This was a FANTASTIC game I would reccomend to any RPG fan. Likeable characters, great story, interesting world, great soundtrack, and it does everything JRPG do well right. It also has a branching dialogue system that ties in to a title system that changes how some NPCs interact with you and a ship crew recruitment system that affects how a special attack works.
Actually, I remember hearing that when the game was originally released (as Skies of Arcadia on the Dreamcast), someone compared it to the anti-Final Fantasy VII. When Final Fantasy VII came out, the characters got broody, angsty and the game's backgrounds tended to be more futuristic and yet people still use melee weapons when firearms are readily available [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SchizoTech], whereas Skies' characters are usually very upbeat (Drachma being the sole example, and he's got a good reason, play the game and you'll find out) and the tech level of the game, while occasionally futuristic, stays consistently in the realms of Magitech [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Magitek].
TRACK THIS GAME DOWN RIGHT THE HELL NOW. Stop reading this, go buy a Gamecube, find this game on, say, Amazon, and play it. It is awesome.