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some of the best the genre has to offer.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 17 / 18
Date: September 06, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Blue Dragon brings back a lot of good memories of classic RPGs ive played over the years. While not groundbreaking in any way, Blue Dragon takes all the eastern rpg conventions to near-perfection.

This may come off as a kids game when you see the childlike characters and cartoony animation style, but for every time you see some cute animals dancing you hear someone yell "that bastard!" or you encounter some ridiculously challenging boss. even the hardcore RPGer will find a challenge in some of these bosses.

The music is always fitting and usually quite beautiful. when you have the composer of FF I-V would you expect any less? i gotta say though, the boss battle theme feels a bit out of place. the total cheezemetal wouldnt be as bad without the vocals, and i know Ian Gillan (Deep Purple) is capable of much better. the voice work was all done exceptionally well though, with the main character Shu being voiced by the same actor as Izzy from the original cast of digimon. very recognizeable voice. i hadnt seen that show in at leased 5 years and i knew who it was right away. thats kind of pointless info, but i thought it was cool.

The main thing that drew me toward this game was the job system. If you've played Final Fantasy V you'll feel right at home with this job system. you select a class (sword master, black mage, ect) for each character. you can freely change class when not in battle, and as you grow in each class you learn the skills and abilities associated with that class. as your characters grow in level you can unlock new classes for them, although there are only 9 classes total, which i found a little disappointing; however, the job system is still my favorite aspect of the game. character growth and trying to balance the right mixes of classes for each is done better in this game than most others ive played. its simple yet very effective, like most aspects of this game.

Graphically, i think this game looks great. the world is full of unique and beautiful environments. from the characters to the environments and buildings, this is Akira Toriyama art all the way. this is one of the most cinematic games i have ever played. impressive pixar quality cutscenes and animations abound.

Blue Dragon plays out in the standard turn based style, however, there are no random encounters. you see your enemies walk around the areas as you explore. making contact with them will start the battle. when the battle starts you have a list of commands (attack, defend, spell, ect) and you choose one for each character. i feel a much stronger sense of strategy in this than any other game like this ive played. there is a list at the top of the screen showing you the next 4-10 turns. certain skills can be charged to increase power. the more you strengthen the attack, the more turns you have to wait for it to actualy happen. the charging is done with a mini game similar to the 3 click swing of golf games. little things like this add some extra depth to the combat.

the story itself doesnt shatter any conventions by any means. if you've played Japanese RPGs before you know the idea. evil being trying to overthrow the world/ragtag group of young heros set out to stop him and meet new friends along the way. its just that, like the gameplay, the characters and their underlying stories are done so well. i find myself actually caring what fate is in store for these characters. nearly everyone in this story has such a strong sense of charm and perseverance that you cant help but root for them.

The experience offered by Blue Dragon will make the seasoned RPG player remember exactly what got them into these games in the first place. For those who havent played one of the many Japanese RPGs over the last 20 years, this is one of the best places to start.

Unleash the Dragon (3.5 Stars)

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 14 / 17
Date: August 31, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Blue Dragon is yet another highly anticipated XBOX360 title. Not completely for hype, however, but more because of the men behind the game. Hironobu Sakaguchi, Akira Toriyama and Nobuo Uematsu. Sakaguchi is, of course, the famed created of the never-ending Final Fantasy series, Akira Toriyama is a famous character designer for the Dragon Quest series as well as Dragon Ball and Nobuo Uematsu is the music composer for the Final Fantasy games and a contributor to several other games. The only man missing from this "dream team" is Yuji Horii, the producer for Dragon Quest. The last time these men teamed up we got what is arguably one of the greatest RPGs of all time: Chrono Trigger. So, of course, with a game like Chrono Trigger under your belt, as well as the Final Fantasy series, expectations for Blue Dragon are high. Do they live up? If you lower your expectations they do, but for the most part, this game is more of an introduction for those who aren't familiar with Japanese RPGs.

You play as Shu, and as the game begins you fight a Land Shark, a monster that's been terrorizing the village of Talta. Shu and his friends Kluke and Jiro have a plan to get rid of the Land Shark by leading him into a trap. Not everything works out as perfectly planned however and before he knows it, Shu is waking up in some ruins alongside his friends. This is where your journey ultimately begins.

