Blue Dragon Reviews

[Sis]

A play footage (field + battle)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ww3i2icgEhQ

Wow, I got a Dragon Quest VIII vibe from that video, probably because of the music and the light-hearted enemy characters. Very cool...

 

[Dot50Cal]

Reminds me a lot of Earthbound (Mother) in the enemy designs. This IS coming to the US, right?

 

[ban25]

It actually looks evolved. From what I could make out from the videos there's some mechanic to eliminate the "fun" of grinding on low-level enemies, which is both new and welcome. Then of course the fighting by proxy. The differences may be subtle but it's enough to say that this isn't a direct copy of an established JRPG battle system.
We haven't really seen much in the way of interesting combat, but I'd give the guys the benefit of the doubt.

Actually, the 'fighting by proxy'/dragon aspect reminds me of Okage.

 

[PARANOiA]

First, very brief impressions at IGN: http://au.xbox360.ign.com/articles/749/749490p1.html

There's at least one strange quirks worth mentioning. Blue Dragon has short narrational voice messages that indicate when things happen to you. When someone joins your party, the narration says "Join Up." When an enemy spots you, the narration says "Detected." When the game switches from a cinema scene to a player controlled segment, the narration says "Playable." I'm not sure if I've ever seen this in a Japanese RPG before -- and with good reason, as it gets old real quick.

Hopefully this is just a whine... fingers crossed.

 

[Sankari]

Another video here: http://www.gametrailers.com/player.php?id=15458&type=mov

The game looks pretty good but this video was rather boring.

One sad thing I noticed was that Nobue has really gone low with this music. I can't believe he's the same guy who made all those great soundtracks for Final Fantasy.

EDIT: Or perhaps its just the guy singing in the background that really turns me off.

 

[pipo]

This IS coming to the US, right?

Yep.

 

[Tap In]

release day in Japan

 

[Acert93]

So this is the week MS sells 100k units in Japan? Based on the reviews and the rumors of lines maybe they should release BD every week of the year The real question is how many of these end up being ebayed in a couple weeks. I guess they have Enchant Arms, DoAX2, and... hmmm... a long wait unil LO, Trusty Bell, etc.

 

[scooby_dooby]

Impressions from duckroll@GAF

Okay, haven't quite hit the 4 hour mark yet, but I just finished a pretty long dungeon. The game's pretty good. It's VERY enjoyable, but not really ground breaking. It reminds me a lot of FFV in terms of story presentation and characters, and it makes me really happy. The areas and locations aren't that impressive visually at the moment, but the game is well paced and everything feels nice and proper. The game is still pretty in introduction mode as far as the story goes so it's hard to tell how much wider the game will open up (I'm guessing a hell lot).

Oldschool JRPG fans will be VERY happy with the game because it has tons of details for completist players. Each area and dungeon has tons of examinable spots and stuff that nets not just items and gold, but special exp, sp or stat bonuses as well (you get to choose which character gets it) so it really rewards exploration properly imo. Each area has gimmicks to play around with like pushing trees to create paths to chests, or light switches in the recent dungeon I was in.

Gameplay-wise the game is very well balanced so far. The game leans on the easy side (for now at least) but that's mostly if you decide to take advantage of the various little systems the game has. It's pretty much impossible to lose so far in the game as long as you're not retarded and hammering attack over and over. The game encourages you to exploit the available systems fully and when you do you won't feel the game is "easy" but instead you will find it fun.

In the world map field areas you can lure a stronger enemy group near a weaker one and initiate a concurrent encounter - if the two groups are compatible the stronger enemies will start eating the weaker ones, so you can finish just the stronger ones off and benefit from the entire encounter. When you pull this off there's a much higher chance for the enemies to drop poop (YES!) on the field after the encounter. You can choose to examine the poop or to discard it, but so far there are no disadvantages so I just examine all the poop and get extra gold! WOO HOO GOLDEN TURD!

