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Go Fly a Kite

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Mike "JuMeSyn" Moehnke
FAN EDITORIALIST

Ah, the airship. Erstwhile companion of the adventuring party in just about every RPG. It serves the purpose of making the entire game world navigable to the player (barring whatever exceptions the developers choose to include) and looks snazzy. There are an enormous number of airships to peruse in the RPG world, but most of them are more-or-less interchangeable. Which is why the exceptions to the rule of airship predominance are so fascinating and memorable.

The example that comes to mind is Tales of Phantasia. Flight, when it is achieved, bucks the trend of airship acquisition. Arche has been able to fly courtesy of her broomstick (being something of a witch) for the entire game, and the other characters acquire flying mopeds of their own to form a great convoy in the sky. Kinda silly? Sure it is, but that was definitely a change of pace from the norm and thus memorable. Skies of Arcadia gets a special mention solely for having airships be a part of transportation at the beginning of the game and taken for granted by the people in the world - they are no more remarkable than stagecoaches.

I savor moments like these because they come so seldom. Either the ubiquitous airship that can travel anywhere is used, or some form of teleportation ability is used (often these two are both present) - or the developers are cruel and make the player walk everywhere. I'm not trying to say that the airship is bad, merely that I enjoy a bit of variety. Having an airship around certainly is preferred to tramping all around the world and wearing out shoes way too fast.

On that note, the possibilities for aerial transport other than the airship that come to mind include: having the entire party imitate Superman and defy gravity; grabbing nearby flight-capable animals to hurriedly domesticate (though Chocobos have performed this function, it never substitutes for an airship - Flammie counts too); taking the Secret of Mana route again, being blasted by cannons to and fro; or the resort of the truly desperate-to-differentiate developer, that of having the player queue up at the airport and endure the grueling drudgery of modern air travel in-game. There are doubtless other options than the ones I've noted here - this is just the beginning.