The reason it seems as though Blue Dragon is an introduction to Japanese RPGs is simple: Everything about it is simple and basic, and there's really nothing too "deep" here. When I say simple and basic, I'm not kidding. The story is pretty basic. Mostly because you just don't feel like it's going anywhere. The characters don't help either and neither does the writing. However, sometimes simplicity is key. Because of how simple the game is, the learning curve isn't so steep here. And while the story and characters are nothing special, the gameplay elements are.

Akira Toriyama's work here is obvious. The characters look like they were pulled straight out of Dragon Ball, the monsters look like they're pulled straight out of Dragon Quest. The characters are obviously children, and a lot of the game is rather "cute" looking but the game is very beautiful looking. The cutscenes are great, and some of the voice acting is pretty good (albeit at times annoying).

Gameplay wise, Blue Dragon is like most of your traditional RPGs. There are no random battles, just enemies out on the field that you battle upon making contact with them. This means battling is largely optional. There are, of course, times when monsters are in your way and you'll be forced to fight, but for the most part, there are no random encounters and that's a blessing. In battle is rather simplistic. It's a lot like battling in the NES installments of Final Fantasy and the Dragon Quest series. It's entirely turn based. This means that there's some time for strategy, and the game encourages it. You know when your enemies are going to attack and you can plan accordingly. Blue Dragon adds a little something to its field system though. The Attack Circle. Outside of battle you can make a circle to engage multiple groups of enemies at once. This helps to clear out areas faster, but the real gem of this is to get two enemies that hate each other into battle and watch as they attack each other before they attack you. In the long run, this really isn't something you'll do a lot. Blue Dragon is by no means a hard game.

A slight problem with the battle system however is framerate issues. Turn based battles are usually slow as it is, but here you'll find they're even slower and it isn't because you have to spend time watching every action, it's because the framerate dips and the game lags.

The abilities system is quite unique at least. You select a job, learn the abilities in that class and once you learn abilities you can mix and match them all you want. You can change jobs whenever you want as well. It's a great and interesting system that allows for tons of customization. It also a great way to provide some strategy in the long run. This is because certain classes will have a direct effect on your stats. For example, a sword master gets a large boost to his attack and defense. Mages get a boost in magic abilities. The system is very similar to the job system found in Final Fantasy V

Blue Dragon isn't a bad sounding game, but Nobuo Uematsu has certainly done better. For the most part, what you get in terms of music is actually pretty good, though you won't find yourself humming most of it any time soon. As I said earlier, the voice acting isn't so bad, but there are some moments when it can be pretty annoying.

Blue Dragon is by no means a bad game. It's just a game that didn't reach as high as it could. It sticks to simplicity and basics. Basic storyline and basic characters. Certainly that's not always a bad thing, but in this day and age, no RPG can survive on gameplay alone. It needs a good story and good character development. Both of these things, Blue Dragon lacks.

Pros:

+Some nice visuals
+Simple gameplay elements
+Battles encourage strategy
+No Random Encounters
+Job system allows for a lot of customization
+Great cutscenes with some decent voice acting

Cons:

-The story is not interesting
-The characters are nothing special, either
-The game is far too easy for veterans of the genre
-Dips in frame rate in battle are annoying

Suprisingly good

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 13 / 17
Date: October 01, 2007
Author: Amazon User

OK, I am not an anime fan. Not even a little. I tried Blue Dragon simply because I was jonesing for an RPG, and this was about all there was after Oblivion for the 360.

Well, much to my suprise, I ended-up thoroughly engrossed in the darn thing.

Since I have limited time, I'll do a short and sweet Pro/Con summary:

PROS:

Absolutely stellar graphics. It really seems like you are playing a Pixar movie at times. Colorful and inventive, Blue Dragon is a pleasure to look-at, and lets face it, that matters.

Very simple and intuitive interface. Almost everything you need to access for your inventory, stats, spells, etc are logically located in one, succinct menu, with the map in another. Very quick and easy. Makes you wonder why after 10+ years the otherwise excellent Resident Evil series can't figure this out.

The storyline is predictable silly, even juvenile, but it's done with enough charm and originality to more-or-less make up for it. Somehow, I still wanted to see what would happen next, and I am one cynical sod ;)

Tons of content. Lets face it, 60 bucks is a lot of dough, and I would usually shy away from buying a plotted game. Normally I rent them, as the replay value, at least for me is low. But this thing is so darn huge, that it will keep you playing for a month probably. At least as long as Oblivion from what I can tell.

Technically, the game seems nearly flawless. I have experienced no graphic gitches or frame-rate slowdowns at all.

