant warring.
• Lampshade Hanging:
  • One interesting example: After defeating Galcian on the Hydra, Galcian retreats into the control room, which detaches itself from the rest of the ship. Vyse comments, "I thought he was too arrogant to have an escape pod!"
  • A girl in Yafutoma, after giving you some random fact, remarks on how she finds it strange that she would say something so obscure to someone that she doesn't even know.
• Laser-Guided Karma: Alfonso in the beginning kills his Vice Captain in a bid to preserve his reputation by pinning the Blue Rogues raid on him by stating that he was The Mole. Upon returning to Valua and giving his embellished story, he's informed that since the Blue Rogues let the survivors go after cleaning the ship out, they not only made it back home first, but gave a much more credible report which gets Alfonso demoted for lying and kicked to Ixa'Taka.
• Last Disc Magic: Once Vyse acquires his own ship, "Prophecy" and "Blue Rogues" appear in the battle menu (but only if your Spirit's at max). Not exactly "last disc" magic, since it's unlocked roughly at the game's halfway point, alleviating its cheapness.
• Last Villain Stand: As long as Galcian has Soltis, he's still in the game, even with his fleet destroyed.
  • Once he's killed, Ramirez decides the world must burn for not accepting Galcian as its rightful ruler.
  • Another one would be the Tenkou base, which appears at first glance to be a religious shrine (and indeed may have been before the Tenkou took up residence). The Tenkou come out of the woodwork once Daigo recognizes you as a friend.
• Leave No Survivors: Galcian makes a threat while invoking this trope:
  Galcian: I don't think they're foolish enough to resist. However, if something should happen...burn the village and kill them all. Let the bodies rot in the sun, and leave one of our flags to set an example for others who may defy us.
  • Ultimately, however, it's subverted. They weren't foolish enough to resist: The noncombatants were left alone, and the Rogues were taken prisoner and later rescued.
• Lethal Joke Item: The Swirlmarang in the Updated Re-release. As a weapon for Aika, its damage is pitiful, but it causes Confusion every time it hits on anything that isn't immune to it. Most regular battles are made much easier with the Swirlmarang.
• Limited-Use Magical Device: Skies of Arcadia has single-use crystals and multi-use boxes that can be used to cast spells the characters don't know yet and to save on magic afterwards.
• Look on My Works, Ye Mighty, and Despair: Valua is reduced to a smoldering crater before the game is up.
• Love Triangle: Possibly one of the few love triangles in an RPG where the participants don't care about resolving it—and don't. In fact, it's easy to argue that since only one person seems to express a romantic attraction, it's non-existent. Romantic relationships and hints between characters certainly do exist, but very little emphasis is put on them, and the role they play in the plot is minimal to nonexistant.
  • Since it’s not the story’s focus and there are scarce, yet solid hints of romance, players get the chance to use their imagination and read between the lines of the true nature of their relationship.
• MacGuffin Blindness: For much of the game, Vyse and company travel the globe in search of the moonstones, to keep them out of Empress Teodora's hands. They manage to find all but the silver moonstone, not knowing it was hidden inside Fina all along. She was unaware of this, herself, until Ramirez revealed that all Silvites are born with one!
• MacGuffin Delivery Service: Happens so often with the Moon Crystals that it's a surprise whenever you manage to hang onto one. The last couple of crystals do not have this happen, but that's only so you can find all five of the non-silver crystals, and then Ramirez ambushes you by surprise and takes all of them anyway.
• Magitek: Moon Stones power everything even vaguely mechanical in this game, with the exception of a few scattered windmills.
• Meaningful Name:
  • Fina's name means "delicate" or "elegant" in Spanish (though the original Japanese pronunciation is "fy-na"), which is fitting, considering that she's a Proper Lady in white and the girly girl to Aika's tomboy.
  • Gordo's name is the Spanish word for "fat". Fittingly, he's a stereotypical fat glutton.
  • Ilchymis' name is a play on his profession's name, alchemist.
  • Vigoro is indeed quite "vigorous".
  • Fittingly enough for a lady renowned for her beauty, Belleza's name means "beauty" in Spanish.
  • "Loco" means "crazy" in Spanish. Guess what De Loco's most prominent trait is.
• Medieval European Fantasy: Based primarily on early modern Europe and Asia with Steampunk and Schizo Tech thrown in for flavor.
• Memorial for the Antagonist: At the end, Vyse throws Ramirez's remains down to the lost continent as it sinks back into the Void. Despite the fact that Ramirez betrayed his people, destroyed Valua, and attempted to destroy the rest of the world after Galcian was killed by Belleza (who also died), Vyse wanted to honor Blue Pirate laws to Fina's brother.
