Blue Dragon for Xbox 360

The highly hyped Blue Dragon represents probably one of the rare full-on returns to classic RPG gaming. While Enchanted Arms is actually 360's true first RPG, most purists have dismissed that game because of its somewhat last generation development.

Blue Dragon has a couple of big things going for in its production values. For one, you've got Akira Toriyama of the famed Dragon Ball series giving his character designs. You've got Hiranobu Sagaguchi, one of the creators of the Final Fantasy series as a game designer. Finally you've got one of the best game composers ever, Nobuo Uematsu of the Chrono Trigger and FFVIII fame.

That said, Blue Dragon has gotten rather lofty expectations, and the earliest review given by IGN has been a somewhat in-between 7.9. For the most part, the general consensus online is that this is an 8 game.

I'd love to deviate from the norm, but the fact of the matter is, Blue Dragon is exactly that. It's an 8 game. While, it's got top notch production values, an amazing world, and clearly a lot of careful work put into it by those big names I mentioned before, it sometimes can be just one way too sorry old-school styled game. In today's ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder- if this doesn't come clear for you) generation, you just can't make games based on intensive dungeon crawl and linearity, no matter how good you are at it.

Graphics – Amazing but why so many FMV Cutscenes!?!

One thing you'll notice about the daunting Blue Dragon is that it takes place on 3 DVDs. For a game to take up 3 DVDs of content, puts this game along the lines of 16 CDs or 4 FFVIIs…and the fact of the matter, the only way games get this big is if you have lots of recorded video data.

How does a game get so bloated? You put FMVs every chance you get and into every little corridor you walk into. Rather than relying on in-game engine renders, Blue Dragon goes the somewhat "old school" style of Final Fantasy games (especially VII to IX) and uses lots and lots of FMVs. The cool bit is that they are almost perfectly seamless between normal in-game renders so for a lot of cases you will barely be able to tell. The real question though is why on earth did they choose to use so much FMV?

The graphics are hands down amazing when you do get a chance to appreciate them. Some times the dungeons get a bit plain looking and unnecessarily large. Camera angles are not always the best, and occasionally frame-rate hiccups from far too many on-screen enemies are a bit of a pain.

However, when it comes down to rich detailed worlds though, wander into any town and you will be greeted with an extremely beautiful level of detail and amazing use of 360 hardware. This game easily tops as one of the 360's current best visual offerings.

I'm not a fan of Toriyama's character designs to be blatantly honest. Blue Dragon's overly cartoony appearance does not appeal to me and comes off a touch too childish. It also in part hurts the dialog when you've got what seem to be twelve year old kids wandering about rather than the more common teenage / YA protagonist you'll see in other RPGs.

Gameplay – Old School Level grinding and Lots and Lots of Stuff.

If you remember the job system in Final Fantasy III or V, Blue Dragon kind of makes a big return to that. You get to choose classes for each of your characters, and how they develop in these classes in part determines their stats and what skills they acquire. You can then mix and match skills to customize your character, giving them different abilities and magic to use.

Blue Dragon is a world replete with vast dungeons, the type that start to look way too similar after a while. Dungeons are filled to the brim with constantly spawning enemies, and the enemy encounter mode is similar to that of Chrono Trigger or FFXII. This is a huge plus as for the most part you don't have to fight enemies if you don't want to.

If you do choose to initiate combat, or you get plugged in the back by an unsuspecting bad guy, battle starts and thankfully the load time is rather bearable given the high amount of battles you'll be going through in this game. The main problem though is that Blue Dragon's overall battle system is just far too "old school" for my tastes. It plays a lot of like the Dragon Quest games; it's purely turn-based with no surprises, and often times you'll probably find yourself rapidly hitting A until the battle is over, with the exception of the bosses.

The real hurting bits end up being that Blue Dragon does require moderate level grinding and has the extreme problem of "too much stuff out there". You can search almost EVERY freaking thing you see in a dungeon. That means the innocuous looking rock or dead tree stump can hold anything from 10 gold, to a more useful item such as mega medicine, or even a rare accessory you might not be able to buy for another two hours in the game. It is very important to look for stuff because even if you turn up with "nothing", the game actually records the "nothing"s you collect because later on because they too can be redeemed into precious items that you could never get otherwise.

