i absolutely adore the spreadsheet character breakdowns and reviews you do for video games. Out of curiosity, have you done anything of the sort for Skies of Arcadia? I’d love to hear your extended thoughts on it
Thanks! It's nice to know anyone reads those since I spend so much time making them look nice and filling them out with rollover text explanations. You can find them here, if you're curious.
Skies of Arcadia's battle system is too simple to really do a breakdown for. All characters have access to the same spells and the player picks which of their very few unique abilities they want to unlock in what order.
...Whatever.
I can make one real quick. Just for you, isaberries.
Skies of Arcadia character breakdown below the cut:
VYSE (A-Tier)
Boss battles are all about powering Vyse up with Increm and then using either Cutlass Fury or Pirate's Wrath on one target. He has good stats. He's the main character of a JRPG. It's what you'd expect.
His only downside is that he's a little slow and sometimes he can get hit with a status before his attacks go off.
SUPER MOVES
Cutlass Fury (A-Tier) - Your main single-target damage dealer for the first half of the game. Works pretty good.
Counterstrike (D-Tier) - Any turn you use this is a turn Vyse isn't attacking, which is going to result in a net loss of damage. You're also burning spirit to use it. Only useful if you're 100% sure at least 2 enemies are going to target Vyse. This game's counter chance is really high as it is, and there's items that guarantee counterattacks. Use those instead.
Rain of Swords (S-Tier) - Doesn't see a lot of use in the main game because of it's high SP cost, but it one-turn-kills basically every random encounter in the game once you finally have enough SP to spam it. Also hits loopers!
Skull Shield (C-Tier) - Better than Counterstrike because it gives everyone counterattack potential, but most of the time I'd still rather just rely on Enrique's Justice Shield and use everyone's turn to attack. This can be a good option provided you're fighting a giant group of physical attackers, but it's usually not.
AIKA (S-Tier)
Pirate's Wrath (S-Tier) - 9999 Damage. Boss fights in Skies are simply building to this as fast as you can.
She's not as strong as Vyse is, but she's got the most utility. Good healing. Good magic pool. And, most importantly, Aika's S-Moves are the key to winning overworld battles as fast as possible. She also has Delta Shield, which is the best move in the game.
SUPER MOVES
Alpha Storm (B-Tier) - Cone attack. The best way to win random encounters fast for the first third of the game. Great, but it's heavy dependence on enemy placement makes it a lot worse than her other two attacking S-Moves.
Delta Shield (SSS-Tier) - Costs next to nothing and shields all party members from *every magic attack*. That's like half of the attacks in the game, including all the annoying ones like debuffs, sleep, and instant-death attacks. There are stretches of the game where I use this move every single turn.
Lambda Burst (S-Tier) - Instant win button for 99% of random encounters in the first half of the game... and a lot of them in the back half of the game, too. Gilder and Vyse have stronger AOEs, but both of them require 2 turns of SP charge minimum. Lambda Burst can be used every turn for more damage overall.
Epsilon Mirror (F-Tier) - Restores Aika's MP by 10. I have literally never needed to use this even once. Aika has a ton of MP and she's not even your primary caster. She will not be running out of it.
FINA (C-Tier)
Omega Psyclone (A-Tier) - A juiced-up version of Lambda Burst. Not a *great* attack, but there's a long stretch of the game endgame where you'll be generating 12 SP per turn and a good chance the game will end before you can get 14 SP, enough to pop Rain of Swords. Omega Psyclone is for that stretch.
Fina is probably the game's worst party member. She's weak, slow, and has almost no good S-Moves outside of niche boss fights. She has the best magical attack in the game, but Magic costs SP to use and her magical attacks deal damage pretty close to Vyse's basic attack damage.
Her best usage is AOE magic spells to add a bit more damage to Aika's AOEs, but a lot of the time you don't have the SP to do both. I mostly just have her charge Spirit, buff, or use items.
SUPER MOVES
Lunar Blessing (C-Tier) - Gives your entire party +200 HP regen per turn. Nice, but only useful in very specific and long boss fights.
Lunar Glyph (D-Tier) - Deals teensy damage with a tiny chance to turn an enemy to Stone. If you're using a walkthrough that tells you the five enemies in the game weak to stone, this move will be very useful during those times. Me? I don't feel like testing its viability on every enemy in the game, thanks.
Lunar Cleansing (B-Tier) - Removes all negative status effects on the party. Taking Drilnos debuffs off of your entire crew can be a life-or-death swing
Lunar Winds (B-Tier) - Removes all enemy buffs. Super helpful on a select few boss fights. Sees no use in regular gameplay.
Lunar Light (C-Tier) - Full Party revive, restores all HP, removes all debuffs. Normally a power like this would be S-Tier. The problem is that it requires Fina to be alive in order to use it, and if your party is in dire straights like that, then there's a 95% chance Fina was the first one to go down.
DRACHMA (B-Tier)
A great help in the first half of the game, if only for his ability to charge Spirit faster than anyone else and to up your physical damage output.
Significantly more useless in the back half of the game. I would not recommend using him as your endgame 4th. He just has zero utility.
SUPER MOVES
Tackle (C-Tier) - I mean, it's nice to have a strong attack, but at 10 SP a pop I'm probably just going to be using Drachma as an SP battery and having Vyse spam Cutlass Fury instead.
Spirit Charge (S-Tier) - Charges spirit twice as fast as usual and puts Drachma in a defensive stance. Crazy useful and Drachma's #1 ability. I miss this move so much when he's gone.
Hand of Fate (F-Tier) - This one's F-Tier because unlocking it requires giving four entire Moonberries to Drachma. Why on earth would you do that? Drachma is gone for so long and those four Moonberries could be doing so much more on someone else.