• Mineral MacGuffin: The six Moon Crystals: Each of them is basically a Moon Stone in its purest form, as Fina describes, and they have the power to summon the Gigas. The Silver Crystal is unusual in that, unlike the others, each Silvite holds his/her own crystal in his/her body, and it serves as a life force; should it be removed, the Silvite dies (hence its connection to its element of life and death).
• Mind-Control Eyes: Characters who are confused in battle get blank eyes. Also happens to characters who are hit by Ramirez's "Silver Nightmare" S-Move in the final boss battle.
• Missed Him by That Much: The Nasr segment gets downright maddening as Vyse (presumed dead) keeps missing his cohorts, Aika and Fina, as they wait tables in the same city he's staying in. Vyse's partner, Gilder, even hits on them at one point, but doesn't make the connection that they're Blue Rogues.
• Mix-and-Match Critters: The Dhabus used for transport in Nasr seem to be a mashup of camels and emus with a dash of elephant thrown in.
  • The Dheerse, Alupas, and Rabbats discoveries.
• Metal Slime: Loopers are rare enemies that can disappear quickly, hence the need to dispatch them fast.
• Moby Schtick: Drachma's beef with the arcwhale Rakhnam is an obvious reference to Captain Ahab and Moby Dick. Rakhnam just doesn't happen to be white.
• Mordor: The Valuan continent is a craggy, crater-pocked hellhole under the oppression of permanent thunderstorms. The ruined landscape is also partly due to rampant moon stone mining. So in a sense, it qualifies as Types 1 and 2.
• New World Tease: Upper City. You have just enough time to window shop (Aika: "This is no time for tea!"), get insulted by the locals, and gape at the glamorous buildings in the middle distance. However, as soon as you're over the first bridge, Vyse is diverted onto a train leaving the city, never to return.
• No Hero Discount: Subverted and Zigzagged; most shopkeepers steadily raise their prices, but Inns will recognize you the higher your Captain rating is and give you a discount.
• No Hugging, No Kissing: Between the main characters, anyway. A dashing air pirate with two lovely ladies, but they're just True Companions, although Aika drops one or two blink-and-you'll-miss-it hints she may harbor something a little deeper for Vyse^note Most notably, she kisses him on the cheek the night before the final battle if his reputation value is high enough.; and the player can make Vyse wrap an arm around Fina's shoulder during their conversation right before the final battle, which will prompt Fina to put her head on his shoulder and lean closer to him.
• Obviously Evil: The game doesn't even try to hide Kangan and Muraji's foul intentions the moment you arrive in Yafutoma.
• Ominous Cube: The Yellow Moon Crystal, which is imbued with the power of lightning, and was the means of controlling the yellow Gigas, Yeligar, takes on a square shape. It's also one of the six keys to raising the lost continent of Soltis, and awakening the Physical God, Zelos.
• The Omniscient Council of Vagueness: Averted with the Valuan admirals who have a council but all get names and talk about things that the player soon gets context for, played straight with the Silvite elders and their sudden heavy exposition.
• One-Time Dungeon:
  • Only five, surprisingly: Alfonso's first ship (a very brief dungeon, to be sure), the prisons of the Grand Fortress, Dangral Island, the interior of the Hydra air fortress, and the Great Silver Shrine can only be visited once. Dangral Island is visited twice for story-related events and destroyed after the second time, and you can repeatedly visit the Great Silver Shrine until the assault on Soltis, when the elders of the shrine sacrifice both it and themselves to break Soltis' barrier; after that, it's permanently gone.
  • For towns, Upper City Valua is only visited once, and only a very small part of it; while you can eventually get back into Lower City after the Delphinus is upgraded to travel above and below the clouds, Upper City remains sealed off. And while you can visit Nasrad ad nauseum, it is permanently wrecked after Ramirez destroys it, with the Bazaar inaccessible.
• One True Sequence: Due to the game's linearity, it looks like this is going to be the case at first. But in reality, Valua is nowhere to be seen when the Purple and Yellow Moon Crystals are found (the Yellow because they already control their own vault's main door), Belleza leaves Vyse's team alone to recover the Red one for her, the Green Crystal is recovered by the very civilization that was guarding it, Valua only attacks Yafutoma after Vyse comes back with the Blue Crystal, and the Silvites always have their own.
  • This is because Galcian and Ramirez know that they will have access to the Silver crystal(s) before Vyse, and they know the Silver crystal is the last logical step in Vyse's plans, so Galcian uses them as a MacGuffin Delivery Service in getting the purple and yellow crystals when his Admirals have previously failed
• Only One Name: Everybody.