Soundtrack. The score and incedental music is excellent, if not slightly incongruous. There's a main leitmotif that sounds almost exactly the same as the one from Godfather II. There's also a very cool uptempo original metal track from Deep Purple's Ian Gillan that plays during the boss fights. Cool track, except that I wish they had more than one in the game :/ I noticed a couple of teen reviewers noted the "cheese metal" boss-music. I found this pretty hilarious. They are playing a game that looks like a carebears cartoon, what do they want, Slayer? The song that's there is heavy and fast enough to fit the action, without being out-of-place.

Cons: (These are largely subjective)

Frustrating content decisions. Although I haven't quite finished the game yet, (I'm on disc 3) so far this has been an almost entirely innocent and innocuous game, that I would highly recommend for any child. The gameworld is whimsical and charming, without the slightest hint of "adult content", with the bizarre addition of the occasional use of the word "b*stard". Now stop me if this doesn't seem weird to you, but why on earth would they have these cuddly, carebear-like charcters suddenly feel the need to yell that? It's not only unintentionly funny to an adult, (picture a lady smurf suddenly flipping-up their shirt for no reason)but it's keeping me from letting my 9-year old play a game that ordinarily would be fine. Like the game would be less fun if they didn't say "b*stard" a few times per disc. Just seems like a stupid business decision. "Hey! Let's limit millions of potential little-kid buyers from spending their 60 bucks so we can cuss a few times! They make a good, cute, kiddie game, then make it off-limits for much of their target audience. Weird. Glad they aren't handling my mutual fund.

Repetiton. Any long-time fan of Japanese console RPG's is used to the somewhat repetitive combat, so it won't be news to you, but to any people more used-to western-style combat, fighting essentially the same battle 10,000 times can stretch your patience. After 20 hours or so of play, I found myself running past most of the mobs just so I wouldn't have to battle anymore. Although to be fair, they did add more depth and strategy to the fighting than normal, otherwise, i would have started avoiding the fights much sooner :)

Overall, highly recommended.

A poo-blackened, shining example of "childish" done wrong.

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 19 / 33
Date: September 04, 2007
Author: Amazon User

"Nene tries to use his power to make others do whatever he wants them to. People like that are no good!" exclaims some character at some point of this story. It's hard to tell which character, because any of them could have said that. Instead of differentiating the characters subtly, Sakaguchi and Toriyama have designed a game with characters whose personalities are differentiated according to nothing but personal quirks: Shu and Maro are overzealous, Zola is sultry, etc. Blue Dragon has somehow managed to achieve a T rating while employing a form of storytelling that would insult the intelligence of players far below the recommended age range for the game. It is often said that in order to appreciate Blue Dragon, one must be familiar with "old-school" JRPGs. I am, but that doesn't make the story or characters any more interesting.

In terms of gameplay conventions, Blue Dragon is anything but old-school, and that is one of the game's huge pluses. Enemies can be avoided on the field screen, your party can fight multi-round battles by challenging several enemies simultaneously, and items are mostly scavenged for rather than being irrationally dropped by defeated monsters. All of the characters can use all of the abilities in battle, once trained properly, and there are several action sequences mixed into the gameplay. None of these elements suggest that Blue Dragon's design is anything other than hyper-modern, and the "old school" pretense seems to be nothing other than an excuse for consistently employing sloppy, dull narrative.

Blue Dragon is quite fun to play. The graphics are consistently excellent, and although there is no noticeable slowdown per se, the entire game seems to run about 20% slower than it would if the motions depicted in the animations were animated fluidly. This seems to suggest that the developers decided to slow down the entire game, to keep the slowdown created by technically-demanding areas from becoming noticeable. The fun gameplay of Blue Dragon would be all the more enjoyable if everything was sped up by 20%, with a proportionate framerate increase, rather than frame-skipping, to preserve the fluidity of the motions. The XBox 360 was clearly designed to be able to polygon-push more than fast enough to achieve this.

Nobuo Uematsu's score for this game is surprisingly good, and the piano track played at ruined Talta Village, for example, exceeds the quality of most of his work for the Final Fantasy series. I don't care much for the musica machina motif that runs throughout this game's score, but it is appropriate for the large number of metal complexes and robot fight scenes. It's hard to recommend a game like this entirely for its soundtrack, when it's so easy to get the music seperately, and when during the play of the game, 10% of the music fills up 90% of the playtime. The vocal tracks are great, especially the epic final battle theme, which subtly pays homage to a similar track from Final Fantasy VII.

