My thoughts on Blue Dragon

[Dragonsoul]

I got my rental of Blue Dragon yesterday. I was earlier looking forward to this game a lot, months ago. Later my interest got lower so I decided not to buy it but I was planning to rent it. I played it for fourty minutes yesterday late at night.

The game is not as good as I expected and hoped it would be.

Graphics - The characters and settings and the menu graphics are not too interesting to me
Sound - The music isn't too interesting so far
Controls - Controls seems ok but they need improvements
Story - It is uninteresting and has a lot of weird comments and seems to go slow sometimes
Characters - The characters are boring or annoying and I am not interested
Battle System - The battles are very boring, so far I just keep hitting attack over and over

The game doesn't really have anything that really appeals to me. I won't play this game longer than two hours but I'll play it a little bit more, based on it's reputation, to see if it will improve some.

For other rpg's I played recently, I like all of them more, here's my ranking for all rpg's I've played since November last year when I bought a Playstation 2 again:
Final Fantasy XII(huge lead)

Final Fantasy VII: Dirge of Cerberus
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
Rogue Galaxy
Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3

Bioshock

Blue Dragon

There's a big drop from FF XII to FF VII: DoG, then a big drop from Persona 3 to Bioshock, then a big drop from Bioshock to Blue Dragon. Games 2-5 on my list are about the same goodness. I'll buy Lost Odyssey and Mass Effect this fall. If I had a DS I'd rent Zelda: PH and FF XII: RW. Besides this, I'm renting some Xbox 360, Xbox, PS 2, and PS 1 rpg's.

Who else besides me feels that Blue Dragon doesn't live up to the expectations and hype? Please post a specific review on all six subcategories. :D

[MecaKane]

I never thought it'd be as good as everyone thought. The guy who produced the NES Final Fantasys or something? The NES ones were pretty boring, though.

[Dragonsoul]

Hironobu Sakaguchi is the guy you are talking about, and he was also the leader in the Snes FF's, the PS 1 FF's, and some of the PS 2 FF's. He's a top designer, but I don't think Blue Dragon stands up to some of the other FF's.

search for him on wikipedia.org :D

[LunarWeaver]

Playing an RPG like this for under 2 hours isn't even playing it at all. These games are build-up titles that don't even kick in until 15 hours into it. 2 hours of an RPG is like playing 2 minutes of a first-person shooter and quitting because you don't have enough guns. :(

[Ouch!]

I stopped playing Blue Dragon in favor of Bioshock, but I'll go back to it before Eternal Sonata comes out.

Blue Dragon is okay. I wasn't expecting anything revolutionary. The battle system is easy enough, although attacking only with the shadows is kind of a bummer. It could definitely do with some more classes for the shadows (generalist what the fuck?), but I've not grown impatient with the game yet.

I'd have to agree on the account of plot and characters, though. All the characters (especially the lead) seem to be entirely two-dimensional. They're not even stock characters. I mean, at least stock characters have a personality. The extent of Shu's personality is annoying and rash while his two companions seem to only be there to chastise him. Marumaro is just... I don't know what he is.

I'm not quite sure where this game is going, but I'm going to give it a bit more of a chance before I give up on it.

[MecaKane]

Hironobu Sakaguchi is the guy you are talking about, and he was also the leader in the Snes FF's, the PS 1 FF's, and some of the PS 2 FF's. He's a top designer, but I don't think Blue Dragon stands up to some of the other FF's.

search for him on wikipedia.org :D

Oh whoops, well I'm glad I misunderstood and won't be let down by it then. :X

[Dragonsoul]

Playing an RPG like this for under 2 hours isn't even playing it at all. These games are build-up titles that don't even kick in until 15 hours into it. 2 hours of an RPG is like playing 2 minutes of a first-person shooter and quitting because you don't have enough guns. :(

After playing an rpg for an hour, you get a pretty good idea of what it's gonna be like. I'm not gonna rent this game for 15 hours, it doesn't take 15 hours to "kick in". Yea 40 minutes isn't too long but it's long enough to get a great idea on all aspects of design. After playing 2 hours the review is more efficient, so I may go up to 2 hours in this game.