  • Vyse's Mother is only ever known as...Vyse's Mother. Even most shopkeepers get proper names ("Bonita's Items" etc).
• Overly Long Fighting Animation: Every special attack in the game. Subverted in that skipping your own characters' moves is optional (except for Prophecy)...but played straight against bosses, which can be irritating by the end of the game, since the bosses have even cooler and longer special moves, which are really annoying the twentieth time they're used. Also played straight in ship battles, where you can't skip anything.
• Our Founder: One of the carpenters offers to chisel your face, Mt. Rushmore style, on a rock wall at your pirate HQ.
  • Although he'll gladly chisel either Aika or Fina as well.
• Padded Sumo Gameplay: Due to the increasing health and defense of certain types of enemies, it can actually be faster to have your entire party charge up the spirit gauge in order to use Prophecy anytime you come across one such foe. This can result in severely protracted battles: on the other hand, it's the safest bet for destroying the optional bosses, such as truly demonic Daikokuya.
• Palette Swap: Largely avoided by having completely different enemies in each area, but upheld by the Loopers as well as a few other enemy types that come in two or three colors. Justified by the influence of the six moons; you get red Loopers in Nasr, blue Loopers in Yafutoma, etc.
• Patriotic Fervor: The Tenkou are a clan of exiles, led by an exiled prince. Their isolation is reflected in the position of their home base high above the cloud line, barely glimpsed at from Yafutoma (and accordingly, the Yafutoman islands are a tiny speck when viewed from the base). However, when Princess Moegi and the King are taken hostage to allow Valuan soliders to occupy the land, Prince Daigo agrees to stop shirking his responsibilities and assemble his men for war. The Tenkou stop fighting you (the random encounters promptly cease), and Vyse can speak with the pirate NPCs to learn their dismay at the chancellor's betrayal. In the epilogue, the Tenkou are absorbed into the royal navy.
• Permanently Missable Content: Treasure chests in the dungeons you only visit once are permanently missable, which are required for Vyse's Infinity Plus One Title in Legends.
• Phallic Weapon: The Draco with its "Vigoro Cannon" and the telescoping Moon Stone Cannon on the Delphinus strongly resemble penises.
• Pimped-Out Dress: Clara, The Empress, and Fina (on the milder end) all wear very fancy dresses.
• Pirate Girl: There's quite a few female pirates in this game. Aika's the most memorable for obvious reasons, but there's also Clara and her entire ship, including Belle and her two friends, whom Clara lets you take on as gunners when it comes time to recruit your own crew. Mabel is a member of the Pirate's Isle group, Piastol is kind of along these lines in Legends, and the game's epilogue shows Fina getting on board with it too.
• The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: Averted. Vyse and Aika are introduced in the middle of boarding a ship for plunder, but, since they're stealing from The Empire, they remain sympathetic.
• Playing with Fire: Aika. If Vyse examines the fireplace in her house, he'll even comment that it smells like gunpowder and that she probably throws some in there for fun.
• Plot Coupon: The Moon Crystals are the primary MacGuffin of the game.
• Plug 'n' Play Technology:
  • Drachma takes the engine from Belleza's battleship and attaches it to his own fishing boat.
  • The Delphinus proves incredibly adaptive, incorporating tech from the far east to break the cloud barrier. Normally, only the Yafotuman junk ships can sail that high.
• Power Trio: Vyse, Aika, and Fina.
• Public Execution:
  • How the Blue Rogues of the Dyne Family are to be executed by the Valuan Empire, requiring Vyse, Aika, and Drachma to infiltrate Valua to save them.
  • The fate likely to await Vyse and his crew after his capture by Ramirez is execution before they escape.
• Pragmatic Adaptation: The manga, which understandably works around things like plot-necessary Fetch Quests.
• Puzzle Boss: Practically all the ship fights, especially the Gigas. The Wanted battles also tend to be so hard that you'll need to plan a very thorough strategy to survive them.
• Ragnarök Proofing:
  • Justified for the places holding the Moon Stones, since it makes sense that the ancients would store their Moon Crystals in a safe spot where they'd be safe from the elements..
  • The final dungeon, Soltis, is zigzagged. It's split between the rotted-out periphery (which has been exposed to the elements for hundreds of years) and the pristine interior, which is clean as a whistle and still humming with energy. In fact, Soltis is in amazing shape, considering it's been encased in mud all this time.
• Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: The Delphinus' crew.
• Ramming Always Works: Admiral Gregorio's ship is specially armoured for this very tactic. Dodging his ramming attempt using a Useless Useful Spell leaves him wide open.
