Hi all, this week I’m going to talk about a subject near and dear to our gaming heart: airships. No retro RPG is complete without an airship – and since we here at Something Classic Games take great pride in milking jRPG tropes for all their worth, we just had to have an airship in Shadows of Adam! And so it was done.

The airship is acquired later in the game (as airships often are) and carries some plot significance. Without giving away too much, the airship itself serves as a minor dungeon and the place of some key plot events. But since good prevails over evil, the airship changes hands and becomes the heroes’ to wield for the final part of the game. From that point on, the world and its sidequests become your oyster.

The airship isn’t just a mere vessel for travel, however. No siree! Much like the classic Final Fantasy games, you can go inside of the airship and explore it while you’re flying. How does the airship continue on its course without a pilot? How does our hero know how to fly an advanced military aircraft only used by the elites of a notoriously bloodthirsty kingdom? Who knows!

When pressing the menu button while flying the airship, you are taken to the deck. Originally, we used a stock RPG Maker 2000 sky background to remind us of the good ol’ days. But we have standards here at Something Classic, so we put some of our budget towards this sweet sky background. The clouds even scroll! Madness, I tell ya.

While walking through the airship’s interior, you’ll have a rare opportunity to talk to your party members one on one. You’ll get a brief glimpse of their thoughts and feelings of the events that have unfolded so far while building the strength to finish the final ordeal that lies ahead.

Being a military grade aircraft, the airship comes with some lovely amenities. Don’t worry, you’ve earned them if you’ve made it this far!

The airship includes a full set of shops, complete with high level weapons, armor, and some lovely healing items that’ll be needing for the upcoming dungeon. And what’s more, the shopkeepers are former comedic-relief antagonists who have joined the side of good to peddle their wares.

And last but not least, the final area of the airship features a set of beds befitting the weary band of heroes on the go. And the best part? They’re free! No more pesky innkeepers once you have the airship… a good night’s sleep and a full HP’s restoration is available absolutely free of charge. It’s almost too good to be true, I tell ya!

Well there you have it, a glimpse at the airship in Shadows of Adam. We really wanted to capture our favorite aspects of older RPGs and I feel like we knocked the airship out of the park! Now if we could only program in some Mode 7 scrolling…