Did I miss something, I don't remember a title screen for this game. It started with a white screen that said Press Start, and then I chose the language, then the game started, and when it did, I had to move around before it showed "Blue Dragon" in big letters. I haven't loaded a game yet, I played only once. I may have time tonight, not sure though.

Also, how come the designers chose to make the first normal enemy a "Poo Snake"? That's strange to me. FF XII has soldiers and a machine, then some rats, then some wolves.

Who likes Final Fantasy XII more than Blue Dragon? Who prefers Blue Dragon over Final Fantasy XII? Also, who's interested in Lost Odyssey. After the release of Blue Dragon, I'm upset because now I'm wondering if Lost Odyssey is not gonna be good. I think Lost Odyssey will be pretty ultimate, like FF XII and FF XIII, it'll be more different than Blue Dragon and more like FF XII and FF XIII. I've seen a demo it looks great.

Last fall the dominant traditional Japanese console rpg's were: Xenosaga 3, Valkyrie Profile 2: Silmeria, Tales of the Abyss, and Final Fantasy XII. This fall the dominant traditional Japanese console rpg's will be: Persona 3, Blue Dragon, Eternal Sonata, and Lost Odyssey.

A lot of people really like Persona 3, not sure if anybody really doesn't like it a lot. I recommend this game!! Blue Dragon people have mixed feelings of. I hear more mention of Eternal Sonata than Lost Odyssey. I'll rent Eternal Sonata! :)

[Karellen]

You liked Dirge of Cerberus more then Oblivion? That's a first.

But yeah, 40 mins isn't really what I would consider adequate to form an opinion. Generally, I'm not happy that I gave a game a decent attempt until I've played about 5 hours. Even then, I probably wouldn't try to write a critical review of the game unless I played at least ~70-80% of what it had to offer.

Although your opinion does seem to reflect what is generally being said about the game by professional reviewers.

[Dragonsoul]

Yea it's strange, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is great, but I am a fan strangely of Final Fantasy VII: Dirge of Cerberus. There's something and some stuff about the game that makes me enjoy it. Also, the opening movie(before you press start) is pretty insane!!! :)

I think the resolution of the movies in FF XII was higher but the design of them in FF VII: DoG is better. What is your guys preferences?

I'll play it a little bit more but I am not too excited about it. I want to finish it up tomorrow, and then mail it back, because my next rental will be...

...drum roll...

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 1!!!

That'll be my next rental, it beats out Suikoden 1 barely(starting with S1, not S5 or ST). After this it's Eternal Sonata, then probably Suikoden 1. :)

[Slothy]

Playing an RPG like this for under 2 hours isn't even playing it at all. These games are build-up titles that don't even kick in until 15 hours into it. 2 hours of an RPG is like playing 2 minutes of a first-person shooter and quitting because you don't have enough guns. :(

Do you even see what's wrong with that statement? You shouldn't even have to wait half an hour for a game to stop sucking. If the gameplay, story and characters don't become interesting until 15 hours in then it's not a good game. You shouldn't have to suffer to get to the enjoyable parts.

[Dragonsoul]

Yea I was also thinking of something alone those lines. You get a basic idea of a game in the first hour, and then as you go through the game you get a better idea but you can get a great amount of knowledge of the game in the first 30-60 minutes. I think the main flaws in the game are Music, Story, and Characters. I don't have an interest really in the Graphics, Controls, or Battle System(so far). I'm interested to see what the reaction is to this game. It only sold 100,000 copies, and slighly less than Persona 3 did. I think this game works well in Japan but in the United States they may not like this game as much. I wonder if Eternal Sonata will be similar to this game. Blue Dragon 2 is under development, hopefully some adjustments can be made.

In Blue Dragon, I played slightly over 60 minutes, and I just returned it less than an hour ago, mailed it back. It got slighly better but nothing too great. I'm waiting because in a few days I'll get in the mail Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 1.

I don't know about this game. I just know that it came out in 2003 the same day that Final Fantasy X-2 did, November 18th(best high profile release date of the year, the Tuesday right before Thanksgiving!), and that it's developed by the company from Mass Effect and other top games.