• Random Encounters: Way too many. However, notably averted when you power up your Cool Ship so it can fly in Upper and Lower Sky, where there are no random encounters, at least on the world map. The encounter rate was thankfully reduced in the GameCube port.
• Randomly Drops: Moonberries, in particular.
• Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: Weirdly, played with. On the one hand, they don't call him Vigoro for nothing, and Aika dislikes him for the rest of the game. On the other hand, he's more comic relief than anything else for most of the game, and his higher-ups in the Admirality food chain are treated as worse people than him. He even halfway makes a Heel–Face Turn as an Optional Boss.
• Rare Candy: Seeds come in different varieties, and each increases a single stat. Once you recruit Ilchymis, a shop will become available on your base that allows you to buy as many seeds as you want (except the evasion ones, for some reason), provided you have an insane amount of money.
• Reconstruction: Of traditional fantasy RPGs after Final Fantasy VII's deconstruction. Its idealism stands in stark contrast to the cynicism of other high-profile RPGs of the time.
• Recurring Boss: The Zivilyn Bane band of grave-robbing bandits.
• Red Baron:
  • Vyse gets several throughout the game, culminating in things like Vyse King of Rogues or Vyse the Legend. There's also Vyse the Coward if you really screw up the Swashbuckler system, and Vyse the Fallen Pirate during a sidequest in Legends thanks to an imposter and his friends who were going around on a crime spree in your name.
  • The wanted list on Sailor's Island shows a name for pirates wanted by Valua including Lone Wolf Lawrence, Angel of Death, and Gilder the Unfettered.
  • The bounties, Baltor the Blackbearded, Gordo the Round, Loose Cannon Lapen, Vyse the Fallen Pirate/Legend, and Daikokuya the Wealthy.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Strangely enough, Vyse and Aika fit this description. While they are both prone to commit crazy actions, Aika tends to be more impulsive and expressive (she also favors fire-based magic and specials), while Vyse is the calmer and more level-headed of the two. This also applies to their appearance; first thing you notice about Aika is her vibrant red hair, while Vyse typically wears a blue coat.
• Redemption Equals Death: Belleza, who performs a Heel–Face Turn and a Heroic Sacrifice in the same moment by crashing her own airship into Galcian's escape pod and killing them both. Admiral Gregorio pulls this earlier on to buy the heroes time to escape.
  • The Silvite Elders, who sacrifice their colony to prevent Ramirez from using the Rains of Destruction and to break the barrier surrounding Soltis.
• Remixed Level: Soltis. Unlike the rest of the continent, which broke away into Deep Sky, Shrine Island remained dormant and exposed to the elements for thousands of years. Upon your revisit, the sunny, almost placid island has transformed into a truly alien landscape: a dead city with overcast skies and humming pathways of energy, all directed toward Ramirez's cannon in the scenery beyond.
• Renovating the Player Headquarters: The Blue Rogues' Island needs some serious love when Vyse finally gets ahold of it. This is a accomplished by finding people out in the world and convincing them to come, greatly improving the little village's aesthetic AND how it can support you. Interestingly there are actually two of each character type to find, with the allowance to choose which sets up shop in the village and which helps crew the Delphinius. The choice will change what kind of bonuses you get in either location.
• Required Party Member: Each of the above characters leaves the party at some point, and Fina spends the first few parts of the game (before they search for the Moon Crystals) as an NPC. Once they rejoin, though, there's no swapping them out.
• Ridiculously Cute Critter: Cupil, the huskras (especially Pow), and Piccolo.
• Riding into the Sunset: The final shot before the epilogue.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Following Galcian's death, Ramirez decides to unleash Zelos on the world, because the party and Belleza killed him, and it's "what he would have wanted".
• Roc Birds: One of the Optional Boss ship battles is against a roc. It is large enough to dwarf Vyse's ship, the Delphinus, which is one of the largest craft in the game. You can also find its nest nearby, a single egg from which is said to be enough to feed an entire town for a lunar cycle.
• The Ruins I Caused: After the final Gigas, Zelos, is slain, Soltis breaks apart again and gets sucked back into the Vortex, where it belongs. Each of the playable characters stands on the ship's deck, overlooking the wreckage as it sinks into blackness.
• Ruins for Ruins' Sake: Rixis. The entire city is covered in an Ominous Fog.
  • It also used to be an inhabited city with a navigable floor plan, complete with walls to keep out the cloud layer that covers the city in Vyse's time period. But then it started to rain...
