Happy 25th Anniversary Skies of Arcadia!!
I drew the below for the 25th Anniversary – my first attempt at drawing, so considering that I’m pretty happy. I put a little reference to a certain whale in there (that I didn’t draw too well) and a certain grumpy old sailor with an eye patch.
First 4 Figures have unveiled their new Vyse statue – available for preorders on 31st July.
Like the original version, it looks like there will be an exclusive edition and standard edition of the figure, based on the placeholder links on their site:
Exclusive Edition:
https://first4figures.com/en-gb/products/vyse-2024-exclusive-edition?variant=44119529160867
Standard Edition:
https://first4figures.com/en-gb/products/vyse-2024?variant=44119529783459
Doesn’t look like there is any more information about them yet, including the differences between the exclusive and standard versions.
The pose looks cool – classic Vyse battle pose dual-wielding the cutlasses. The design and texture of the materials look different compared to the original. Vyse’s eye and hairstyle stand out, particularly, with more detail to both. Vyse’s outfit also has some texture to it.
At the moment, you can sign up to recieve $10 the preorders (via the link above) if you join their mailing list (I’m am not affiliated in any way with F4F!).
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.
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！
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.
Hello.
I believe that the telephone cards with this design were produced by Overworks, the company that produced Eternal Arcadia, as souvenirs for visitors to the company, and some of them were also sold at stores such as Dreamcast Direct, Sega’s official web store.
Since they were also sold, albeit in small numbers, it is possible that more were made than magazine prize giveaways.
At that time, Japanese companies sometimes gave telephone cards as souvenirs. I think this was because they were relatively inexpensive, took up little space, were practical (even if you were not interested in the picture, you could use a public phone to make calls), and could be made in many varieties, making them easy to make as souvenirs or prizes.
For the same reason, many types of cards were made as prizes for magazines and as a bonus for game reservations, and they were also popular as collections.
As for the meaning of “Telephone Card 50” on the card, this does not indicate the number of cards issued, but rather that this telephone card can be used for 50 degrees (equivalent to 500 yen).
The number of cards issued is basically undisclosed, so it is unknown unless the creator has made it public.
I hope this information is useful to you.
I apologize if there are any confusing parts due to machine translation using DeepL.
Thank you so much for the information!
I didn’t know that the cards were given out as souvenirs or even sold on Sega’s website. It’s really interesting to learn about the history.
The culture of Japanese phone cards in itself is interesting.
Thank you also for explaining about the number 50 on the card – that makes sense.
コメント嬉しいです！説明してくださってありがとうございます！
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 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.
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.
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