The enemy groups are also all very well balanced for fun play instead of frustration. As you progress you'll find that there are many tricks that are usually quite obvious to making each battle easier, either through elemental attacks or by using enemies against each other. It feels more like you're solving puzzles (really easy puzzles though) sometimes than actually fighting an encounter.

There's also a good amount of customization you can do for your characters using the different categories. They're like jobs in FFV, with you gaining SP (Shadow Points) that rank up each category. At different ranks you will get new skills. These skills can then be equipped on your skill slots regardless of category, but each category has a basic skill that is only active when that category is equipped - this is usually the main active skill for that category like Black Magic, White Magic, etc.

There's quite a lot more to the game but it's impossible to cover in short impressions and those details don't really matter in the long run until you're actually playing it. Graphically the game looks pretty good, if a little plain. It looks really pretty in HD and does resemble a Pixar movie most of the time, but there is a feeling that sometimes the enviroments are just a little too bare. Otherwise the details are really good and Toriyama's humor and style is pretty much all over the game.

As for what makes it feel like Chrono Trigger, as I said, it's not VERY similar in any way, but the entire setting with a young energetic cast of characters trying to stop an evil they do not really understand while exploring ancient ruins and lost ancient technology is very similar. The fact that Toriyama's designs are all over just adds to the flavor of it.

That's all I've got at the moment, hope that clears up some thoughts! If you have more question feel free to ask!

 

[Bobbler]

This needs to hurry up and get to the states! =/

Sounds like a very solid JRPG with good production values, good art style (toriyama) and seemingly a decent amount of depth/secrets to it. As long as the story is consistant and somewhat compelling (enough to keep a person playing), I'm not sure what else anyone could ask for from a JRPG.

 

[Sankari]

I might be the only one that dislikes the art style (the characters) in this game. It doesn't bother me much but I still hate the characters. Overall this game looks rock solid however and I'd buy it if I had an Xbox360. I have no hurry for next generation consoles because I have my PC to keep me busy til way next year before it gets outdated.

EDIT: And I really disliked the boss music, not the music itself but the singing, oh god.

 

[scooby_dooby]

Some user impressions from GAF:

Got about 4 and 1/2 hours in now. Game dramatically picked up from the 2 hours mark to the point where when I look at the starting areas I swear they were made by some outsourced team in a shack or something.

Once you hit the DUNGEONS and not just the overworld a lot of the problems like "big bland areas" get fixed into "nicely detailed hallways" and "I can't see where I'm going" goes into "I can see down this hallway" The map system is still useless and down the line when dungeons get big and complex you might have to be drawing a map out on paper like the old days, but we'll see where that goes.

The battle system also picks up around then as once you start getting a decent bit in several jobs, the system really shines. It's a fantastic mix of FF5 x Grandia w/a touch of SMT. Monster interactions add to old school elemental interactions, job mixing can let you create highly damage attacks (for instance if you have "flame fist" which is a physical + fire attack, if you are the monk job and do a perfect charge you'll get about 2x damage. So if you do a monk job flame fist on a flame weak enemy you'll be doing about 4x damage). The timing bar is also an excellent addition as you can plan out strategies because due to enemy reactions to certain attacks or enemy "phases" you might want to hold your attack off until someone else has a turn and the bar lets you set it whenever you want. Also being able to charge and increase the effectiveness of you attacks/magic is a neat touch. Overall the game is already making great use of Blue Dragon's battle system by the 3-4 hour in dungeon and it's really good.

The game is also a lot more fun when enemies start doing damage Until about 2:30 in enemies would do about 2 points of damage per hit when I had 80+ HP... yeah, zzzz. But around 2:30 in they start doing 30-50 points of damage and coming in large packs and then...yeah, fun

The graphics are pretty nice looking, though there is still tons of screen tearing (basically any time you do an elemental attack with a dragon since you have the added elemental effects), but at least the tearing doesn't rear its head outside of battle besides for maybe 1/2 a second in a cutscene or two. I'm still really anti the over-use of the depth of field effect though, the village in those first two pics is JAW-DROPPINGLY GORGEOUS. But you can't really see anything past the building in front of you without it being a total blur >_< They should patch the game and let you turn off the filter if you want (though I guess it would kill the framerate since detail loads in like GoW as you approach things).