  • This trope's also averted with every other ruin in this game ever. Shrine Island? Part of the continent that becomes the final dungeon. Temple of Pyrynn/Maw of Tartas/Mount Kazai? Built specifically to make it hard to get the Moon Crystal. Daccat's Island? It was all an elaborate prank. Glacia? You came in through the visitor's entrance, so of course you'll be taking a path specifically designed to be Scenery Porn. Great Silver Shrine? It's still inhabited. Soltis? Spent a couple of millenia broken into large chunks in the most caustic environment on the planet.
    • The only time this trope's played straight is in the case of the Catacombs.
• Rule of Cool: Many of the special moves:
  • Gilder can just warp to his pirate ship, get it simultaneously inside the middle of a floating continent and out on the open skies, and then open fire on his enemies? ...Okay!
  • Galcian's special attack, Terminal. He teleports a hundred feet above the Hydra, free-falls in a spiraling motion with the resulting shock wave destroying every ship around him, and lands his BFS in his target, creating a massive explosion that makes the Hydra briefly drift off.
• Save Sat: During the final dungeon, the sages of the Silver Shrine crash their space-based home into the dome around Soltis to give the heroes a chance to get inside, at the cost of their lives.
• "Save the World" Climax: The game spends most of its time as a charming adventure revolving around exploration and piracy... until the final ten hours or so, when The Very Definitely Final Dungeon is raised from the depths of the planet, a devastating superweapon is unleashed, a country is leveled, and Heroic Sacrifices abound.
• Scenery Porn: And how.
  • As the overworld is set entirely in the sky, you would expect it to be uniform and boring. You'd be wrong. The overworld is full of waterfall-like sky rifts, floating islands and continents, and all kinds of fantastic natural formations.
  • The islands, towns and dungeons explored don't shy away from mining the "floating island" theme. The dungeons are full of breathtaking natural formations and artificial structures that keep them from becoming repetitive.
  • In fact, many of the game's environments were released as wallpapers. Not artistic or CGI renditions of the environments, mind you, but the in-game environments themselves, featuring just as many polygons as they do in the game. That's how gorgeous the game is.
• Schmuck Bait: What did Aika expect, covering up a hole in her wall with a bright yellow hankie? Poor Vyse.
• Serendipitous Survival: At the beginning, Vyse and Aika see a moonstone crash on Shrine Island nearby their home Pirate Island and set off to get it. They wind up completely missing an assault by the Valuans on their home who arrest all of the Blue Rogues there, kickstarting their impromptu adventure.
• "Shaggy Dog" Story: About a quarter of the way into the game, the party gets separated, and Vyse crashes on an uninhabited island and spends most of his time there repairing the lifeboat. As soon as he finishes the repairs, Gilder's ship flies by and rescues him, making repairing the lifeboat entirely pointless. Lampshaded by Vyse.
• Shout-Out: The game is pretty much one giant homage to Captain Harlock, beginning with Vyse's close resemblance to Harlock in appearance and personality. And what's the name of one of the Harlock movies? Arcadia of My Youth, in which Harlock pilots a big airship named, you guessed it, the Arcadia. The game also borrows heavily from Space Battleship Yamato.
• Sibling Team: Jao and Mao, co-leaders of the Tenkou Pirates, are brothers.
• Sidequest Sidestory: The aforementioned side story that has you trying to reunite a mother and daughter via several fetch quests back and forth between the two.
• Similar Squad:
  • Vize the "Fallen Pirate" goes around impersonating Vyse. The disguise holds up until the minute he opens his whiny mouth.
  • Yafutoma has its own flavor of sky pirates: the Tenkou, who fly around in junk ships and have a hidden base. Their leader is similar to Vyse, right down to his wanderlust, dual sidekicks, and a visible scar.
• Sinister Geometry: Soltis is unlike any continent you've encountered thus far: flat as a pancake, with a giant hexagonal tower/cannon pointing skyward.
• Sink The Life Boats: Vyse is surprised at Ramirez's ruthlessness in this regard. Of course, in this game, "sink" means "cause to plummet thousands of feet."
• Slap-on-the-Wrist Nuke: Some S-Moves fall into this category. See: Awesome But Impractical, above.
• The Sky Is an Ocean: The game is set in the sky but it's treated as basically the same as an ocean. Low Sky is treated as essentially the equivalent of a water ocean's abyssal zone.
• Sky Pirate: Pretty much the whole point of the game is being a pirate in the skies.
• Sound-Coded for Your Convenience: A standard boss has three types of music play: the initial theme, the "Uh-oh, you're losing" dirge when the party's health is low (get used to that one), and the "Victory is at hand" music which plays once the boss in on the ropes (as long as your party's health isn't too low).