What does this mean? Expect nearly OCD dungeon mapping that takes hours and hours if you are looking for a complete experience. I personally am not a fan of this, so while I do my best to search every corner, sometimes the game has you trying to search every rock, vent, pipe out there and it's almost too much for its own good. Rewards are nice for those who plan on going the extra mile, but sometimes having amazing rewards among the stash makes item-finding a mandatory task.

Finally don't expect flashy battles with a lot of animation or anything. As I've mentioned before, it's a lot like Dragon Quest. You'll fight identical hordes of enemies in groups of two to four. Occasionally you can mix up these hordes by purposely engaging mixed groups, but for the most part, expect clone wars all the way. Battle animations involve kind of boring punches, and the dramatic camera angle for the finishing shot just gets plain tiring after your hundredth battle (which comes way too early on). Most battles are short and will run you 10-15 seconds of A-button tapping.

The boss battles in this game for the most part actually are fairly hard and require some careful pre-battle setup to win. A lot of what you do during battle is kind of futile. If you're characters aren't set up right, the amount of strategy is somewhat limited and you will die. Ultimately what wins battles is a keen attention of knowing how many casters you need, who your tank is going to be, your skill sets and how well buffed up you've gotten your characters.

Plot – Same old rag tag group of kids off to save the world, except for the weird monster who wears a pot on his head.

I don't really pay attention to names of game characters, and so I'm not going to bother with them. Blue Dragon's plot has you going from one crazy adventure to the next, and develops slowly--- expect more than a few hours before you'll finally get what's happening. Still, it's nothing new in the mix of things, you've got your creepy wrinkly alien guy trying to wreak havoc on the world, a bunch of kids from a town, with a poor emo girl whose parents have died, a head-strong impulsive "naruto-like" boy for the main protagonist, and this sort of reserved dorky caster boy to round it all off. The annoying pot-wearing monster-creature thing is more some kind of comedy relief that isn't too funny, and later on you'll add on, Zola, whom I believe is a pirate chick.

Again, with plot Blue Dragon doesn't turn any new punches, but it is very entertaining and filled with cut scenes to move things along. In my opinion, it has the entertainment value of a B+ anime. The dialog comes off a bit flat and childish at times, and for the most part it is an event driven game, where the characters take a backseat in terms of plot development. If things magically improve by the time I'm up to disc 2 or 3 I'll be sure to update this review.

Sounds – Music is great except for that weird rock-theme song during boss fights

The music is really really good and in every way echoes of the wistful and epic soundtrack I'd expect from the amazing Uematsu. The thing that hurts the most is the boss music, which is this horribly cheesy weird rock music with actual words…I'm not really sure who came up with this, but you'll notice it every time you fight a boss and for some odd reason it's always the same.

Beyond that though, music is top-notch, sound effects are amazing, and the only thing I really have to gripe with is the dubbing. Nasally, whiny little kid-voices are kind of unbearable and the dialog just doesn't work the same way as they would in the original Japanese.

Conclusion

Blue Dragon represents probably the best of RPGs on the 360 but only because it is one of the only Japanese-produced RPG offerings available. For most RPG-diehards you will probably enjoy this game. For the slightly more casual gamer, you might have to tolerate the somewhat large dungeon crawl (I actually watch TV shows such as Heroes while I level grind because it bores me), and it might not come off as fun. I think Blue Dragon at times can be mindlessly repetitive I wonder why I even play. If anything I often times hope on stumbling into the next FMV to see where my characters will end up next. Towns are my favorite parts, since they offer you a chance to run around on your own.

Blue Dragon is a worthwhile purchase since you do get a lot of bang for your buck but I do hold back a bit. It is plain and simple, has lots of level grind, and all in all offers nothing new under the sun. If you've got the patience and persistence of a twelve year old, this game I think is awesome. If you're more adjusted to today's faster pace games, this might be a bit too slow for your tastes. One thing is true though is that Blue Dragon definitely should hold you off for a solid 50 hours and I'll be sure to post my final play time as soon as I finish it. Recommended with reservations.