Skies of Arcadia

Skies of Arcadia
North American Dreamcast cover art
Developer(s)	Overworks
Publisher(s)	Sega
Director(s)	Atsusi Seimiya Shuntaro Tanaka
Producer(s)	Rieko Kodama
Composer(s)	Yutaka Minobe Tatsuyuki Maeda
Platform(s)	Dreamcast, GameCube
Release	Dreamcast JP: October 5, 2000 NA: November 13, 2000 EU: April 27, 2001 GameCube JP: December 26, 2002 NA: January 27, 2003 EU: May 23, 2003
Genre(s)	Role-playing
Mode(s)	Single-player

Skies of Arcadia, released in Japan as Eternal Arcadia (エターナルアルカディア^?), is a role-playing video game developed by Overworks for the Dreamcast and published by Sega in 2000. First announced under the code name Project Ares in 1999, the game was met with high anticipation due the background of the development team members, who had previously contributed to Panzer Dragoon Saga, Phantasy Star, Sonic the Hedgehog and Sakura Wars titles. Upon Sega's exit from the hardware industry, a director's cut of the game, Skies of Arcadia Legends was ported to the Nintendo GameCube across 2002 and 2003.

The game's story focuses around Vyse, a young air pirate in a fantasy world, and his friends as they attempt to stop the Valuan Empire from reviving ancient weapons with the potential to destroy the world. The game contained the traditional Japanese role-playing game mechanics of early Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest, entries, such as turn-based battles and experience point-based character progression, but put its own twist on the genre with having a greater focus on exploration, through allowing the player to fly and battle with, a large airship in 3D space among many floating islands and landmasses. The game was well received by critics, even becoming one of the best reviewed games on the Dreamcast, but the critical success did not translate to sales, with the game generally not considered to have performed well commercially. Sequels and re-releases have arisen over time as possibilities, but to date have not materialized to any actual releases, though the characters have been featured in a number of Sega-related properties, notably the Valkryia Chronicles series of video games.