• Space Elevator: Dangral Island is basically this but in reverse, starting at Arcadia's populated upper atmosphere and descending down to its uninhabited surface.
• Space Zone: The Great Silver Shrine is located in low orbit far above the planet.
• Spell My Name With An S: Gilder's name probably should have been localized as Guilder, to fit with the coin-based naming some of the other characters have.
  • Likewise, legendary air pirate Daccat should be Ducat, and Piastol should be Piaster or Piastre.
• Spoiler Opening: If you wait long enough on the "Press Start" screen, you get a different intro made up entirely of actual scenes from the game. Some aren't huge spoilers if you don't know the context, but many spoil major plot twists that don't happen until late in the game, such as the attack on Crescent Isle and the Rains of Destruction falling on Valua.
• Stab the Sky: Enrique and Drachma's victory poses have them point their weapons right at the sky.
• Stalker with a Crush:
  • Clara, who is absolutely determined to marry Gilder, whether he likes it or not. He doesn't. (Marrying her that is; he's implied to actually enjoy the chase.) In her defense, Gilder does like her, just not enough to give up his playboy lifestyle and settle down, and she's pretty much the nicest stalker imaginable.
  • Not so nice is Vigoro and his obsession with Aika. Note that his first meeting with her has him trying to rape her. The game plays further instances of them meeting as comedy.
• Steampunk: The upper echelons of Valua are inspired by this aesthetic. Traditional Victorian ball gowns and hand fans clash wildly with the sleek monorail sitting in the middle of town. Lower City (and its sister city, Esparanza) is oddly more futuristic than any other non-Silvite setting, but the buildings have fallen into such extreme disrepair that you're afraid of sitting too close to the TV, lest your cut yourself on the rusted fanblades and jagged metal.
• A Storm Is Coming: Hey, who turned out the lights? Once Soltis rises out of the Mid Ocean, the skyline is filled with silver-looking fog and the clouds blacken.
• Straw Nihilist: The Silver Civilization. They seek to summon the Rains of Destruction to end everything.
• Super Prototype: The Delphinus. It's completely unique and is far more powerful than the standard Valuan warships. Later, the Spectre-class battleships appear, which are basically slightly less streamlined versions of the Delphinus that lack the Moon Stone Cannon. As Enrique notes that the Delphinus is the first of a series of similar ships, it can be expected that these are the mass-produced models of the same ship.
  • This is supported by the presence of a Spectre-class model in Vyse's office, one which was supposedly based on the Delphinus.
  • The Admirals' flagships are clearly Ace Custom versions of Galcian's Serpent-class battleship, except for Belleza's. Ramirez rides around in a jet black version, but later swaps it out for a custom Spectre-class.
• Swamps Are Evil: Lower Sky, which is impenetrable by most modern ships, is shrouded in mystery. No one knows what's down there, though there are colorful rumors. Actually, the sea floor is nothing but miles and miles of...mud. The thunderstorm never stops, and sunlight can't penetrate. The Delphinus can only just grope around with the help of spotlights and sonar.
• Technicolor Blade: All weapons are forged from moonstones and change color accordingly. This applies to Dyne's & Gilder's gun barrels, too.
• Techno Wreckage: The outer rim of Soltis is full of rotting machinery, dirt, and seaweed. It gets progressively cleaner as you advance forward. (And the enemies get more advanced as well.)
• That's No Moon:
  • Vyse and Aika mistake Rhaknam for an island when they first encounter it. Eep.
  • Zelos the Silver Gigas, which turns out to be the transformed/absorbed central tower of the Soltis continent and is possibly as large as the Trope Namer!
• Theme Music Power-Up: Music during Boss Battles responds to whether you're winning or losing, becoming tense and dramatic when the party is at low HP, and triumphant when the boss is at low HP. Hearing the shift when using a powerful attack or timely heal is highly satisfying.
• Theme Naming : Many of the Air Pirates—Drachma, Gilder, Daccat—are named after defunct forms of currency. Clara was named Krone in the Japanese version. The latter three are named after the same coin in different time periods. The Valuans all have Spanish names to improve their "Spanish Armada" flavor, even Ramirez, who is actually a Silvite. All of the named ships in the Valuan Armada are named after constellations.
• Threesome Subtext: Vyse has Ship Tease with both Aika and Fina at various points throughout the game, but nothing conclusive with either. Both girls, in turn, have an extremely close friendship with one another (they even share a bed at one point), and Aika, while very jealous and territorial with other girls who express interest in Vyse (or who Vyse expresses interest in), never extends the same mindset towards Fina.
• Thrown Out the Airlock: Alfonso kills his first mate in this fashion at the very beginning of the game by throwing them out the airlock to hide the fact that he couldn't stop Dyne's band from hijacking his airship. His superior sees through his ploy and demotes him.
