Blissfully behind the times though I may be, Sometimes I do play a game that was made AFTER the 2000 break. I'm pretty selective about any current-gen games I get. I'll typically go for remakes or collections, sometimes I'll go for the new material, if it's interesting or engaging enough. This time, I went for something a little on the newer side. I went for an XBOX360 exclusive by Mistwalker and Artoon known as Blue Dragon.
The game was released in Japan in 2006, but we didn't see it here in the states until 2008. The game was developed by Mistwalker and Artoon. At the helm of production and storyboarding, was the legendary Hironobu Sakaguchi, creator and director of the Final Fantasy series. The art director is another name buried by accolades, Akira Toriyama, the man behind Chrono Trigger, the Dragon Ball Series and Dragon Warrior/Dragon Quest ( I see a trend). Also on the team in the sound department is Nobuo Uematsu, composer for nearly the entire Final Fantasy series, Chrono Trigger, and Lost Odyssey. The game also spawned a manga series, and 51 episodes of an anime series that was a non-sequitur with regards to the plot of the XBOX360 game.
--Story--
Blue Dragon follows the story of three young...children? Teenagers? It's hard to tell the age of the characters because of the way they're drawn, but all of the playable characters in the game except for one look to be about 8 years old. In any case, these kids are from the nowhere village of Talta, who is beset by a fog of purple clouds. When these clouds appear, a vicious Land Shark makes its way into this valley town and wreaks all kinds of havoc, breaking buildings, ramps, people, anything it can charge on through. The three kids, Shu, Jiro and Kluke, band together and give it their best shot to try and stop the land shark. With a net and a rusty sword. At what point did this seem like a good idea?
Hey, YOU drew the short straw. It's YOUR problem now.
Oh, right. They're 12. In any case, it doesn't go well, and the three young heroes get dragged into a dark cave, and summarily airlifted out, and into a ship they've never seen before that appears to be causing the purple clouds to appear. Within, the find a decrepit, purple old man who goes by the name of Nene. For no apparent reason, he's just been fucking with this village for years. Maybe he's bored. The group tries to fight him, but can't quite muster the mustard, so they are forced to flee from Nene's ship. As they run, they get surrounded by dozens of Nene's robot soldiers, until a disembodied female voice gives each of them some blue spheres and tells them to swallow them. Yeah, the main characters get their powers by chugging balls.
After doing so, the shadows of each character grow taller and taller and take a semi corporeal form, each one becoming a different animal, Dragon, Bull and Phoenix. With these new Shadows, the characters gain the power of magic, the power to fight, and a means with which to grow stronger and finally defeat Nene. The group charges forward, meeting new friends, joining up with new characters, and doing very RPG-Staple hero stuff.
The storyline itself is incredibly basic which is both a plus and a minus. While it's nothing special at all, it's something relatively comfortable that we've all seen before, and allows us to look at other aspects of the game. Like the characters! Except that the characters are dry, overdone, and confusing as hell with regards to how old they actually are. If I'm playing a kid, I want to play a kid, not a 35 year old in an 8 year old’s body. The story also takes a turn for the absolutely ridiculous right at the end of the game. Like it was WAITING for you to be okay with the game as a whole, and then drop a huge pile of suck right on top of what was already mediocre.
6/10
--Audio--
I'd really like to be able to say "UEMATSU DOES IT AGAIN!", but I can't. A lot of the game's soundtrack is fairly forgettable, some of it's annoying, and the recurring boss theme is an absolute catastrophe. This is a track called "Eternity" which features lyrics written by Uematsu himself, and sung by Ian Gillian, formerly of Black Sabbath and Deep Purple. The unfortunate thing about the song, both with the way it is written and with the way it is sung, it sounds like something else entirely.
Every. Goddamn. Boss.
That's not to say it's ALL bad, there are still a few diamonds in the rough, but it's not exactly worth sifting through the entire soundtrack to find them. That said, the SFX were actually well done. The robots sounded like robots, the punches sounded like punches, and for the most part they were all timed fairly well. However this is not exactly a glimmer of hope, so much as something that doesn't taste like shit amongst a pile of shit. I refer now to the voice acting. It's pretty bad. Granted, I'm probably a moron for playing the damn game in English, but is it so much to expect that they find somebody believable for these roles? I mean, there are plenty of VA's out there who can actually DO an 8 (12? 17? 4?) year old kid, that are looking for the work. Throw them a freakin bone, here! Where it may work in Japan for a woman to voice a young boy, it doesn't translate NEARLY so well here in the states! LEARN FROM YOUR MISTAKES. I'M LOOKING AT YOU, MEGAMAN LEGENDS 2.
