While I agree with John that the overall story is cliched, the entire scenario feels a lot like a solid shounen manga presentation with strong energetic youth characters as opposed to the angsty teen JRPG dramas made popular in the past decade. And I don't know about him, but I really like Shu's voice. In fact, I recognize pretty much all the voices in the game and I think the voice casting is really solid. Wakamoto villain with a robot parrot voiced by Yuji Ueda = genius. Seriously.
If the story is indeed more like the original Dragonball series instead of angsty teen JRPGs this just might be a purchase for me. I loved Dragonball, and this game's art really appeals to me.
Based on how you describe it, BD sounds like it's got pretty solid SNES-era gameplay with a couple new tweaks and fun exploration -- sounds like a real solid winner to me. The young energetic cast is really nice to hear, too.
Is there anything that's bringing it down in your opinion? Based on your description right now it sounds like a must-play to me. I don't really care if it's groundbreaking, but if the gameplay/systems are polished and elegant instead of half-assed it'll beat out a lot of otherwise promising RPGs from the past few years in my book.
game sounds like I expected....just pretty fun...nothing deep, or thats going to advance the genre in anyway really...but a light hearted adventure with a spunky lead...sounds like typical shounen...but I like some shounen
Im really wondering how I feel about turn based combat after ffxii though...its good that the game hasnt got random encounters though...now lest hop he takes it out of LO
Its true that I would pick the game up if I had a 360
On the graphics...they look pretty nice...though the pixar comparison seems way off
If the story is indeed more like the original Dragonball series instead of angsty teen JRPGs this just might be a purchase for me. I loved Dragonball, and this game's art really appeals to me.
Scenario-wise it's exactly what I expected from Sakaguchi. Like the last real FF that he wrote (FF5), the story starts off without much of an "introduction" but basically sets up an event which drives the characters forward and you're basically playing the introduction for quite a while before the story reveals itself (kinda like the scene at the top of the Wind Shrine in FF5) and the gameplay systems open up one by one.
Presentation-wise though, it's reaaaaally nice 3D cutscenes and FMVs based on solid Toriyama designs with full voice acting. Great stuff.
charlequin said:
Is there anything that's bringing it down in your opinion? Based on your description right now it sounds like a must-play to me. I don't really care if it's groundbreaking, but if the gameplay/systems are polished and elegant instead of half-assed it'll beat out a lot of otherwise promising RPGs from the past few years in my book.
Well, the framerate drops might be a little distracting if it bothers you a lot. The game is on the easy side so far as I already mentioned. And some of the environments do feel a little plain. The loading times are actually pretty good, but it could still be improved. But since Artoon is not Tri-Ace I'm not going to impose such high expectations on them. :lol
I loved Shu's voice too... a total change from the usual lead character, and something that appeals to me much more.
BenjaminBirdie - yes, you choose the shadow type for each char, much like jobs in FF games. Sword, White, Black, Monk etc. There's quite a few. What I was trying to explain before is, if MaruMaro levels up with Black shadow, he will gain more MP and less HP than if he levels up with Sword shadow. Chars have levels, shadows have ranks. A shadow's rank is tied to that char though. When you rank up your shadow, you gain new skills for that shadow type, and at certain ranks, new shadow types will become unlocked.
I've been watching some Japanese guy play and he's like at the end of the game and it seems really easy. His chars are pretty uber at level 46-ish and he takes out bosses pretty easily.
a headset, ethernet cable, wireless controller, and hard drive, while nice, are hardly required to enjoy an RPG, and they obviously wanted to price this as low as possible
a headset, ethernet cable, wireless controller, and hard drive, while nice, are hardly required to enjoy an RPG, and they obviously wanted to price this as low as possible
Cool. Finally someone heard me, easier RPGs or let me choose the difficulty setting.
RPGs these days are not easilly approachable anymore, FFXII was the last stroke for me, when i finished it i just wanted to be done with it because i went through many frustations and dead hours where i would just have to ****ing grind.
Cool. Finally someone heard me, easier RPGs or let me choose the difficulty setting.
RPGs these days are not easilly approachable anymore, FFXII was the last stroke for me, when i finished it i just wanted to be done with it because i went through many frustations and dead hours where i would just have to ****ing grind.
