I recently came across a Chinese version (printed in Hong Kong) of the Eternal Arcadia Perfect Guide. I think it translates (if the kanji mean the same as in Japanese) as ‘Complete Strategy Guide’ – so the same as the Japanese copy.

The cover is very similar to the original Japanese copy – except for the publisher logo and title. Notice that the Chinese copy is slightly less wide.

The rear of the Chinese copy is much nicer though with the SoA logo against the blue.

Here are the sides. The Chinese version has less pages.

However.. inside it’s completely different. Err.. ok the next pages onwards are completely different.

The character info pages are at the front of the book, but that’s about the only similarity. I can’t read Chinese but you don’t need to in order to recognise the difference. No stat boxes with info and the images are different too, so it seems completely independant of the original. I started to wonder why the cover design was copied if it isn’t affiliated in any way to the original…

Here it lays out the game’s mechanics and features.

Further on, the story outline.

EDIT: After doing some brief translation of parts of the book, it looks like it’s purpose is mostly to provide a guide for playing in Japanese so that Chinese speakers can understand the gist of the story. There does seem to be basic walkthrough parts too, informing the player where to go and how to approach battles etc.

Then towards the back, the map pages. I noticed something interesting here – バルア (Valua) is in Japanese. Some of the map text also seems to be in Japanese…. I wonder why it was left like that.. Unless it was forgotten.

EDIT: On closer inspection, there is Japanese after the character names also in brackets after the Chinese titles and all the screenshots show the game in Japanese, so the Japanese must be for reference for the user to identify names and places etc whilst in-game.

For comparison, here are some photos of the original guide. The layout is much more professional and there is a lot more detail. I love all the ship stats and the maps are amazingly accurate.

Admittedly, I have not had a chance to go through the Japanese guides yet, but I plan to translate all of them eventually.

Finally, above is the back page with the credits. As you can see, no mention of translation, just copyright SEGA and Overworks. I suspect they cheekily copied the Japanese cover design without permission.

Anyway. I hope you found this as interesting as I did. This Chinese copy is the only one I have come across, so I wonder if there are many in Hong Kong / China…

Since the hype has started building in the community surrounding Sega renewing the trademark, I saw that Pinbox (a company that make custom pins for various franchises), have recently started selling the Skies of Arcadia CD Soundtrack made by Wayo Records in France.

Could just be a coincidence, but why now? Those CDs have been on sale for a while. Maybe it’s because they plan to make SoA pins too – which I’d be very happy about – or maybe Sega renewed the license for the 25th Anniversary, in proceedings, as they work with companies to license goods – such as pins perhaps?

There are a few other companies that have at least hinted at SoA merch too – Limited Run Games put out preorders for a Sega trading card pack. Although the post didn’t mention Skies of Arcadia explicitly, the image showed a card with a Skies of Arcadia image on (see the above link). I’m sure there are others I have missed too.

It is all speculation, but it feels promising. It is the 25th Anniversary of Skies or Arcadia this year after all, so it would make sense for them to announce something this year if at all.

エターナルアルカディア25周年記念！

This year on the 5th October will be SoA’s 25th Anniversary!

I am very happy that the Kuuzoku Cluster project is doing something again for the 25th anniversary as they did for the 20th as I missed out on that one. This time I plan to submit an original drawing and maybe a short ‘novel’ if I have time.

I don’t know if I have permission to link to their website here, so I will ask them and add it if they give me permission.

今年の10月5日にはエターナルアルカディアの25周年です！

I thought it was time to introduce my custom Dreamcast.

Ideally the shell would have been blue – and I did find a really nice darker blue-greenish one, however sadly it was sold out, so I went with my usual black instead.

Specs

• Black shell
• Custom controller port board with blue LED highlighted controller sockets & power light, fix for the controller issue when unplugging / inserting when the console is on
• Noctua fan upgrade (much quieter now)
• Custom blue Dreamcast logo sticker
• Dolphin SoA sticker that I had custom made

I also have a USB-powered power supply to put in at some point.

I decided not to go with the GDEMU because I like playing with the physical discs. I also decided against the HDMI mod for now because my soldering skills are non-existant and I didn’t want to mess it up. I have several cables to hook it up with for now, though.

I bought a 10″ JVC CRT monitor and connect the Dreamcast via S-Video which looks great.

本日はエターナルアルカディアの２４周年記念日です！おめでとう！

Today, 5th October 2024, is the 24th Anniversary of Eternal Arcadia!

So I’m sitting here drinking coffee out of my SoA mug & listening to the soundtrack whilst writing this post.

And what a good day to open the anniversary self-published fanbook & other SoA merch from Japan. Even though SoA has always been in my heart my favourite game of all time, I have only recently started my collection, but I’m already really happy with it despite knowing it’ll never be complete with some of the unobtainable & super-rare merch out there.

I remember buying my copy of Skies of Arcadia in a bookstore for £60 (back then that was extortionate; nowadays it’s the normal price for a AAA game). I loved it & completed the game after finally defeating Lord Bane in Soltis – whom I found harder than Ramirez by the way.

It’s odd to think it’s approaching 25 years old, but nice to see that there remains a small following and fanbase.

So happy birthday Eternal Arcadia.

Today I found out that there are 10 – not 9 – Eternal Arcadia telephone cards – or as they are known in Japan: テレカ (Tereka), which is an abbreviation of ‘Telephone Card’.

This elusive 10th card has a concept sketch of Vyse and Aika that also appeared in the ‘Goregous Visual Book’ that came with the Limited Edition Japanese Dreamcast version of the game.

I found this image via image search (I was actually searching to see if there were more cards) which originated from a long-expired Yahoo Auction entry.

When I did a reverse image search on it, all that came up was some sketches which also came from the ‘Goregous Visual book’, so I’m guessing it’s the rarest card.

In the bottom right it says ‘Telephone Card 50’, which is interesting.. I doubt there were as many as 50, however maybe it was in reference to something else like an anniversary year.

Sadly there wasn’t any information on the auction listing.

I wanted to create a site where I could share my discoveries about Skies of Arcadia – or Eternal Arcadia. SoA has been my favourite game since I was young, however I have only recently started collecting for it.

My Goals

My goal for myself is to play the game again (several times) and eventually 100% it.

I have also started collecting Skies of Arcadia merch and I am hoping to complete my collection one day.

Goals for the site

When I start my journey playing through the game again I will be making notes such as the differences between the Dreamcast & Gamecube versions & will be adding them to the site. I don’t expect to become ‘the authority’ on SoA – this is more a fun task for myself more than anything.

For copyright reasons any screenshots / media etc. may have to be limited, however I’ll see what I can do.