Blue Dragon – Review

If you’re a Role Playing Game enthusiast, you probably adore the Playstation 2 as many of the best RPG games have been released on this console. Of course the Gamecube also delivered some quality RPG’s but what about the Xbox? It was about time that someone took action and started to develop the Xbox360 RPG Blue Dragon. Thankfully, the individual who took up the challenge wasn’t just anyone, it was none of than the Final Fantasy series originator Hironobu Sakaguchi. He was in charge of writing the scenario and supervising the development of Blue Dragon. Having someone of this calibre on board of course means there’s the mandatory hype to come along with it, but can Blue Dragon match my high expectations?

Let’s take a look at the story as it’s one of the most important factors in determining whether you keep on playing, as we all want to know the ending. Each year for the past ten years, purple clouds would appear bringing disaster to people around the world. In particular it affects Shu, Kluke and Jiro’s little village and they’re completely fed up with it. When the village is attacked again they start to fight back against the fiend that appears to kill the people! However, they discover that it is a strange machine with enormous strength. Even though it has been damaged a little by their actions, it goes back to a flagship with the three still hanging tight onto it. There they encounter constant attacks from metal soldiers and after getting “familiar” with the soldiers, it’s time to fight the ship’s captain, Nene. The heroes discover that Nene is responsible for the yearly attacks on their town, fuelling their dislike of him of course. Without much trouble, he defeats the trio, and they barely make it to an escape capsule. It is then that a female voice advices them to swallow the light spheres although each parent teaches their child not to take or eat something from a stranger. Anyway when they do, they discover their shadows grow into monsters (in a positive way). Kluke’s becomes a blue phoenix, Jiro’s a blue Minotaur and Shu’s a blue dragon. After the remarkable discovery they then land far from home and must start a journey to find a way to save their land. Soon Shu, Kluke and Jiro are going to discover that more people from varied towns have also fallen victim to the purple clouds, and decide that they must try to stop Nene from continuing to bring destruction to their world. Are they capable? And how helpful are those monster shadows?

Blue Dragon is a typical Role Playing Game with a somewhat dated turn-based battle system. Remarkably enough it’s still enjoyable, easy to understand and it gives the player the time to think about the strategy and moves to beat the enemy (or do other things in between like going to get something to eat for example). With the trio of Shu, Kluke and Jiro, you’re going to hit the road but the characters are low skilled and not very strong. By encountering and fighting a lot of enemies along the way, the characters become stronger and stronger. This is called leveling up and increases their Health Points (HP), Magic Points(MP) and the ability to deal more damage to the enemy (attack mode increase). The basic rules are simple, whenever you cast a magic spell it’s going to cost MP’s and whenever the enemy attacks and successfully hits you, it’s going to cost HP’s. Normal attacks are less powerful than magic spells but aren’t restricted to any points and always usable. But there’s more! Remember those shadow monsters that appeared after swallowing the spheres? Well, those fellows know how to win a fight! By gathering Shadow Points (SP) each monster increases its power. Depending on which class you’ve chosen, the monsters’ rank increases and special abilities / spells become available for that class. Jiro for example is a born healer, Kluke can cast black magic and Shu is more the guy that uses brutal power. During the game you gain control over several skills and it’s up to you to change a characters’ class, but the set classes in the beginning of the game work perfectly during the game and there’s actually no need to change them. All in all you’ll have a balanced team with bundled special skills to beat any opponent.

So you’re ready to save the world from the evil Nene? It’s going to be quite an adventure with more than enough battles with enemies in all kind of shapes but you’re also going to meet some really nice people who appreciate your attitude and even help you in achieving your goal. The world contains open fields and little towns / camps. If you’re looking for enemies, simply walk out of a town or camp and enemies show up everywhere. They’re visible when you come near them and if you don’t want to fight just try to walk on by. But maybe it is wise to attack them first or sneakily attack them from behind, not only to level the characters but also to deal more damage and strike first. It is also possible to attack a whole group of enemies at once by creating a circle around you, assigning each enemy to the battle zone. A positive aspect is that after each enemy you can choose from several boosters for your character before battling the next opponent. It can increase the MP’s, HP’s, defence, give positive thoughts, etc. What’s even more fun is when a varied bunch of enemies is assigned and start a monster fight with you at the very same moment. Before they attack you, the stronger enemies are going to eat the weaker ones, so no need for you to take care of them anymore. The only disadvantage of these monster fights is that after it’s finished, no experience points will be added to your characters.