This is basically the best-looking JRPG ever, by virtue of the fact that it's the first large-budget JRPG to appear on a current-gen console. But even this honor can seem underwhelming at times, since the degree of graphical improvement this game offers over some of the better-looking PS2 RPGs is nowhere near the degree of graphical improvement historically offered several times by Squaresoft, whenever it bested its previously most graphically-advanced JRPG. The art design for some of Blue Dragon's locations, such as Pachess Town and Wither Village, is incredibly beautiful, while the remainder of the locations appear to be heavily copied and pasted together.

I would give this game 2.5 stars really, but I've rounded up to 3, because of Uematsu's great musical contribution. For an example of a good video game featuring blatantly childish design, check out Lunar: Silver Star Story. That game comes from the Blue Dragon school of design, but adds a lot of flavor to the formula, and would certainly be remake-worthy on a current-gen console.

Overrated and overshadows more deserving titles.

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 8 / 11
Date: January 15, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I know no one's going to agree with me and I'm probably going to end up having something like "1/300 people found this review helpful," but I couldn't live with myself if I didn't even make some attempt at trying to tell you why I think this game is terrible.

Okay, it's not the worst game ever. It could even be good, depending entirely and solely on your personal taste in games. If you like:

Simplistic storyline
Anime style visuals
Anime style voice acting

Then you might like this game. However, the visuals and voice acting isn't cutsie-anime, like Eternal Sonata is, instead it's much more generic. One of the characters is modeled after Gohan, one character is voiced by Garaa of the American anime. How much more generic can you ask for?

The story goes little beyond some kids acting tough around each other and trying to save the world. Come on, Shu, you can do it! And that Gohan guy always seems to have an eternally angry face, rarely if ever having a facial expression change. Kill the landshark, go on a grand adventure... There's very little depth from what I saw.

The only reason I give this game a 2 instead of a 1 is the battle system is decent. It's very slightly like Xenosaga in that you walk on the map and can either head straight on into a fight, or attempt to walk around them and avoid, but you engage them instead by basically getting in range, then opening up a menu and selecting to fight - which is a lot more work I want to ask for.

Another thing that bothered me about this game is that, as mentioned in the title, it overshadows games that are way better. Enchanted Arms is better in almost every conceivably possible way. It has a storyline that goes into great depth that emphasize on the importance of the characters, not because they are legendary chosen stupid generic heroes, but because they each have their own deeply explained backgrounds that tie them into being motivated to wanting to save their kidnapped, lost friends - but being unable to. Blue Dragon, however, has none of that depth in storyline nor character personalities, yet somehow everyone who owns an Xbox 360 loves the Hell out of this game way over EA. I honestly can't understand why.

Good Fun, but needs more content for leveling up

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 5 / 5
Date: October 20, 2007
Author: Amazon User

My son and I have been playing this game together and have really been enjoying it. He's almost 9, and yes, they say the word bastard a few times, but he's so engrossed in the storyline that it hasn't been an issue at all.

The game itself has been quite fun (we aren't done yet, currently on disc 3). The only problem is that we are up to boss fights now, but our levels are suddenly not near high enough. So now we are just putzing around grinding levels. I have WoW for that =P It's much more fun to follow a storyline than grind, especially in this game, so I wish they had planned out the leveling better.

Other than that no complaints.

Engaging fun

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 6 / 7
Date: September 06, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Blue Dragon has a simple story line, straightforward characters and a great system for skills and advancement. You can customize the character pretty nicely with this system, making it seem that you have more control over them than is typical. I have enjoyed it quite a bit, and would put it up against the Final Fantasy games any day, though from what I read the FF snobs are disagreeing. While I understand the complaints about the characters being flat, I have yet to see a console JRPG game where they weren't so perhaps expectations are a little off. The one disappointment to me is the music, there is some sort of 80s hair band metal that plays through many scenes and it is completely out of place.

All Star Lineup

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 6 / 11
Date: February 16, 2008
Author: Amazon User

The first game by Mistwalker Studios, the new project of Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi, Blue Dragon also features art by Dragonball/Dragon Quest artist Akira Toriyama and music by Final Fantasy composer Nobuo Uematsu. Does this all-star lineup lead for a quality game?

The story's main character is Shu, a young boy from a remote village. Every year, the village is attacked by a massive "land shark". One year, Shu and his friends decide to attack the land shark to avenge those it killed. Catching onto it as it tries to flee, they find a cavern full of ancient machines. The land shark turns out to be the fin of a great airship, which carries them up to a sky fortress. The story's villain, Nene, reveals himself and indicates that he had the land shark attack the village to amuse himself. The heroes are quickly defeated by him and removed from the ship, but an unknown benefactor carries them back up to the ship and grants them each a power hidden in their shadows. The friends work their way through the world, trying to gain strength and find allies to fight against Nene.