6/10
--Visuals--
Here's where the game really makes up some ground. Though I'm not what I consider to be graphically fixated when it comes to my vidya games, I was extremely impressed with what was coming through my screen. Akira Toriyama's character art can get a little bizarre at times, but it largely worked out for the better. The scenery was extraordinarily done, the graphical rendering of environments and character models was top notch, and the special effects were of a masterwork caliber.
Suck it, Avatar.
The one downside to all of these visual treats is that the 360's driver can't handle it as perfectly as one could hope, so it does cause a little bit of slowdown here and there. Because of this slowdown, sometimes cutscene transitions take a bit of time and are a little jumpy, sometimes killing the mood, but even then it's not so bad to deal with, because there's plenty enough there to kill the mood without the graphics getting involved. Overall, the visual team did a really good job with this one.
9/10
--Gameplay--
Another decent aspect of the game is the way everything plays out. Combat is done by upgrading your Shadows, which act in the same way as Job Classes from certain Final Fantasy games like Tactics, or FFV. Your shadow can switch between classes at will, gaining experience and unlocking new abilities within said class. The great use to leveling multiple classes is that all of the abilities you learn can be equipped to different classes, making it really easy to come up with different combinations, and playing any class any way you want. You can have an assassin base who specializes in stealing from as many people as possible, or an assassin who focuses in being able to hit any enemy from any point on the field. The only drawback here is that it makes the game really easy, as most of the classes get their best or final abilities really early in the progression.
"I CAN BE AN ASSASSIN TOO. LOOK HOW QUIET I AM."
Most of them max out abilities between levels 30 and 35, so leveling a class to 99 is only good for stat gains and achievements. By mid to late game, your party will basically be invincible, because the game doesn't really hold back on giving you any decent items. However, to alleviate this, there are two superbosses in the game that are fairly difficult. I still haven't beaten them, but that may be do to lack of want to spend time to build a strategy. One minor issue, is landing your inevitable airship. It's pretty damn hard to see where you are in relation to the ground on that thing. Overall, the game is rewarding to actually play through, if nothing else, from a mechanical standpoint.
9/10
--Overall/Final Thoughts--
If you're asking my opinion, and I assume you are by reading this whole mess, I tell you now that I wouldn't recommend this game to anyone. The plot doesn't really evolve in any good way, the characters are annoying as FUCK, and the bgm gets hard to listen to. The gameplay is entertaining, but it's not unlike anything else that you could find within a more rewarding game. I mean, if you want to play a game that uses a class system, and has a maniacal wizard trying to tear the world apart, I'd tell you to go play Final Fantasy V instead. It's not a terrible game, but it is on the lower end of mediocre. If you're really out of any other option, then I guess it's good enough to occupy your mind for a bit, but the payout just isn't worth the amount of time you're required to invest in it.
Hm...there's something else I'm missing though. There's something that's stopping me from telling people that the game isn't really bad, but I can't quite put my finger on it. There's one giant flaw in the game that detracts from anything good that might have been. Someone help me out here.
"The Devee Dance of Trivia! Is it me? Is it me?!"
OF COURSE IT'S FUCKING YOU. Jesus christ, in all the time I've been playing RPGs, I've sifted through legions of annoying ass characters and I've come out okay. This motherfucker right here takes the proverbial cake. I don't understand why Japan seems to think that this character archetype is a good idea. He's obnoxious, screams every god damn word, quick to get angry which makes him even MORE loud and annoying, and ever-fucking-present. There are maybe two cutscenes in the whole damn game that don't involve him, and they're the only two bearable cutscenes in said whole damn game. Anytime anything happens, he shows how he feels about it by performing a dance. "The Devee Dance of Friendship," or "The Devee Dance of Joy," or "The Devee Dance of Love." THEY ARE ALL THE SAME DANCE. Here's one for you. The Devee Dance of SHUT THE HELL UP. -5 points from the game, JUST FOR THIS ASSHOLE.
25/40 = D-
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