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Blue Dragon |
by Guest
7/24/2007 |
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“Blue Dragon is a Spectacular Spectacular!”
Review by: Carlo Carrasco
So much has changed for the Xbox brand since February 24, 2005. That was the day when the world first learned that Japanese gaming legend Hironobu Sakaguchi (creator of Final Fantasy and formerly one of Square Enix’s most successful producers) would be making two next generation games for Microsoft. Currently these are role-playing games (RPGs) meant for the Xbox 360, and one of them has finally been released to the delight of English-literate gamers in the East.
That game is Blue Dragon and this version I’m reviewing is the 2nd Asian region release, now packed with full English text/subtitles as well as Japanese and Korean voiceovers. As it turned out, Blue Dragon is a heavyweight joint collaboration between Microsoft (publisher), Mistwalker (Sakaguchi’s studio), Artoon (game development and coding), Akira Toriyama (Dragon Ball Z creator and character designer) and Nobuo Uematsu (musician responsible for Final Fantasy soundtracks). With their combined efforts, I myself had pretty high expectations for this game and for two years I have waited. Let’s not forget that Sakaguchi and Toriyama worked together in the classic Chrono Trigger.
Here’s a short preview. The story begins when a purple cloud hounds a peaceful village, followed by destruction caused by what the villagers called a Land Shark. With this menace disturbing the peace, a brave teenager named Shu daringly challenges the shark with the aid of his neighbor Jiro. As they execute their plan to trap the monster, another teenager named Kluke joins in. After discovering what the land shark really is, the three learn that a greater force of evil exists and not only is their village in danger, but so is their world. With the situation at hand, Shu, Jiro and Kluke are compelled to take the quest of a lifetime, and what follows next is a rich chain of characters, cultures, and many tales.
Written by Sakaguchi, Blue Dragon’s plot is told in a simplistic, yet fulfilling fashion. The story does not revolve around a love plot (can you say Final Fantasy VIII?) nor does it relate to some abusive business company seeking to squeeze natural life to feed its greed (Final Fantasy VII). Also there’s no political strife between two nations (Final Fantasy XII). Instead, the story revolves around a group of friends who seek to protect the world they live in. The antagonist is named Nene, who looks kinda like Star Wars’ Yoda. Not only does he seek power, he also wants to revive magic, open some ancient secrets and reshape the world at the expense of lives.
As Blue Dragon is told through the viewpoints of the main characters (the first three are teenagers, not children despite their look), character development is pretty deep and by the time you reach the 2nd disc (this game has three DVDs), you’ll be able to relate with the characters and even care about them. The human touch of the script is well supported by the nice voice acting. Let’s not forget that touches of humor, drama and even a little romance spice up the narrative without messing the epic story.
Gameplay-wise, Blue Dragon is a turn-based RPG filled with the usual commands like attacking, magic, formation and item use. If you think that the turn-based nature of the game would make it play sluggishly, you are wrong. In fact, the engine is pretty fast-paced and selecting actions, magic spells (based on the elements) and items can be easily done. You can fight many battles is arguably lesser time compared to other RPGs. Oh yeah, each character has his/her own magical shadow, which helps them fight enemies along the way. Early on, Shu, Jiro and Kluke themselves do the action when fighting but once they get the shadows, they don’t need to run up close to the enemy to attack as the shadow does it for them with great reach and power.
Remember those Materia Break battle options in Final Fantasy VII (once your character receives a certain amount of damage, he/she/it would be able to execute a spectacular attack)? That feature is present in Blue Dragon, and it’s called the Corporeal. It comes in rather late in the game but it truly is worth waiting for. Once a Corporeal is executed, you will witness a spectacular display of animation and special effects that really pushed the Xbox 360’s processing power. The sequences looked like pre-rendered movies but in reality they are executed in real time.
Exploring the world is almost hassle-free. There are no random battles here, which is a great relief. Instead, you will see images of individual monsters roaming around the map or area, and you have the freedom to choose whether to fight or avoid them. Though they look individual, they normally represent groups. If you engage them from behind, the battle will begin with a first-strike advantage for your party. And if you want to level up your party, you can engage multiple groups of enemies by using the Ring Tool on the map. For example, there are three monster images that are caught within the ring, and if you press the battle option, a battle will begin with the first of three monster groups to fight with. As soon as that group is finished, another one will come in. In essence, getting multiple enemies within the ring would make a longer-lasting battle, not to mention a chance to gain much higher experience points and treasure. Since the battle engine is fast-paced, the battles never dragged.
As you make your way through the game, you will encounter a wide variety of monsters, some of which could surprise you. This makes battles feel more lively and in my experience, there never was a boring or dragging moment. I almost forgot, in this game you get to build your party up to as many as five members. That’s right, five members! Fighting a battle using five members can add great variety to the action, yet at the same time it never gets confusing. By comparison, Final Fantasy VII allowed only up to three party members for exploration and battle.
Aside from the constant battle play, Mistwalker added some nice gameplay segments that will give gamers a much needed break. For instance, there are these first-person shooting sequences wherein you’ll be controlling the turret of your airship-like vehicle, shooting at your flying enemies. There are also a few quick-time events that will remind you so much of Resident Evil 4.
While exploring, there are many objects that are interactive. From rocks to plants to cabinets and wagons, you’ll find many various things like gold, medicine and even equipment. In short, be sure to check out these things as you explore. Not only that, around the world there are multiple treasure chests waiting to be opened. Some of them are covered with colored barriers, which you can only open later once you have the items needed to remove them. Another thing, talking with NPCs (non-playable characters) is fun as you learn some tales, advices, tips and the like. If try talking with the locals of a kingdom in the game, you’ll really learn a lot of things!