• Thrown from the Zeppelin:
  • Galcian's plan for Belleza, who dared to voice concerns over turning the armada's guns on their own people, is to have them killed. It ends up being subverted - Galcian expects her to perish in the meteor rain on Valua. She survives.
  • Inverted with Galcian's address to his admirals. He proposes a coup against Valua, and is so charismatic that everyone greenlights the plan without a moment's thought—all except for Gregorio (who abstains) and Alfonso, who hurries home to steal Galcian's now-vacant post. However, Galcian is reluctant to dispose of such a valuable soldier as Gregorio, and only kills him when the aged Admiral refuses to let him chase after Vyse. As for Alfonso, well, Galcian's not too worried about that clown: He promptly dies in the meteor strike on Valua.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: Aika's the more masculine Tomboy to Fina's feminine Girly Girl.
• Train Job: Vyse and co infiltrate a Valuan monorail to rescue Fine.
• Traintop Battle: It's possible to face Galcian very early, on top of the Valuan monorail. Take Aika's word for it, and just move along.
  • Even then, you're more than likely to face at least several battles running along the traintop with Valuan Mooks.
• Trauma Inn: Inns heal all wounds!
• Tron Lines: The inner ring of Soltis combines these with some sort of Matrix Raining Code. Once reactivated, Shrine Island uses the same effect, only with a decayed, dull green instead of bold red.
• Troperiffic: Name a heroic fantasy or RPG trope and Skies of Arcadia probably has it somewhere. Skies would in fact probably qualify as a Cliché Storm if not for the fact that for the past three years, RPG games had all been trying to mimic Final Fantasy VII's Darker and Edgier Deconstructor Fleet. Skies decided to return to a classic adventure story where a plucky band of friends join a Mysterious Waif in a world-spanning race against an evil empire to gather magic crystals and save the world, and it worked.
• True Companions: Vyse, Aika, and Fina stick together no matter what.
• 20 Bear Asses: After being shipwrecked on a deserted isle, Vyse has to kill a number of Grapors for meat to live off of.
• Unintentionally Unwinnable: It's possible to get caught in a death loop during the fight with the Red Gigas. If you didn't upgrade the Little Jack's cannons beforehand, the ship won't be strong enough to knock Recumen's heads off target, meaning you'll lose very quickly unless you can repair the damage every turn. And if you saved after finding the Red Moon Crystal, losing the battle puts you back at the Temple of Pyrynn, with no way to get more supplies because Belleza awakens the Gigas once you go to leave.
• Unstable Equilibrium: The main game becomes much easier the further you progress and the stronger you get. Money for Nothing comes into full effect around the halfway mark, later skills are far too overpowered for the enemies to provide challenge simply by making them stronger and tougher, and once you get the Delphinus, ship-to-ship combat becomes a joke even against bosses. The optional bosses, on the other hand...
• Updated Re-release: Skies of Arcadia Legends for the Nintendo GameCube.
• Upper-Class Twit: Alfonso definitely has shades of this. He became an admiral in the Armada due to being from a high-ranking noble family, as opposed to having any actual leadership skills or accomplishments.
• Useless Useful Spell:
  • All of the Silver instant-death spells have a pathetically low chance of success (except when the computer uses them), with the exception of the strongest Silver spell, which has a 100% success rate and inflicts damage on immune enemies.
  • Actually subverted: On very rare occasions, a boss will just happen to not be immune to one of the Status Effects. For instance, the Rik'Talish is not immune to Stone, and Vigoro II is not immune to Confuse. Of course, finding out which bosses aren't immune to which status effects takes a while.
  • The most notable example of a boss having a critical weakness to a status effect? The final boss, Zelos. It's vulnerable to Silence magic during the Ship Combat phase, a major vulnerability for a boss that mainly attacks with magic.
  • Skies of Arcadia is even one of the few RPG's where bosses are outright immune to even stat down debuffs, making investing in them quite pointless. Meanwhile, the bosses themselves are able top spam debuffs with impunity and easily override any buff the players party might have whereas the player has to go through several extra steps to get rid of them on the boss.
• Variable Mix: The music on the world map gets an extra layer of instrumentation that depends on what region of the world you're in. The standard boss theme also becomes more dire or triumphant depending on how much HP you or the boss has.
• Video Game Geography: The world isn't quite as round as the discovery would have you think. Despite the game saying the world is round, the map uses the doughnut-shaped toroidal shortcut. To see the full world, it helps to tessellate the map◊.