Besides enemies you also can find treasure chests with lots of useful items that can be used in future battles or sold in shops. Shops? Yes, ladies, shopping time! With gold you can buy items, magic spells and accessories to pump up your character. And gold … well you can find that not only in treasure chests in the open fields but almost everywhere! Kick a stone, touch a tree, inspect a barrel, open a closet and gold can become available. It seems that almost each object has something hidden inside, whether gold, an item or even a character booster (MP / HP / SP). Checking out each object can be quite time consuming and it truly stretched the gameplay in my case, as I had gold fever. Besides gold and items, there’s a hundred percent chance to find a warp device in each town which makes travelling a lot easier and quicker as you don’t have to walk over the fields and encounter enemies. There’s a lot of exploration to be done and another time consuming activity is talking to all the characters you’ll meet, but I simply love to chat and find out what people have to say.

You may think that Blue dragon is only about exploring environments, battling and levelling but that’s not quite true, although these are the main three gameplay ingredients. It really surprised me when the gameplay suddenly changed and I had to shoot down moons and airships in some first person shooter mini-games. There was also a platform mini-game where you need to jump in time by pushing the correct button combination. Sore fingers can become a problem when doors needs to be shut and you rapidly need to press the A button. The main gameplay though consists of exploration; find clues by talking to other characters, find special items such as keys and devices to remove any coloured barriers around areas, open treasure chests, find gold and items and fight fight fight!

When I was halfway through the game, about 30 hours, I was really enthusiastic about the game and drawn into the story. Fully willing to spend more time to help other towns getting rid of the evil spells that Nene had put on them. It was quite varied and as a RPG fan I understood that a lot of fighting had to be done to build up / level my characters. Glad to find some company in other towns and the group of main characters extended to a team of five characters. Marumaro, a strange little pumped up guy that acts like a big child (screaming, doing things without thinking or planning) and the powerful Lady Zola joined the club to add to their strength and eventually fight against Nene.

The game, and especially the character design, can look familiar as it’s designed by Akira Toriyama who is famous for Dragon Ball Z and Dragon Quest. But don’t expect to see any super flashy battles with shiny armour or huge cinematic battles. Blue Dragon has a clean cartoon style which easily can be compared with childish anime but please don’t get the impression that this is a kiddy game even when Shu looks like Goku! Most impressive were the battles with wall art figures that came alive – very artistic and impressive. Unfortunately that cannot be said about a lot of enemies / bosses, which seem to change little in design and power over and over again in the game. Accompanied with some sound tracks, battles can become fun, especially when you need to fight the bigger ones. Fun in the soundtrack also came from a kick back to the eighties when Iron Maiden and other hard rock singles got released. Nevertheless, the tune is very catchy and when it starts, you know that it ‘s time for some serious battling. Shame though that this particular soundtrack is used in each Boss fight, over and over again…

From a female point of view I should give all credit to Zola, even though she only comes into play later. Zola is a professional soldier in the employ of the king Jibral. She’s a believer in the absolute power of strength, and seeks to become more powerful as a means to an end. She joined Shu and the gang only because the king ordered her to help them. Zola keeps to herself and does not reveal her emotions – she remains a mysterious figure even to her party members. But her knowledge of the world, and experience as a mercenary, is a big help to the inexperienced Shu. Together with her Killer Bat shadow, a creature of the darkness, she certainly has the power to overcome any enemy and Marumaro who seems to have fallen in love with her. And talking about love … isn’t it Shu and Jiro who are trying to win Kluke’s heart? Kluke is a schoolmate of both Shu and Jiro, and lost her doctor parents. She hides her sadness well, but there are times when she will break down and cry when she is alone. She wants to become a doctor to help save lives, and seek revenge on Nene for causing the deaths of her parents. Besides these two main female characters, a female voice is going to guide you through the game, telling you when you passed a checkpoint, found gold or items and when your character is playable again after a cut-scene. Of course Kluke and Lady Zola have a voice of their own which can be heard during the cut-scenes.

Blue Dragon, admittedly I loved playing with you and you reminded me a little of my adventure with Skies of Arcadia (gamecube). It has a decent story, strong characters and a lot of charm, especially when it comes to the boys’ attempts to show their compassion and love for Kluke (or even Marumaro’s expression for Zola). I cannot agree with comments that it doesn’t look like a next-gen console game and that the RPG system seems retro. Actually the RPG system is easy to understand and the overall difficulty level is low which can be a plus especially for starters in this genre.

When I was about halfway through the game and had written this review I would have rated it with a 9. But by moving on I got the impression that the story was over the top and that the only gameplay was about fighting and building up your characters for the grand final. It became a somewhat repetitive fighting game and the thrill and motivation dropped even when the gameplay changed shortly to a first person shooter. Therefore the final rate dropped to an 8. Nevertheless an 8 is a great score for an excellent game that guarantees an enjoyable time with the Xbox360.

Review by Wencke
Thumb Bandits European Correspondent & manager of GGU.