10 Overlooked Video Games That Were WAY Ahead Of Their Time
8. Skies Of Arcadia: Legends
Skies of Arcadia is one of Sega's great masterpieces, right up there with Sonic 3 and Knuckles and Yakuza 2. Sadly, unlike those two games, Skies of Arcadia never received its due, and your scribe will die mad about that.
Skies of Arcadia was one of the greatest JRPGs of its era, and mind you, the competition for that title includes Final Fantasy X. A swashbuckling, good-natured, fun-as-all-hell JRPG featuring sky pirates going on adventures - maybe if it had been released a year or two later, it could have ridden the wave caused by Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean, but c'est la vie.
What made Skies of Arcadia so ahead of its time were the ship battles, a perfect blend of Final Fantasy and Battleship where you enter your ship into a duel with other ships and must strategically lay out each round before it happens. Meanwhile, the on-foot combat employs a clever point system where the player must allocate a portion of their collected points in order to use items or special moves. They can also spend a round charging up, wasting a turn, but getting more points the next round.
If you haven't played Skies of Arcadia yet, I'd tell you to, but in this economy that's easier said than done, because hoo boy is this game pricey.