• Villains Never Lie: Every word of Belleza's backstory, told in order to manipulate Vyse, is true; she just left out which side of the war her father was killed fighting for.
  • Ramirez is also surprisingly honest with Vyse and the others, particularly during his siege on Crescent Isle, which includes a Motive Rant as well as several Wham Lines that turn out to be 100% true.
• Visual Initiative Queue: This happens with guns during ship battles, sort of. Whose action goes when is visible and selectable, but you can't tell whether the opposition or you will go first in any given turn.
• Voice Grunting: Each major character has a few random lines played over specific high-energy moments to match the spirit of the text scrolling by. The battles have a lot more lines.
• Vortex Barrier: Due to the nature of the game, this kind of barrier shows up a lot where the player travels by sky ship. White sky rifts separate and block many areas throughout the skies, piercing and navigating these barriers requires properly adjusting the engine output of already-exceptional craft The Delphinius. The most notable and recognizable sky rift is the perpetual storm serving as the Eastern barrier to your starting area, the Dark Rift which you will discover bands around Arcadia in all cardinal directions.
• Wakeup Call Boss: The Valuan Executioner is plenty tough, though his status-buffing flunkies are the real danger.
• Walk into Mordor:
  • Valua. One giant door, opens twice a day for merchants, passport required, no exceptions.
  • The only way through the Dark Rift (apart from flying over it, once you get the Yafutoman tech) is the storm's eye, which is relatively calm.
  • Once you get the Yafutoman tech, you can actually fly under Valua and get back into Lower Valua that way. At least until the city goes bye-bye.
• The Wandering You: Sailing the sky takes up much of your time. Between traveling from destination to destination and finding all of the uncharted islands you will be seeing a lot of clouds, and many, many more random encounters.
• Warmup Boss: Alfonso's Right-Hand Attack Dog, Antonio.
• Waterfall into the Abyss: These are all over the place, where The Sky Is an Ocean but most every Floating Continent has a river or two.
• Wave-Motion Gun: Quite a few of them:
  • De Loco's and the Delphinus' Moon Stone Cannons;
  • Recumen's Red Ray;
  • Yeligar's Voltigar and Thunder Crash;
  • The Hydra's main cannon, the Hydra Cannon;
  • Zelos' Moon Ray and Great Moon Ray
• Weird Moon:
  • Although it's only mentioned in passing, most of the moons have notable effects on the lands they orbit. The Red Moon radiates so much heat that the lands under it are turned into scorching deserts, while the Purple Moon radiates cold, which freezes the lands under it. The Yellow Moon generates perpetual thunder storms, the Green Moon causes life to flourish, and the Blue Moon generates strong winds.
  • As an added bonus, the moons supply Arcadia with Moon Stones, which are the foundation of all magic and technology on the planet. Each moon provides magic governing a different element, so they're Color-Coded for Your Convenience.
  • Even odder is the implication (from the "Black Moon Stone" discovery) that there was once a seventh Black Moon, which possibly sank under the cloud barrier and is generating the Dark Rift. Arcadia ate a moon.
• What the Hell, Player?:
  • After you return home from your first adventure and Aika splits off, you can peek through a hole in her wall covered by a piece of cloth...if you want to be called a pervert. It's so blatantly Schmuck Bait (the schmuck being you, the player, as the scene doesn't happen unless you investigate it) that even Vyse wonders why she put it there—after falling for it himself, of course.
  • This also tends to happen whenever you choose an unfavorable dialogue choice.
• When Things Spin, Science Happens: The Silvite Elders' life-support machines.
• Where It All Began: Captain Dyne's turf, Mid Ocean, eventually proves to be the site of Galcian's last stand versus the Blue Rogues. Shrine Island is a fragment of Soltis and the only way in. The foreboding shape of Dangral Island can also be seen just below the cloud barrier; Galcian hollows out the island and installs a lift sometime after the Delphinus departs for Yafutoma.
• With a Friend and a Stranger: Vyse with Aika (friend) and Fina (stranger).
• Wooden Ships and Iron Men: It usually doesn't take long to sail from point to point. But for certain stretches of the overworld (particularly South Ocean and Yafutoma), when you factor in the high encounter rate, the voyage takes a long time. Vyse will remark on this while examining a ship's pantry; scurvy is still a very real terror of his day.
• Wrong Side of the Tracks: Lower Valua is much poorer compared to Upper Valua.
• You Can't Thwart Stage One: Mostly accurate, though played with. Galcian is killed after he successfully raises Soltis. Ramirez, shattered by his death, assumes control and decides to destroy the world rather than rule it.

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"C'mon — dance for me!" *DAKKA DAKKA*

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