As with other RPGs, Blue Dragon also has side quests that will handsomely reward you with very useful items. There will be many bosses (unrelated to the main quest) that you will find quite challenging to beat. One particular side quest leads you to a paradise-like location where there lots of monsters that will reward you a lot of experience points.
Customizing your characters here is similar to what we’ve seen in Final Fantasy. In this game, there is this Accessory system wherein you can choose what type of bracelet, necklace, earring and shoes your character could wear, each with specific effects on the attributes. Customizing magic spells and skills is also evident. You can train your character to be proficient with black magic, another character with swordmaster, another with white magic, another with generalist magic and so on. Aside from character attributes, there are also level-ups for magic use and the higher you go, the more powerful spells you gain. Aside from the typical black and white magic skills, I recommend training each character with the generalist skill as it enables them to carry more accessories.
If you love graphics, Blue Dragon will impress you big time. Using anime-like 3-D characters, thanks to the work of Akira Toriyama, the game’s graphics easily rivals what we have seen in movies such as Toy Story and Shrek. The characters animate very lively and their human expressions are nice to see. There are a few quirky expressions here and there, but they never get overwhelmingly annoying compared to other RPGs. Blue Dragon takes great advantage of the 360’s processing power when it comes to textures, lighting effects, animation and more. With its unique design, the whole world in the game looks very detailed right from the start, and it only gets more detailed later. Don’t expect to see Gears of War-style textures or Oblivion-like environments. Blue Dragon features a different art style, one that appeals to people who like anime (think Hayao Miyazaki’s Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, or Toiryama’s own Dragon Ball Z) or those CGI Hollywood blockbusters. Blue Dragon’s world has a cute appeal to it. Let me add that the water effects here are astounding to watch, and if you thought you’ll only see them on lakes or waterfalls, wait until you see the ocean!
For the storytelling, the game uses both in-game and pre-rendered cut scenes. And you know what? The difference in quality between real-time and pre-rendered is almost identical and the transition between them is seamless. Remember how different your characters looked in real-time and in pre-rendered cut scenes in Final Fantasy VII and VIII? Blue Dragon does not have the graphical imbalances of those games, which was expected since the Xbox 360’s resources are highly advanced, enabling Sakaguchi and his team to maintain the graphical quality needed. For the most part, the cut scenes are rendered in real-time and wow, they look great and make me proud of my console!
As far as the audio goes, I must say that Nobuo Uematsu’s music really gave the game’s presentation a lot of life, much like John Williams providing the expressions to Star Wars and Indiana Jones film series. There is a nice mix of orchestrated tunes, rock music and even techno tunes, not to mention some Final Fantasy sound-a-likes. The weakest link however is the one particular rock song that gets played in almost every boss (or sub-boss) battle. It’s just annoying to hear this singer going “This is the beginning…” with not-so-smooth English. What can I say about the catchy Blue Dragon theme music? It’s wonderful to listen to and each time it played, I turned up the volume. As mentioned earlier, the voice acting is dramatic enough and you can feel the emotions of the characters.
Flaws of the game? I must admit that this release I’m reviewing lacked difficulty for the most part. I’ll just say it, if your party members have a character level average of 80 and above, you’ll have lesser problems finishing the game. I heard that in Japan, a patch was released by Microsoft to beef up the game’s difficulty. This particular flaw is not in any way fatal but it will surprise gamers seeking big challenges. Even though it was fairly easy, it still took me almost fifty hours to finish it. Other flaws? Screen tearing is present, though not as bad as that of Saints Row.
Conclusion
With over a year’s worth of development combined with the talents of great Japanese creators, Blue Dragon is truly an epic role-playing game that will entertain you, touch you and leave you amazed. It is very clear that Microsoft’s alliance with Sakaguchi-san was the right move after all and considering the greatness of this game, the absences Square Enix’s Final Fantasy (main games specifically) or Dragon Quest games on the 360 does not really hurt anymore. As long as they work with Sakaguchi, Microsoft itself can become an RPG-publishing powerhouse. Blue Dragon might as well be their answer to Square-Enix’s Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest. With such an excellent game, I think it would be wise to build this one up into a franchise.
Blue Dragon by the way, brought back to me that long lost sense of great RPG adventuring as well as fond memories of Final Fantasy IV, V and VI (two of them directed by Sakaguchi). The adventure in this game is simply unforgettable backed with engaging storytelling, plus the characters are very believable. You got a brave lad in Shu, a concerned guy named Jiro, a disturbed young lady named Kluke and more! Unlike certain popular RPGs, Blue Dragon has a strong fantasy setting that never gets overwhelmed by technological and sci-fi elements. Last but not least, as you discover more of the world and its inhabitants, you will really feel their pulse and concern regarding Nene’s threat against them. The believability of Blue Dragon’s story is solid!
The North American release of Blue Dragon is all set for August 28, 2007, and unlike this version I played, that one will come with English voiceovers. With the excellent gameplay and presentation, I highly recommend Blue Dragon to each and every gamer reading this. Don’t hesitate, do it! Blue Dragon is easily one of the best next-gen games available as well as one of the greatest RPGs of all time.
Game Score: 9.4/10 (94%)
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The
Heckler
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No offence, but before I even read the review, I knew you guys would give it a high score.
This is xbox365 afterall.
/remembers PDZ review.
/shudders.
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Mad Gamer 2
X365 Member
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Personally this game seems to be shaping up to be another DragonQuest-esque game. And that is by no means no insult, as DragonQuest is a solid PS2 RPG. I am looking forward to it actually.
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sepiroth6
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That was a awesome review,and i have also played through the asian version and what you guys wrote perfectly sums up the game.
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I'm sooooooo getting this game! thx for the headsup and info carlo - nice review
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