I'm hearing this thing is really easy. Now, just how easy? Like, easier than Enchanted Arms? Easier than ... Wild Arms 4? Easier than ... Atelier Iris 2? Well, nothing is easier than that one. I ignored almost every random battle and beat the game still - no game over.
I'm hearing this thing is really easy. Now, just how easy? Like, easier than Enchanted Arms? Easier than ... Wild Arms 4? Easier than ... Atelier Iris 2? Well, nothing is easier than that one. I ignored almost every random battle and beat the game still - no game over.
Wow, I just realized I never played any of those games you just listed so I guess I can't compare! :lol
The music's really, really good.
I'm about 6.5 hours in now, there's still a loooooong way to go. I haven't had a single game over, or even close to one, but in the previous dungeon there were some pretty interesting battles. The boss was a good fight, he actually managed to down my entire party to half health this time! Too bad he couldn't finish me off. :lol
duckroll, what's the item to cure poison? or is there any magic that cures poison? because i got poisoned from the battles against the scorpions and i don't find the way to cure that
QFT. 70 hours of dragged out crap is too much these days. I think I played more RPGs in the SNES days cause they were over after about 30-45 hours. Nowadays I don't even finish most RPGs cause they get boring after 20-30 hours.
PS. I finally have a new mousepad after like 6 six years! WOOHOO FOR BLUE DRAGON! And I'm gonna make my own faceplace later tonight. WOOHOO FOR BLUE DRAGON!
PS. I finally have a new mousepad after like 6 six years! WOOHOO FOR BLUE DRAGON! And I'm gonna make my own faceplace later tonight. WOOHOO FOR BLUE DRAGON!
duckroll, what's the item to cure poison? or is there any magic that cures poison? because i got poisoned from the battles against the scorpions and i don't find the way to cure that
PS. I finally have a new mousepad after like 6 six years! WOOHOO FOR BLUE DRAGON! And I'm gonna make my own faceplace later tonight. WOOHOO FOR BLUE DRAGON!
I played two hours and to give my truly 100% honest opinion,
After the solid 30 min intro, it's been boring as shit. . I had to turn it off after I finally reached a save point because I was literally going to fall asleep playing if I kept going at this rate.
The game has a lot of cool stuff going for it. The Monster's fight system is great, as is the back to back battle system. The enemies have lots of character and wonderful animation, just like in DQ. The job/skill system seems solid, and the music ranges from good to extremely good (not the main theme song -> main theme song ). Uematsu is my favorite composer, so it's nice having the first full soundtrack by him in quite a while.
OTOH, the game has a lot of little quirks that I feel are keeping it down already. For one thing, why make BEAUTIFUL ENVIRONMENTS if everything beyond 20 feet is just a big blur due to the depth of field filter? I mean one of the best things about exploring in rpgs is checking out the great views (FFXII's cities, DQVIII's everywhere, [EM]'s cool areas). I don't get why they blur everything out :\ Then you have the battles with an ever-fluctuating framerate that seems really bad at times. Normally in a turn-based rpg who cares what the framerate is, but since there are little reflex mini-games involved with spells, when it gets choppy and your bar is skipping around and getting the right timing is tough...well that's when the framerate interferes in a turn-based rpg. The environments after the gorgeous opening one have all been really boring. Every section is HUGE but ...empty ;_;, just a few monsters and chests. My biggest issue from a gameplay perspective is that in a lot of areas the map SUCKS. Your big map is useless because it's more of a world map, your mini-map just shows a tiny section of the entire area, and the camera is either uncontrollable and pointing STRAIGHT DOWN AT YOU SO YOU CAN'T SEE or you often just can't get a good view without fighting against the camera that always wants to point down. Most of the time so far I've honestly had no idea where I was going in the area (towards the exit, towards a town, etc...) so I've just been hugging walls and looking for paths/treasures on the way as not to get too lost already. If they could just let you zoom out the mini-map to get a map of the whole area it would've fixed all this >_<.
Too early to really have any thoughts about the story either way, and same goes for the battles, which work, but aren't exciting or interesting yet.
Hopefully the game picks up its pace as the hours go by. Right now I'm still feeling [EM] as the most "next-gen" Jrpg on the market in terms of both graphics and gameplay.
I do have to say though that the title screen + OP credits roll was beautiful and felt like the start of one of those unforgettable rpgs. The CG FMV is very nice as well
Here's some pics (I took a bunch but my camera sucks at night without light so most came out terrible.)
