Blue Dragon (X360)

“Started to play but couldn't get into it. I plan on giving it another chance later this year.”

“Started to play but couldn't get into it. I plan on giving it another chance later this year.”

“The game has a very nice look and feel. Akira Toriyama combined with Nobuo Uematsu equals to awesone Art. The good Colourful and squishy xD Everything looks nice, flawless drawing and funny animations. I love when mobs call for reinforcement...”

“The game has a very nice look and feel. Akira Toriyama combined with Nobuo Uematsu equals to awesone Art.

The good

Colourful and squishy xD
Everything looks nice, flawless drawing and funny animations. I love when mobs call for reinforcement but no one joine and they look disappointed.

Great Soundtrack
What else would you expect from the great master Nobuo Uematsu.

Classical and easy turn-based combat
I just like it that way.^^

Short loading times/Screens
Yeah, just short. Nothing that makes you wait long enough to get a coffee.

The bad

The camera control sucks
I don't get it why we still have games with such bad camera control, stupid zoom-in's until all blurs up. Its not like the camera was just invented yesterday. With all the great technology, Processorpower and awesome designs aren't we allowed to expect a flawless camera control? What is a nice looking game worth if you cannot look at it because the camera is elsewhere or not controlable at all?

Numbers of encounters too high in the beginning
Really pissed me off. In the beginning you often end up with an enemy in front of you, one behind you and then another one pops out from the ground to ambush you. You fight one and after the fight is over the next one starts.

Start and End of Battle
The start and the end of a battle takes too long. With that number of encounters you waste a big part of time waiting for the battle to start/end.

Difficulty of the first boss (the Dinosaur thiny) slightly too high
The rampage move took always 50% HP out of my entire party (of each member). He did that quite frequently. Also his defense is quite high, even if you can attack the Horn after a few rounds. Even thou I leveld a little bit and fought quite some mobs it was still a little bit difficult.

Way too much items you can touch/pick/kick/investigate (Trees, stones, wood, chests, etc.)
There are too many spots you can investigate to find something: kick a stone around, shake a tree, touch wood, investigate poo left from your enemies, treasure chest.. and that's just what I got so far in a few minutes. For me a little bit too much.

Achievements
Some are quite nice and I got already one, the most easy one: Attack one enemy on the field from behind.
Still, while browsing the Achievement list, I got the feeling that most of them require a lot of grinding. Something I hate!

The Story
The game starts all of a sudden. You get thrown into a big mess right away. Things start to unfold slowly but noticeable. One thing after each other, you encounter enemies and friends. The most funny thing so far was the roboter that you need to fight for two treasure chest. I won't tell you why because I don't want to spoil you.

All in all this game was not able to keep me bound to the couch and collects dust now.”

“coool”

“coool”

“This game was a nice distraction. the battle system threw a new wrinkle and only the second JRPG I had played at the time. I admit I was put off from the "heroes" and some of their antics, and the grinding was annoying, but overall I...”

“This game was a nice distraction. the battle system threw a new wrinkle and only the second JRPG I had played at the time. I admit I was put off from the "heroes" and some of their antics, and the grinding was annoying, but overall I liked the different classes and abilities that could be employed (though at the end everyone had pretty much the same abilities available to them).”

“Requiring your players to grind mobs repeatedly to get where they need to go is a poor substitute for actual content.”

“Requiring your players to grind mobs repeatedly to get where they need to go is a poor substitute for actual content.”

“Blue Dragon, one of the few exclusive games out there (not counting spin-offs of course), brings us back to the good old days of epic adventure, real villains and... grinding, lots of grinding. + Story. What's one of the most important things for...”

“Blue Dragon, one of the few exclusive games out there (not counting spin-offs of course), brings us back to the good old days of epic adventure, real villains and... grinding, lots of grinding.
+ Story. What's one of the most important things for an RPG? A good storyline. Blue dragon has this, truelly making you care for your heroes and their quest.
+ Job system. One of my favourite mechanics. These days, few games still use it, probably because it instantly makes a game feel "old school" with everything else accompanying that. Personally I love it. Why? Simple: a good RPG needs to involve that in the story and to do that it is easier to have a cast of heroes instead of a custom-created character. To ensure this doesn't take away any of the flexability left to the players, you use the job system!
+ Random encounters. This game might be considered "old school" but that didn't stop them from getting rid of these annoying random encounters. They simply took all the encounters and put them on the map.
+ Shame achievements. Seriously? Achievements that say "you've failed # times" and give you no gamerscore? I like it :D
- Grinding. You can perfectly do a playtrough with a minimum of grnding but if you want all the achievements or the whole experience, you'll need to grind. We saw it coming but it's still annoying.”

“A great looking and fairly standard JRPG. Unfortunately I got stuck at a part in the game where I could no longer beat a boss or go back to level up. This is a poor design which leads you to get stuck and have to start over. It requires you to...”

“A great looking and fairly standard JRPG. Unfortunately I got stuck at a part in the game where I could no longer beat a boss or go back to level up. This is a poor design which leads you to get stuck and have to start over. It requires you to grind through leveling up and if you enjoy that then you will enjoy this game.”