Skies of Arcadia

The Good
* Amazing graphics! The world is quite beautiful and all the graphic cut scenes for magic and special attacks are phenomenal!

• Moving story! You begin to really care about the characters, with a multitude of dialogue and interaction!

• Six different schools of magic, each representing one of the colors of the moonstones! Great variety of spells, plus an innovative way to gain magic abilities based on what color of magic you apply to your melee weapon in battle.

• Ship-to-ship battles! Not only do you fight in standard man-to-man fights ala Final Fantasy, you can take your ship and blow away another ship (or very large creature) using a fairly simple turn-based combat system.

• Very large enemies! It's intense to be taking on a creature the size of a skyscraper (the Gigas) in your tiny, but powerful ship.
  
  The Bad
  * Random encounters. It's very annoying to search an outdoor area or a dungeon when you keep getting caught in a battle. Sure, it's fun at first, but after a while it gets old and tired real fast.

• Rough linearity. Although the world is laid out so that you theoretically could explore whatever area you want, you can't reach certain areas until you plow through the main plot points, thereby hurting the freedom that an RPG could bring. You have to obtain the moonstones in a pre-set order, rather than choosing which one you could go after.

• Pre-set save points. You constantly worry how much farther it is to the next save point in a dungeon. At least you could save at any time while you're in your ship.
  
  The Bottom Line
  You take on the role of Vyse, an air pirate who is struggling against the Valuan Empire with his friend Aika, as well as his father. Vyse rescues an enigmatic girl named Fina from the clutches of the Valuans. In time, he learns that she came to Arcadia from a floating space station built by a long lost Silver Civilization. Her charge was to collect six color-coded moonstones that had the power to revitalize the Gigas, golem-like creatures left by the elitist Silvites to destroy the world if they felt that the world was too unfit to exist. A member of the Valuans, Galcian, is in league with Fina's traitor Silvite brother, Ramirez, to capture the moonstones and revive the Gigas in order to control the world. Throughout his adventures, Vyse meets a conglomerate of characters who join up with him in his battles, including LOTS of NPCs. Lots of spells and items, standard level gaining and ship-to-ship battles! At the end, the party must fight Galcian, Ramirez and the Super Giga Zelos in a battle royale!

Overall, an excellent RPG with only minor flaws; probably one of the best games on Dreamcast!