User Reviews (11 - 21 of 35)

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Old is new again.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 4
Date: September 04, 2007
Author: Amazon User

A lot of what the reviews out there say are correct. This is not an innovative game, it does not reinvent the genre, nor is it edge of your seat compelling. But you know what?

That's what makes it great.

With the utter drought of RPGs, (especially JRPGs) this generation, everything that is "old" is actually extremely refreshing. The fact that you cannot find another game like it on the Xbox360 makes it a must-buy in itself.

The gameplay is classic JRPG, including leveling up and classes. It does make improvements by eliminating random encounters and battle animations are very smooth. The story is luke warm at times, but you can't help but caring about what happens to the characters after spending so much time with them. The graphics and visual presentation are top notch and is basically the reason for it's three disc span. It's an extremely lengthy quest, taking somewhere from 15-20 hours just to complete the first disc.

Blue Dragon is a fantastic game that unfortunately is probably going to get lost in the flood of Fall games. If you're looking for a fantastic gem, pick this title up now!

Blue Dragon Blues

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 3 / 4
Date: December 04, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Blue Dragon

New to the Japanese RPG genre I was both excited and a little apprehensive about Blue Dragon. I put disk one in and much to my surprise was completed engrossed and enthralled.

The graphics are gorgeous, the environments however are a little bland.

Pros: Good story, great graphics, like playing through an epic Anime cartoon, not a smidgen of adult anything, sweet and a tad saccharine.

Cons: There is nothing new or different to be experienced, peopled with magic folks and anthropomorphic creatures, you fight the baddies, get this item, go here, go there, do this quest etc...

Can you say repetitious? I knew you could. You can not take two steps without having to do battle and it is the same battle over and over again, even the finishing animations repeat. It is tiresome, I want to explore and open the chest I just beat a baddie for, not battle eight more Poo Snakes every three seconds. That is just annoying.

There is not a save spot to be had during a level, you must play the entire level through. Well, maybe I don't want to play for three hours. Put a save some place, that is just poor game design. The in game maps, world or level, are near useless as they give you an ants eye view of where you are without giving you any indication of where you have been or where you need to go. This is frustrating at best when trying to navigate through a level.

If you can stand the repetitiveness, and have the patience give Blue Dragon a go for the story if nothing else.

Great, Solid, Oldschool RPG

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 3
Date: September 24, 2007
Author: Amazon User

This isn't a game for everybody, but if you're a member of this games target audience it's probably EVERYTHING you've been wanting in a console RPG for the past few years. The story is somewhat reminiscent of Dragon Quest in that its driven by catastrophe rather than Final Fantasy-esque plot twists. Similarly the art style is reminiscent of Dragon Quest, but that's no surprise as the artist in charge of Blue Dragon is the same guy that's handled the art for Dragon Quest, and Dragon ball Z for that matter.

The battle system is darn good as well, it may only be a take on the Job Class system that's been used many times throughout the years, but its probably one of the best implementations of the system out there, providing a good balance between allowing your characters lots of abilities while making it almost impossible to make your characters masters of everything without absurd amounts of power leveling.

All in all, its a darn solid title and fully worth the price, so long as you're the sort of person that likes quirky, old school, Japanese RPG titles.

Awesome!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 3
Date: September 27, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I loved playing this game. As a huge final fantasy fan, I was worried this game wouldn't come close to being as good as the final fantasy series. Final Fantasy 7 is still my favorite, but I think Blue Dragon has now taken the #2 spot over the other FF titles! Of course, the story and music come from the same people as FF, so I shouldn't be surprised. If you are a RPG fan you should definitely buy this game and the guide, which was very helpful.

A journey down the middle of the road

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 2 / 3
Date: January 28, 2008
Author: Amazon User

[...]When Blue Dragon was released in Japan and I saw some actual game footage, I was a little taken aback. Rather than an ambitious next-gen RPG, it seemed like a typical Miyazaki-inspired bright-eyed youthful "We'll NEVER give up!" romp/quest that I've played seemingly hundreds of times over the last 15 years or so. Then the demo came out a few months ago, and after playing it a couple of times I had completely lost all interest in Blue Dragon. And that was that... or so I thought.

[...]For the most part, all of my fears were confirmed. The story and characters are as dull, banal and insipid as I thought they'd be. The characters are a half step away from being literally blank slates. The story is incredibly dull... even when it predictably picks up a bit of steam in the final act. The battle and abiliity systems aren't exactly old school or old fashioned, but they're certainly not cutting edge, unless you still consider ideas from 2001 to be cutting edge. I must admit, the battles are much more fun in the full game than they were in the demo. (Giving you access to pretty much every single ability in the game in the demo was a huge mistake.)

The two things I find myself truly enjoying are exploring the dungeons, and the graphics. The dungeons are very well designed and laid out, and the the whole affair is very easy on the eyes. We've finally reached the point where an in-game engine looks as nice and solid as FMV cutscenes... from 1997.

EDIT: I apologize for the bracketed sections and bizarre disjointedness of this review. I try to provide some background to give my opinions context, but Amazon's editorial dept. found them to be objectional in this case for some reason... and apparently decided butchering my review was the solution.

Great J-RPG classic experience

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 7
Date: August 31, 2007
Author: Amazon User

The game looks great, the story its ok(could be better), but the gameplay, strategy in battles and playing it on hardcore it's amazing, plus watch the anime and tou'll enjoy the game a lot more. And this is the beginning i expect them to get blue dragon 2, pretty soon, with story and everithyng when they're older, this is the new dragon ball. AMAZING!!!!
I almost forgot play the game with japannesse voice acting and english subtitles, otherwise the game experinece it's not as great.