The game plays like almost any other RPG, with the same hit points, magic points, and turn-based system found in so many other games. There's a couple things that set Blue Dragon apart, though. Firstly, there are no "random" battles - like a few other games, Blue Dragon has enemies that appear on the map and can be avoided or pre-emptively attacked (or you can get attacked, too). Blue Dragon's main innovation in this part is that you can corral your enemies together in a radius around you before you start a battle, or specifically choose only one enemy when you are surrounded by a multitude. The main purpose of this is that sometimes enemies will fight each other - usually the strong preying on the weak - which means that you can level the playing field by finding monsters that dislike each other and grouping them together so that they fight amongst themselves.

In the battles themselves, Blue Dragon's main feature is the charge system - certain spells and attacks have a bar that, if stopped when they're full or close to full, do more damage but take longer to cast (whereas if it is empty or close to empty it takes less time but does less damage). There is also a class system, but rather than the characters the classes are assigned to the characters' shadows - the giant creatures that fight for them. These classes are nothing special - the usual mix of fighters and mages. There are different spells that can be bought at stores throughout the game.

The graphics in the game are really nice - they're in a smooth, non-gritty style appropriate for Toriyama's artwork. Everything feels "right" - the effects, characters, and environments all seem appropriate, and none of them have the problem that some games have where they feel too artificial. The designs in the game are definitely Akira Toriyama's style, the characters and airships especially are reminiscent of his designs in the original Dragonball.

The sound is nice - as expected of Nobuo Uematsu - but not really exceptional in any way. There were no songs that made me really take notice of them. During some boss fights, there are rock-and-roll type songs with actual singers and lyrics, which was pretty neat. There is voice acting in English, French, and Japanese, which is a pretty wide choice for such an expansive game. Each seemed to be pretty decent in quality, though none of it really stood out as being particularly well-acted.

As a whole, this game is "more of the same" for RPGs. It's good, but it's not different. If you like traditional RPG gameplay, then that's great, but it doesn't bring enough to the table to really distinguish itself. By itself, though, it's a pretty solid package.

8/10.

Amazing... Wake Up People...

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 6
Date: September 07, 2007
Author: Amazon User

If you own a 360, you've probably heard of the Japanese style RPG, Blue Dragon. Just to give you a high level overview of the game, it was created by the originator of the Final Fantasy series, Hironobu Sakaguchi. The character design was by Akira Toriyama (think Dragon Ball Z). The soundtrack is by Nobuo Uematsu (who worked on the RPG projects of Final Fantasy, Chrono Trigger, etc). Pretty much a superstar line-up of this genre.

The game has received "average" to "good" reviews, but I'm telling you people this is a very good if not great game. Not a perfect, not a classic, but the next best thing. Western RPGs are the flavor most US gamers seek who are fans of the RPG genre, and as I love both Western and Japanese styles, I tend to be more in favor of the turn-based RPGs (such as Blue Dragon).

The game has so much to offer. Don't let the cartoon type characters and environment turn you off, this game can be appealing to anyone. The storyline is described as "weak" and "simplistic" by some US reviews, but that's b/c the storyline is not as abstract as many RPGs today. The storyline is somewhat simple, but it's very heart-warming and unique in its own right. The storyline fits the game perfectly.

There's more than 75 hours of game-play, and even more if you want to unlock the Achievements. I'm thinking the ones who reviewed Blue Dragon did not play through the entire game, hence the "average" to "good" scores. If you play enough (I'm at 11 hours) you'll easily become enchanted in the story.

The battle system is superb. Very innovating to the genre. I'd also like to highlight to soundtrack - it's simply flawless.

Just wanted to share!

skip it

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 6 / 12
Date: August 30, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Blue Dragon is not a game that is going to elicit a strong reaction from you. It's not terrible, or particularly great or memorable, so the most remarkable thing about it is how unremarkable it is. It's big: three DVDs big, thanks to loads of cutscenes and voice clips. But it isn't grand and sweeping, and it isn't particularly charming, either. Blue Dragon is simply "there." If you wanted to play a Japanese role-playing game on your Xbox 360, this will get the job done. If you wanted to play something that makes an impact, you'll need to keep waiting.

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