Music is still totally awesome. Despite what some may say, the boss battle theme is very fitting and quite the enjoyable piece

So yeah, now that dungeon-design is in place, the battle system is getting challenging and is very nice, and the areas are getting more colorful and detailed...it's definitely an enjoyable rpg. Story is still in the air, but at this point I can at least say that Sakaguchi still knows how to make a turn-based battle system

Some nice ingame cam pics:
http://static.flickr.com/119/317136214_13910eff73_b.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v297/bebpo/bluedragon/picssss224024.jpg
http://static.flickr.com/105/317040573_76d5324258_b.jpg
http://static.flickr.com/107/317040893_74929f39b8_b.jpg
http://static.flickr.com/103/317040277_213a18721c_b.jpg
http://static.flickr.com/108/317116812_4e26197525_b.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v297/bebpo/bluedragon/picssss224036.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v297/bebpo/bluedragon/picssss224031.jpg

Amazing stuff.

 

[scooby_dooby]

First 10 minutes is up:
http://www.xboxyde.com/stream_3428_en.html

 

[22psi]

It sold 43k on its first day!

 

[scooby_dooby]

First English Review 9/10:
http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=151265

Blue Dragon finds the perfect balance between linearity and excessive freedom - it doesn't embarrass you by holding your hand, and yet it doesn't just leave you alone crying in the supermarket. Hironobu Sakaguchi (the FF creator and Blue Dragon mastermind) is as good a parent as Shigeru Miyamoto.
...
Blue Dragon isn't merely an endless succession of battles, though. There's actually a great amount of stuff to see and do - three full DVDs' worth, no less. There are more than 500 treasure chests to search for, and they all contain valuable items, so the incentive is there to explore Blue Dragon's world. (It's so pretty, anyway, that there's no reason you wouldn't want to explore.) The 'c' word should also be mentioned: yes, cutscenes. There are plenty of them here, but unlike so many other RPGs that have bored us brain-dead with their movies, Blue Dragon's cutscenes are entertaining, relevant, and well acted. Each character has a distinct voice, and the voice acting is all first-rate. (Which actors Mistwalker will hire to voice the English-language version remains to be seen.)
...
Blue Dragon's pedigree - Toriyama's artwork, Sakaguchi's design, and music from Nobuo Uematsu (aka Final Fantasy soundtrack composer extraordinaire) - is almost tangible. The game reeks of class. It probably won't be enough to save the Xbox 360 in Japan, but we're already looking forward the Blue Dragon's announced sequel.

 

[PiNkY]

Blue Dragon runs in 1080p (if you have the pricey kit), but even in 720p (the not-quite-so-pricey kit we're playing on) it looks good enough to give our retinas an anatomy-defying orgasm.

can anyone elaborate on this?

 

[NERO]

can anyone elaborate on this?

You can see for yourself PiNkY. The web is full of hd-quality gameplay trailers. I can't provide links now, but (from what i can recall) ign, gametrailers and gamerevolution have these movies. They show-off gameplay of Blue Dragon, and yes - if you enjoy Toriyama's art style - it is beautiful.

720p is native to all 360 games as far as I know. The 1080p is taking upscale into account.

 

[Bobbler]

can anyone elaborate on this?

It's a 720p game from everything I've heard. It only "runs in 1080p" when it's scaled to that res by the 360's scaler.

 

[PiNkY]

It's a 720p game from everything I've heard. It only "runs in 1080p" when it's scaled to that res by the 360's scaler.

Thanks.

 

[one]

The first week sales according to Media Create are 80,348 copies and it's at 4th.
http://eg.nttpub.co.jp/ranking.html
The 1st is a Gundam Seed game with 337,559 copies, the 2nd is Yakuza 2 with 274,822 copies, the 3rd is Pokemon Diamond with 98,859 copies. Only the Pokemon is not released in this week.