Blue Dragon reviews so far are slightly lower than ultimate

[Dragonsoul]

Blue Dragon has some reviews out for it already. They are good but not as good as we hoped for.

Blue Dragon (xbox360: 2007): Reviews
82% from 16 critical reviews, 78% from 18 user votes

http://gamerankings.com/htmlpages2/927950.asp
82% from 14 critical reviews, 79% from 57 user votes

Something along the lines of Final Fantasy XII or a console Zelda game would get a score in the high 80's or low 90's. I think the critical reviews don't like the character design, game pacing, and lack of innovation in the game. I'm disillusioned by these developments, although I had earlier removed Blue Dragon from my "to buy" list because it appears to be aimed to a younger audience to my preference. I'm hoping that Lost Odyssey gets higher reviews when it comes out. What are your thoughts on this topic?

[Skyblade]

It's an X-Box game. What did you expect? Sure, it's gotten some hype because of the people working on the game, but if you people simply realized that no great games ever come out for the X-Box alone, you wouldn't have gotten your hopes up.

[LunarWeaver]

I think the reviews are really great for the game. In the 8.0 range means it's great for the genre. It was always supposed to be the hardcore J-RPG that Xbox needed, and that's exactly what it is. I'm still hyped for it, and I don't even own an Xbox, oohohohohoho!

[Rase]

It's an X-Box game. What did you expect? Sure, it's gotten some hype because of the people working on the game, but if you people simply realized that no great games ever come out for the X-Box alone, you wouldn't have gotten your hopes up.

Yes, that makes total sense.

Oh, wait.


Anyway, from what I've seen you're mostly right as far as reviews go Drgonsoul. The main issue I've read are some annoying characters and the general lack of any great innovation, along with the fact that battles drag out due to having to watch the same like, 10 second animation of the shadows swiping the air over and over again. I personally haven't played it, but from an aesthetic viewpoint (visuals and music) it looks great to me.

[Slothy]

It's as traditional a JRPG as you'll find these days it would seem which is what I expected, and why I never cared about the game, and still don't. I lost interest in more traditional JRPG's quite a while ago. I was playing them when they were still quite new, and even innovative. Unfortunately, this doesn't seem to be either of those things. I'll save my money for the games that really wow me with stuff I've never seen before.

I also have to say that I find the character design in this game unimpressive. I love Toriyama's older designs, but these are just bland. It's the same stuff he's been doing for years, but it seems like he just went through the motions on this one.

[LunarWeaver]

I also have to say that I find the character design in this game unimpressive. I love Toriyama's older designs, but these are just bland. It's the same stuff he's been doing for years, but it seems like he just went through the motions on this one.

I like Toriyama's stuff and I enjoyed his Chrono Trigger and Dragon Quest VIII peeps, as well as the Dragon Ball junk. But I must agree that these seem like he didn't even try at all. They're all just his usual eyes and a shirt with a different color. None of them really stand-out even remotely from things he's already done D:

[Madame Adequate]

I was never too interested in this, or Lost Odyssey. Or Cry On. They never seemed like they'd be anything special.

It's an X-Box game. What did you expect? Sure, it's gotten some hype because of the people working on the game, but if you people simply realized that no great games ever come out for the X-Box alone, you wouldn't have gotten your hopes up.

What the Hux are you babbling on about?

[Amundusias]

Did it get a Famitsu score yet?

[Rase]

Did it get a Famitsu score yet?

Famistu gave it a 37/40.

[Karellen]

I don't see why people care about Famitsu scores. Keep in mind these are the same people who gave Children of Mana 36/40.

Blue Dragon looks like a decent enough game but it doesn't surprise me that it's being criticized for being pretty basic. After playing Final Fantasy XII, I imagine a lot of people are going to view anything turn based as rather rudimentary. Someone needs to make another game like Final Fantasy X to remind people why turn-based combat still has something to offer.

[tidus_rox]

I'm definatley getting it, however 3 dvds? That will take ages to finish...

[Dragonsoul]

It's as traditional a JRPG as you'll find these days it would seem which is what I expected, and why I never cared about the game, and still don't. I lost interest in more traditional JRPG's quite a while ago. I was playing them when they were still quite new, and even innovative. Unfortunately, this doesn't seem to be either of those things. I'll save my money for the games that really wow me with stuff I've never seen before.

