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Blue Dragon Progress Report
Sakaguchi and Oshima comment on Japan's most wanted Xbox 360 title.
by Anoop Gantayat
November 30, 2005 - The most anticipated Xbox 360 title in Japan is Mistwalker's Blue Dragon. The first title announced from Hironobu Sakaguchi's new production house, Blue Dragon drew attention even before a single screenshot was released, and now that first shots have been shown in Japanese publications, we imagine interest only rising.
Leading up to the Xbox 360's Japanese release, Microsoft (the game's publisher) and Mistwalker have started opening up about the new game. Our latest report comes from the most recent issue of Dorimaga, which features an interview session with Sakaguchi and Artoon's Naoto Oshima. Artoon is handling development on the title and previously developed Blinx for Microsoft. Oshima himself is primarily known as the artist who designed the Sonic the Hedgehog character back in the 16-bit days.
Oshima reveals to the magazine that development on Blue Dragon is currently 40% complete. "The fundamentals are, for the most part, in place, and now we're expanding the world," he shares, providing the first solid info on the game's development status since its announcement back at E3. Sakaguchi goes a bit deeper, stating that 95% of the basic specifications are in place and that it would be possible at this point to make a demo featuring an event scene and battles.
Xbox Live will have a role in the game. "It's still too early for specifics," says Sakaguchi, "but if things work out, we hope to distribute maps and other things [Online]." The game will work with the Xbox 360's Achievements feature, which tracks your progress through games.
While Mistwalker and Sakaguchi are producing Blue Dragon, programming and other areas of development are taking place at Artoon, a studio known mostly for its action titles. "To be honest, I was originally frightened," Oshima admits with a laugh. It turns out that Artoon's experience with action games will actually come to play in the title, as the team is working its expertise into the game's speed, responsiveness and tempo.
In case you haven't been keeping up, Blue Dragon is a full-fledged Japanese RPG focusing on a group of five characters and their shadows. The shadows take on animal form (a blue dragon for the main character) and fight in place of the characters during battle. While Dorimaga doesn't provide new details on the gameplay systems, it does share character profiles for the five main characters. Here's how the cast looks at this point:
Shu: The main character, this sixteen year old boy has a bright and direct personality and loves to explore ancient ruins. He lost his parents some years back and was raised under the care of Mr. Fushira, a doctor.
Kuruku: A sixteen-year-old girl who lives in the same village as Shu, Kuruku lost her parents a year ago.
Jiro: Shu's classmate, Jiro is very different from the main character in that he likes to plan ahead.
Maru-Maro: A young man of the Debi race, which differs from humans. He expresses his feelings through dance.
Zora: At twenty years of age, this female mercenary is a bit older than the rest of the cast. She travels the world and keeps her feelings bottled up.
These characters, along with the game's cast of monsters, were designed by Akira Toriyama, known for his work on Dragon Ball and, more closely related to videogames, Dragon Quest. Commenting on the visual design process, Sakaguchi reveals to Dorimaga that Toriyama is personally checking the game's 3D visuals himself. This is true both for characters and backgrounds, and has sometimes lead to heated discussions.
Sakaguchi seems to have a lot of respect for Toriyama's work, which he describes as energetic and having lots of flavor. He even adds, jokingly, that he prefers the original designs to the in-game models.
"We originally used something similar to Cell Shading," Sakaguchi discloses, "but we ended up with this [style] -- minus outlines." The Blue Dragon characters and visuals do indeed look like they're using a different rending technique than what's commonly referred to cell shading, as objects don't have black outlines. In other interviews, Sakaguchi has referred to the game's visual style as being akin to Clay Animation, with lighting that approaches an advanced global illumination lighting model, which, more realistically, takes into account light from throughout the world rather than light exclusively from light sources.
Back during the September Tokyo Game Show, IGN made a trip to Mistwalker's tiny Tokyo production studio to see an early version of Blue Dragon in motion. The screenshots that are now appearing in Japanese magazines (we presume they'll make their way Online at some point as well) were shown to us then, as was a rolling demo of the game, controlled in real time by the development staff. While we're sure the game has progressed beyond that point, as you wait for new details to emerge, we'll point you in the direction of our TGS feature.
