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Blue Dragon is the first product from the beautiful partnership with Mistalkwer Studios for Microsoft. Developed by Artoon, creators of Blinx: The Timesweeper, does this high profile RPG deliver the goods for a console in dire need for more RPGs?
I want to begin with a statement – don’t judge Blue Dragon by its cover, it’s by no means a kiddy game. It takes a traditional approach with its storyline where one boy, Shu, must save the world against a villain, Nene. While the storyline may not be the most revolutionary tale to date, it does a decent job with keeping things interesting. The first half is made up of exploration while the second concentrates on the characters pulling together to stop Nene. Is Blue Dragon’s storyline ground-breaking? Hardly. Does it get the job done? Most certainly.
"For the technical aspects, Blue Dragon is aesthetic pleasing of an RPG that I have stumbled across in recent memory.
For a battle-system, Artoon and Mistwalker put together a turn-based system that fits the game perfectly. The method of attacks is done through the character’s blue dragons, though the cast can use magic, items, special attacks and change formations. Taking advantage of the system, players will want to make use of the charge ability. Charging up the attacks is great to dispose of the opposition in record time. Interestingly enough, players charging up their attacks will want to watch the order of attacks as the stronger the attack, the longer they’ll have to wait to perform the maneuver. Changing up the order of attacks is thoughtful and dynamic for the battle system in light of what is currently is offered in the RPG genre currently.
While none of this so far sounds like more than a standard RPG, let’s dig deeper into what Blue Dragon offers in gameplay. Players are allowed to tinker with the formation system, which does affect stats. Changing where someone is positioned can change the defense, the strength of their attack and who is prone to attack. In addition, players can choose and pick which fights they want to pit themselves up against with the encounter circle. Walking around in the cities they travel through, players can take advantage of the encounter circle. The encounter circle enables players to take on several fights at once for stat bonuses and more gold. If two monster groups are in the battle, they could possibly end up facing off against each other. The field skills will change up stats before the battle ever begins with attaching effects to the characters in the party.
What a pretty butterfly, let's kill it!
The last thing about the battle system is that players should be able to figure out an enemy’s weakness from just looking at them. Based on appearance, I was able to adjust accordingly and route my enemies in record time. But, the game is on the easier side of difficulty so make sure to download the content that has been released on Xbox Live to assist in making a more enjoyable session in Blue Dragon. With enemies committing suicide and healing your party, Blue Dragon is an easy game to complete.
Outside of the battle system, RPG fans will rejoice to know there is a class system incorporated in Blue Dragon. There are nine classes found in Blue Dragon including: Sword Master, Black Magic, White Magic, Support Magic, Barrier Magic, Assassin, Monk, Guardian, and Generalist. Players will learn new skills for each class when they become available when leveling up, so there’s quite a bit here to play around with. Character customization is nice with being able to mix and match skills from separate classes.
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