I'm curious, what are your thoughts on Lost Odyssey? I want that game!!

The reviews are high for Blue Dragon but those three main flaws drop the score down to pretty good from "ultimate styles". FF XII, Zelda: TP, Oblivion, and KH2 from 2006 all got "ultimate styles" reviews. Blue Dragon is very high. Mainly we have to consider the three main flaws: game pacing, character design, lack of innovation; and also consider whether or not you are part of the target audience for this game. By the way Artoon developed this game along with Mistwalker, Artoon isn't extremely high quality, which makes me wonder why they were chosen to help in this big time project.

Yea Blue Dragon accomplishes a goal of being a great Traditional rpg to help out Xbox 360 in that genre, with some minor flaws though. I probably won't get Bioshock or Blue Dragon but both appeal to me a bit, I'll rent both, still busy with FF XII. I don't worry too much about a Famitsu score, just look at the aggregate critical rating from metacritic.com/games and gamerankings.com, instead of focusing too much on one magazine/website. Also, don't worry too much about it being on 3 dvd's, the length in hours of this game is fairly normal, I think it was 50-75 hours right? FF XII is 100/150/200 hours depending on if you do the main quest, all but 2-3 sidequests, and all sidequests. Oblivion varies from 15 hours to 350-400 hours. Blue Dragon isn't super long, it's about normal length. I'd prefer something longer though. I'm hoping that Mass Effect's length goes something between 70 and 120 hours.

Let me clarify the thread. The reviews for Blue Dragon are high, but three flaws in design make the score pretty good instead of being "ultimate styles", such as FF XII, Oblivion, Zelda: TP, and KH 2 from 2006. On the other hand, Bioshock appears to be getting extremely high reviews, three 100's already and a 99 from metacritic.com/games site for it, with only four reviews given! Many people did user votes on that game and it has a score in the 90's for percentage.

Comparing Blue Dragon to Bioshock is weird since it's not in the same category of rpg(Traditional vs First person shooter with rpg elements).

Let's compare Blue Dragon to Shin Megamei Tensei: Persona 3, Wild Arms 5, .hack//G.U. Vol. 3:Redemption, and Eternal Sonata. Those are the other top traditional console rpg's released at the start of this season. We are pretty sure that Blue Dragon will sell higher than Persona 3 but I have two questions...

1. Which will sell higher, Shin Megamei Tensei: Persona 3 or Eternal Sonata?
2. Which will sell higher, Wild Arms 5 or .hack//G.U. Vol.3:Redemption?

!!!

[JKTrix]

I don't understand why you keep diverting your own threads to talk about other games. That kind of makes all your threads eventually melt into the same topic.

Anyway, Blue Dragon is o-k. When I first played it a year ago, it was all in Japanese so I didn't really know what I was doing. I thought it was pretty basic, but pretty cool. Now that I've played it in English (and had a year's worth of more gaming experience), I see that it's basically the same old JRPG stuff.

There are a few nifty ideas in there. Monster Fight is actually pretty cool, where you can get wild beasts to fight/kill each other. You can change the 'job' of your shadow, carrying over any skills you already learned. The Corporeal attacks are very spectacular, but I can imagine them getting repetitive if you only get the one attack (unless they're unlocked way later in the game). The demo I played in Japan had a sky ship battle as well that played like Panzer Dragoon.

Bottom line though, it doesn't do anything particularly special or 'next-gen', which is likely what some people who were looking forward to the game were expecting.

[Raebus]

Lets join the camp that will or won't buy games based on someone elses opinion. WHAT DO YOU SAY, GUYS? WE COULD CALL IT CAMP..NOTBASEDONOUROWNOPINION?!

[DK]

78-80% is a perfectly fine score, as far as I'm concerned, and I'm still looking forward to the game. While most people seem to be getting swept up on a tide of wanting all sorts of ghetto new shiet in RPG's, I'm still much more a fan of traditional style jRPG's and so I'm hopeful that Blue Dragon will pretty much be what I've been craving for a while.