It's OK

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 2 / 4
Date: September 04, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I am a little upset. I was really hoping that this game would keep me entertained for little while until Mass Effect is released. I agree with some of the reviews already written that this game isn't bad but it isn't great either. Personally, I found the fighting concept of the dragons interesting at first but it quickly became tiresome and quite frankly boring...as every fight seemed to be the same. I even tried changing my dragons' class but that didn't make it any more interesting. This I could have dealt with though if the story would have captured my attention but honestly after about 10 hours of play I gave up realizing the story was just never going to get that interesting. I must be honest, that over the past few years (especially after playing the KOTOR games, Jade Empire, Fable), games like this one where I feel like a by-stander watching a story unfold rather than shaping it just don't hold my attention for long at all. I think if I would have played this game 5 years ago I would've been blown away but things change and now I expect more from a game...especially an RPG. I mean how is it a "Role-Playing" game when I have no control at all over who my character is, where they go or how they react to people and situations. Here you kill some enemies till you get to a cut scene then run around kill some more enemies until you get to a cut scene.....repeat....repeat....repeat. To be fair though, it might have changed some after the first 10 hours though I doubt it. Again, since I feel like I am being a little too hard on such a "cute" game, it really isn't that bad of a game but I would highly recommend renting before committing to purchasing this one. Maybe I missed the point though and it was intended to be for the 13 and under crowd as this game really seems to be rather kiddish without much depth at all to the story or characters.

Masterful

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: September 13, 2007
Author: Amazon User

This is the first true next-gen rpg,but it is *not* an action/rpg.This genre only caters to certain tastes,like all games.If you are patient, like story,exploration,and strategic combat this is for you.Blue Dragon takes the best elements of the last 20 years of turn based rpgs and refines them to a point never seen before.The lively graphics are,pound for pound,some of the best ever on any console with a blend of organic and industrial environments.The cinemas are exiting and seamless so you're not drawn out of the game.The music is some of the most inspired in years and is always enjoyable.The story is an epic of good vs evil and yet not overly complex.The combat system is fun and you can definetely feel the progression of your characters getting stronger.If you enjoy rpgs at all you owe it to yourself to get this.If you're new to the genre this is a great way to try it out.This was a Microsoft attempt to win over the Japanese market where the Xbox 360 is outsold by either the Wii or Ps3 by 20 to 1.The talent involved in this is world class and it shows.It's a shame more people in Japan didn't enjoy this and that the US is abandoning the turn-based rpg because this is one of the most polished games of any genre.

A lot better than I thought it would be.

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: September 14, 2007
Author: Amazon User

While reading about this game over the last year or so before it came out, I was interested in it even though it seemed like a child's RPG. While it is geared towards younger players, it's certainly not a child's RPG and will appeal to older gamers as well who grew up playing RPG's in the 8 and 16 bit era.

The only two complaints I've really heard people gripe about for this game is that the story is cliche and it doesn't offer anything new. I agree to a point, the storline is cliche, but it is still full of plot twists and has a rather flushed out story. True, the characters aren't really flushed out, but the story of the gameworld and its inhabitants is. While the game is totally turn based, a majority of the story oddly takes place via numerous in-game and cutscene action sequences. There always seems to be something flashy and exciting going on, so if that talkes the place of flushed out characters, it's almost an even tradeoff. The gameplay doesn't offer much new either, but it does do things other RPG's have done before better. Getting enemies to battle eachother really helps your party out in battles. Another cool thing is almost every rock, tree, table, cable, etc., anything casual lying around has items or gold in them. Sometimes you'll even find experience points lying in places, and I've never seen that before. The boss battles are awesome as well, and they can be a bit tough unless you know their weaknesses. Most bosses are tough to beat if you simply attack and attack, they usually have numerous weak points you should try and exploit.

There are a few things I didn't like. One is that the in-game tutorial doesn't explain very well how to do some things. Like I thought you had to equip Lv. 2 Lv. 3, etc. skills in your basic skill slots to use lv. 2, lv. 3 spells, but I figured out later on you can just automatically use then as soon as you're alerted of the fact you acquired that skill. The other problem I had was the uneven difficulty of the enemeis. Some areas had mosnters so tough that every battle was a tough fight, then the next area would be full of enemies that I could plow through with no problem.

In the end, I think most people say they don't like this game simply because they played the awful demo. The demo dropped you into the middle of things with no backstory, not much interaction and a sense of being lost. I really love this game, and I find it kind of odd that I was looking forward more to Eternal Sonata, but everywhere is giving Blue Dragon a higher score. I guess it's true better graphics don't mean a better game!

Entertaining, though possibly too tame for Adults.

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: September 23, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I am a big RPG fan and I picked up this title since I saw it had potential. I am currently about 45 hours into the game. The graphics are great and the storyline is easy to follow. It's very easy to figure out what to do next. I have enjoyed both the gameplay and the graphics. The reason I gave only 4 stars is that it just seems too easy. It maybe that I am a very thorough player, but so far the battles have been no challange. I've tried to maximize my characthers, so at 45 hours I'm close to the end of Disc 2 and I'm Level 45 and each Char has max'd atleast 2 or 3 Classes. At this rate all my Char will Max all the Classes Each. Possibly I'm too used to Oblivion in which your Oponnents are always the same level as you. I am enjoying the game and will see it to the end.

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