Product Description

game producer Hironobu Sakaguchi of Mistwalker game studio and developer Artoon present the highly anticipated Xbox 360-exclusive Blue Dragon. Featuring the character design of Akira Toriyama, who designed Dragon Ball Z, and music by Nobuo Uematsu, the composer for Final Fantasy, Blue Dragon is an epic role-playing game (RPG) centered on a young boy named Shu and several of his friends. These unlikely heroes possess miraculous strength and magical power to control phantom shadows that mirror the actions of their masters.Shu and company must use their shadows as weapons as they battle the evil Nene and an antiquated human race of people who command a magical power thought to have perished long ago. Shu and friends must wield their skills to save their world from impending doom.Encountering various people on a planet with numerous ancient ruins, the characters and shadows travel through a world full of mysteries and illusions, where the slightest touch can cause reactions of unparalleled magnitude.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1839 in Computer & Video Games
• Brand: Microsoft
• Released on: 2007-08-24
• Rating: To Be Announced
• Platform: Xbox 360
• Dimensions: .41 pounds

Manufacturer's Description

Blue Dragon is a revolutionary RPG set in a massive, immersive world. Players assume the role of young hero Shu and set out with his friends for the epic journey to discover their past and the ultimate mystery surrounding their Shadow creatures.

From the creator of Final Fantasy, Blue Dragon will set a new standard for the RPG genre on Xbox 360 by offering players a cinematic and immersive experience, uniquely combining the richness and depth of photorealistic environments with anime-style characters, all while incorporating a unique turn-based battle system within the context of a comprehensive and deep storyline.

Customer Reviews

Great RPG
I bought this game on release day, and I have enjoyed every minute of it. I am 15 hours in, still on the first disc (of 3), and am utterly engrossed. This game has many positive aspects: firstly, it has wonderful graphics. It's not like Bioshock or Oblivion, realistic, but it has graphics which make the fantasy world feel alive and vibrant. Every character and monster has been given great detail, with looks and especially movements seeming natural and interesting. The graphics really do the combat justice. The combat is typical Final Fantasy turn based combat with a twist, where there is a charge bar which alters the turns depending on the charge. The combat itself is, in a word, awesome. Fights aren't random as in FF games, but you see enemies on the field, so you can either attack them, or avoid them. Combat is a tangle of brilliant looking moves and tactics, and as the game goes on, more great looking moves are unlocked. Occasionally a boss fight will occur, where the enemy is tougher than the usual monsters. Overall, the game doesn't really repeat the monsters for you to become sick of a particular monster. Another good aspect of the game is the music. The music is on par with the FF series. When exploring the world, the music is light and jolly (except during dramatic parts), and when in a boss fight, it becomes more rock and roll. Finally, onto the world itself. The game has a weird and wonderful sense of humour, and the world shows this. It is a large and expansive world, although quite linear, unlike Oblivion, but a benefit of this is that you won't get lost. The game's designers have put a lot of effort and thought into making the world as fun as possible, and it is evident when encountering some of the areas and races for the first time. As for the storyline, it is there, but very vague. Just trust the game to present storylines. This leads us onto the bad points: the saving system is quite bad in some places. You can save at a save point, or on the world map. You cannot save halfway through a dungeon, so if you die, you have to go all the way back to the beginning. Alternatively, if you need to save, you could warp back to the beginning of the dungeon and save at the save point (a warp device and save point are usually found in the same place), but this resets the dungeon's monsters, so you have to encounter (or avoid) all the monsters again, possibly not a bad thing as it gives you extra experience. The cut scenes are not, as one reviewer insinuated, bad, and the dialog is not cheesy. I enjoy all the cutscenes, as they make the world seem alive to me, and help you relate to the characters. The dialog is fine, considering this is a Japanese game. Another slight fault is that sometimes the fights seem to follow the exact same sequence and moves, but considering the wealth of combat moves, it won't happen often.
As you might expect, this game is not online playable, but will probably follow Oblivion's example and have downloads available.
Overall, this is a class game, with not many things wrong with it. It certainly has longevity, with a large game world and 3 discs. You certainly would be spending money well, as it will keep you occupied for at least a week. If you enjoy a great story, exploring (fans of the Broken Sword series will love this), and exceptional looking combat, this game will delight you to no end.

Great JRPG
I'm really enjoying this game. I'll not repeat what the reviewer below said, but I will say that JRPG's are a kind of marmite game genre. You either like them or you don't. Personally I like them as they are fairly slow paced, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, despite what mags and forumites would have you believe. Blue Dragon is a slow burner in much the same way the Final Fantasy series are. Blue Dragon though, seems to me to be more focused than FF games, especially in the skills / level system, which I think is very innovative, simple to understand, yet hard to master. I also really like the way you can take on multiple monster groups with the encounter circle, and even have monsters weaken or kill each other for you.

It is a 3 DVD game, and I am still on disc 1 as I'm taking my time with it (and I have 4 other games I'm playing regularly at the moment....so many games, not enough hours!), but I'm having a really good time with it.

I've marked it down slightly due to some relatively minor graphical issues, such as framerate slowdown, which considering where it is happening to me (field screens - not much eye candy), shouldn't be happening on the 360. The other slight markdown is that so far, the game has been quite easy, with none of my characters getting KO'd yet. I'm hoping hoping it'll get more challenging as I get further in.

I'd highly recommended this if you have the patience for this type of game. You won't be blasting through this in a few days (well I guess you could, but you'd miss so much).

A quick tip for any new players......level your generalist shadows when you can, as it opens up extra skill slots, and allows you to use special accesories that become available a little later in the game. I tend to level my shadows in 5's so for example, I got Shu's Sword Master to 10, then Generalist to 10, the Sword master to 15 and so on. This seems to work well. Each of my characters is multiskilled, with everyone having 2 classes, and everyone having generalist as a 3rd class.

A Well Balanced JRPG that ooozes style.
After Zelda the twilight princess i needed another 40-60 hour game to take me away from the normal effects of everyday life, and i thought this was gonna be it, and it is, i am only abou 8 hours into it but i cant put the pad down. i am wondering why no one has reviewed this yet cause this is definitley a game that all JRPG lovers should own and if you are not familiar with the genre, you should start here then you will be tracing your steps back to final fantasy 7 and realising what the fuss was about. the visuals are superb, the voice acting can be cheesy in parts but its not a hige deal, the battle system is very well organised, no random battles which is a relief so do as you wish, but avoiding is not alway the best option, the storyline is engrossing and you will keep playing until you relaise its 5am. i am off now to go and play some more, while im doing that, go and get yourself a copy! now!