Sakaguchi and Oshima comment on Japan's most wanted Xbox 360 title.
by Anoop Gantayat
November 30, 2005 - The most anticipated Xbox 360 title in Japan is Mistwalker's Blue Dragon. The first title announced from Hironobu Sakaguchi's new production house, Blue Dragon drew attention even before a single screenshot was released, and now that first shots have been shown in Japanese publications, we imagine interest only rising.
Leading up to the Xbox 360's Japanese release, Microsoft (the game's publisher) and Mistwalker have started opening up about the new game. Our latest report comes from the most recent issue of Dorimaga, which features an interview session with Sakaguchi and Artoon's Naoto Oshima. Artoon is handling development on the title and previously developed Blinx for Microsoft. Oshima himself is primarily known as the artist who designed the Sonic the Hedgehog character back in the 16-bit days.
Oshima reveals to the magazine that development on Blue Dragon is currently 40% complete. "The fundamentals are, for the most part, in place, and now we're expanding the world," he shares, providing the first solid info on the game's development status since its announcement back at E3. Sakaguchi goes a bit deeper, stating that 95% of the basic specifications are in place and that it would be possible at this point to make a demo featuring an event scene and battles.
Xbox Live will have a role in the game. "It's still too early for specifics," says Sakaguchi, "but if things work out, we hope to distribute maps and other things [Online]." The game will work with the Xbox 360's Achievements feature, which tracks your progress through games.
While Mistwalker and Sakaguchi are producing Blue Dragon, programming and other areas of development are taking place at Artoon, a studio known mostly for its action titles. "To be honest, I was originally frightened," Oshima admits with a laugh. It turns out that Artoon's experience with action games will actually come to play in the title, as the team is working its expertise into the game's speed, responsiveness and tempo.
In case you haven't been keeping up, Blue Dragon is a full-fledged Japanese RPG focusing on a group of five characters and their shadows. The shadows take on animal form (a blue dragon for the main character) and fight in place of the characters during battle. While Dorimaga doesn't provide new details on the gameplay systems, it does share character profiles for the five main characters. Here's how the cast looks at this point:
Shu: The main character, this sixteen year old boy has a bright and direct personality and loves to explore ancient ruins. He lost his parents some years back and was raised under the care of Mr. Fushira, a doctor.
Kuruku: A sixteen-year-old girl who lives in the same village as Shu, Kuruku lost her parents a year ago.
Jiro: Shu's classmate, Jiro is very different from the main character in that he likes to plan ahead.
Maru-Maro: A young man of the Debi race, which differs from humans. He expresses his feelings through dance.
Zora: At twenty years of age, this female mercenary is a bit older than the rest of the cast. She travels the world and keeps her feelings bottled up.
These characters, along with the game's cast of monsters, were designed by Akira Toriyama, known for his work on Dragon Ball and, more closely related to videogames, Dragon Quest. Commenting on the visual design process, Sakaguchi reveals to Dorimaga that Toriyama is personally checking the game's 3D visuals himself. This is true both for characters and backgrounds, and has sometimes lead to heated discussions.
Sakaguchi seems to have a lot of respect for Toriyama's work, which he describes as energetic and having lots of flavor. He even adds, jokingly, that he prefers the original designs to the in-game models.
"We originally used something similar to Cell Shading," Sakaguchi discloses, "but we ended up with this [style] -- minus outlines." The Blue Dragon characters and visuals do indeed look like they're using a different rending technique than what's commonly referred to cell shading, as objects don't have black outlines. In other interviews, Sakaguchi has referred to the game's visual style as being akin to Clay Animation, with lighting that approaches an advanced global illumination lighting model, which, more realistically, takes into account light from throughout the world rather than light exclusively from light sources.
Back during the September Tokyo Game Show, IGN made a trip to Mistwalker's tiny Tokyo production studio to see an early version of Blue Dragon in motion. The screenshots that are now appearing in Japanese magazines (we presume they'll make their way Online at some point as well) were shown to us then, as was a rolling demo of the game, controlled in real time by the development staff. While we're sure the game has progressed beyond that point, as you wait for new details to emerge, we'll point you in the direction of our TGS feature.
