Blue Dragon | 
| From: Microsoft
Category: Video Games
List Price: $19.99
Buy Used: $15.00
You Save: $4.99 (25%)
New (38) Used (10) from $15.00
Rating:  33 reviews
Sales Rank: 851
Platform: Xbox 360
Genre: role_playing_games
ESRB: Teen
Media: Video Game
Autographed: No
Memorabilia: No
Batteries Included: No
Age: 12 - 20 years
Operating System: Xbox 360
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5.4 x 0.6
MPN: A7J005
Model: A7J-00005
UPC: 882224465038
EAN: 0882224465038
ASIN: B000QW9D14
Release Date: August 28, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Features:
| • | Innovative RPG gameplay features | | • | Massive scope and engrossing environments | | • | Stunning graphics | | • | Dazzling character design and effects | | • | Famed developer: Mistwalker is a creative company founded by Hironobu Sakaguchi, the original developer of Final Fantasy |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
Blue Dragon is an epic role-playing game that centers on a young boy named Shu and several of his friends. These unlikely heroes possess the power to control phantom shadows that mirror the actions of their masters, giving Shu and his comrades miraculous strength and magical powers. The warriors can create and develop their combat styles by utilizing different types of Shadow Change, including Sword, Assassin, and Power Magic. Shu and his friends must use the shadows as weapons and wield their skills to save their world from impending doom. Encountering various people on a planet where numerous ancient ruins remain, the characters and their shadows travel through a world full of mysteries and illusions, where the slightest touch can cause reactions of unparalleled magnitude.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 28 more reviews...
 A poo-blackened, shining example of "childish" done wrong. September 4, 2007
Raphael Zimmerman (Prescott, AZ USA)
19 out of 33 found this review helpful
"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.
Suprisingly good October 1, 2007
pattic (NY United States)
13 out of 17 found this review helpful
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.
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