GILDER (B-Tier)
In battle Gilder is functionally just a second Vyse. He's not around for much of the game, but his damage output is good which is all you need most of the time.
Also has almost zero utility in his kit, unfortunately.
SUPER MOVES
Gunslinger (A-Tier) - Cool as hell. Deals slightly more damage than Cutlass Fury to all enemies in a line. Not that good against one target, but if a bunch of guys happen to be lined up this is one of the best damage-per-SP-use powers available.
Aura of Denial (D-Tier) - Blocks all negative effects for one turn. Cool ability, but it's usually strictly outclassed by Aika's Delta Shield, which is cheaper and also mitigates spell damage in addition to spell effects. Has some very specific niche uses against certain bosses.
The Claudia (D-Tier) - I mean... if you *really* hate using Rain of Swords I guess you could spend more SP and use this ability instead? Again, four Moonberries for this? Don't you want the main trio's abilities?
ENRIQUE (B-Tier)
Diet Vyse with a special defensive ability. IMO Enrique rounds out the party a little better than Drachma and Gilder do as an off-tank.
SUPER MOVES
Royal Blade (B-Tier) - Basically just Cutlass Fury again.
Justice Shield (S-Tier) - Puts everyone in a defensive position and lets them act anyways. A solid half my turns in this game are "Vyse attacks > Aika uses Delta Shield > Fina charges or heals > Enrique uses Justice Shield". If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
The Judgement (C-Tier) - Vyse's power stat is just so much better than Enrique's that dropping a ton of stat-up items and moonberries onto Enrique just to make this slightly cheaper move worth using doesn't really make any sense to me.
And here, I'm crazy, so I'll include magic spells too.
GREEN SPELLS
Sacri (A-Tier) - Heal by 500.
Noxi (D-Tier) - Poison is just so lame in this game.
Sacres (A-Tier) - Heal by 1000. You love to spam this in the menu to get everyone up to full.
Noxus (C-Tier) - Poison all enemies. I mean, if you can pop this successfully at the start of a boss fight, good for you? But in most fights that 6 SP would be better spent on any of Aika's screen nukes. Why poison an enemy when you can just kill them?
Sacrulen (A-Tier) - Full heal on one target. More useful in ship battles than overworld encounters.
Sacrum (S-Tier) - Heal everyone by 1000. Very useful both in and out of battle.
RED SPELLS
Pyri (B-Tier) - Super cheap extra damage AOE that hits all enemies. Aika gets a lot of use out of this in the earlygame.
Increm (SSS-Tier) - Buff your attack and defense by 25%. Vyse's favorite spell. Should be cast on both Vyse and your ship in every boss fight in the game.
Pyres (A-Tier) - Very slightly more powerful version of Pyri. Useful in the first half of the game.
Pyrum (C-Tier) - Couldn't tell you why but the numbers on this one just generally aren't as useful as Pyres for 6 SP.
Pyrulen (B-Tier) - Hits everything and hurts.
Incremus (A-Tier) - Increm is great and you definitely want it on everyone, but Aika and Fina are only getting use out of the defense buff. 16 SP is pretty steep, so I'm hesitant to put this in S-Tier.
PURPLE SPELLS
Crystali (C-Tier) - Deals minor damage to one target. Super cheap at only 1 SP, but Pyri is 2 SP and hits everyone for only slightly less damage. How much is 1 SP really saving you?
Crystales (B-Tier) - Hit one guy for slightly more damage. This one is usually better than Pyri or Pyres. Deals a gross amount of damage in ship battles.
Sylenis (A-Tier) - Terrible in basic combat but game-changing in ship battles when the enemy favors magic artilery.
Panika (D-Tier) - Doesn't work in ship battles, doesn't matter in basic combat. Not worth using even at 2 SP.
Crystalen (A-Tier) - The best magic attack in ship battles. Relatively cheap for its high base power.
BLUE SPELLS
Welvi (D-Tier) - Offensive blue magic is just the worst one. Purple magic deals high damage to one target. Fire deals lower damage but hits every target no matter what. Blue... deals AOE damage around a single target for like 1.1x the damage of Red magic? Meaning you're not going to be hitting as many enemies as red magic? It's such a bad trade off considering enemies are almost never all stacked. And if enemies ARE stacked, then you use Yellow magic's cone attacks instead. Blue magic isn't even cheaper. What is the point?
Quika (A-Tier) - Speed buff. Not useful in regular combat, critical in ship combat. The only Blue magic worth your time.
Welves, Welvum, Welven (D-Tier) - Red magic is better.
Slipara (D-Tier) - I'm not checking which enemies are weak to what abilities, sleep is not a good debuff, just kill things.
YELLOW SPELLS
Electri (D-Tier) - Yellow magic has basically the exact same damage thresholds as Blue magic. It attacks in lines instead of AOEs. Worse than Red magic in 99% of scenarios.
Driln (S-Tier) - The anti-Increm. Reduce enemy stats. Great in boss fights, insanely useful in ship combat.
Electres, Electrum, Electrulen (D-Tier) - Red magic is better.
Drilnos (B-Tier) - Driln is for boss fights and most bosses only have one target, so Drilnos doesn't see a lot of action. Apparently the Dril spells stack in ship combat? Lol? Lmao???
SILVER SPELLS
Curia (A-Tier) - Cheap and cures everything
Risan (D-Tier) - Revives one ally. D-Tier because it can FAIL?!
Eterni (D-Tier) - Insta-Death spells suck and I'm not using them.
Riselem (A-Tier) - Revives one ally to full. Huge. Thank you based Riselem.
Eternes (F-Tier) - This only exists so enemies can use it and TPK you out of nowhere. This stupid spell is why I use Delta Shield nonstop.
Eternum (D-Tier) - If you use this then you are Piastol.
