Acclaimed GameCube JRPG Skies of Arcadia Legends is getting a remaster in the foreseeable future, according to a newly surfaced industry rumor. This isn't the only classic from Nintendo's sixth-generation console that's currently rumored for a remaster treatment, with an unrelated report from earlier this month suggesting Luigi's Mansion developer Next Level Games is working on another such project.

Released between late 2002 and mid-2003, depending on the region, Skies of Arcadia Legends is actually a port of Sega's 2000 Dreamcast RPG Skies of Arcadia. The game was developed as an exclusive for Sega's last-ever console, but was promptly ported to its Nintendo-made competitor after it became apparent that the Dreamcast was a bust. While Sega never boasted about Skies of Arcadia Legends sales, indicating that the game wasn't a huge commercial hit, the JRPG had an immense critical reception and is still touted as one of the best GameCube titles of its kind.

That legacy might have been enough to convince Sega to revisit the game, with the XboxEra Podcast now claiming that a Skies of Arcadia remaster is in the works. No specific platforms have been mentioned as part of the rumor, but taking the claim at face value and comparing it to Sega's recent track record, it's plausible that a new version of Skies of Arcadia wouldn't be locked to any particular platform. For example, the company's recently updated remaster compilation Sonic Origins released for both PC and the last two console generations in mid-2022.



This newly surfaced rumor doesn't claim that Sega is using the GameCube port as the starting point, leaving fans hopeful that there's a chance for the alleged remaster to ship with the Dreamcast version of the soundtrack. For clarity, the lower quality of the GameCube OST was among the select few complaints levied against Skies of Arcadia Legends two decades back.

The possibility of Skies of Arcadia coming to modern gaming systems fits Sega's growing focus on remasters that the company outlined in its last several shareholder disclosures. Its financial report for the fiscal year ending March 2023 revealed that revisiting games like Persona 5 Royal and the original Sonic the Hedgehog titles proved to be an extremely lucrative endeavor for the Japanese company over the course of the last 12 months, signaling more such projects are in the works.

Should Skies of Arcadia make the jump from GameCube to modern platforms, it won't be the first JRPG to do so in recent times. For example, Bandai Namco just revisited Tales of Symphonia, a classic GameCube RPG whose remaster landed on the PS4, Switch, and Xbox One on February 17, 2023.

Posted: Mar 30, 2023 6:21 pm
Related Forum: Gaming Discussion

Source: https://gamerant.com/skies-of-arcadia-legends-remaster-rumor/