Blue Dragon *gasps*

[NekoGnash]

Tell the truth everyone, I haven't been a huge fan of all of this "next-gen" nonsense but recently I have aquired a game that made me think otherwise.
Yes yes I know Bioshock is beautiful and The Darkness blew me away but very recently [as of 2 days ago] I simply can't get enough of a little diddy called "Blue Dragon"  It is THAT damn good!!!

Kind of suprised that I'm enjoying it as much as I am -

[I'd like to make a  bold statement if I may: This has to be my most favorite 360 game thus far...and I'm including every game that has been released up until this week]

- A lot of reviews have compared it to Dragon Quest VIII [wich I didn't enjoy] and simply HATE the fact that its turn-based [wich I love]

I guess I love me RPG's then.  Seriously folks, if you own a 360 and have been aching for some good ol'fashioned [circa early to mid 90's] RPG godness then I HIGHLY recommend giving this game a chance.  Borrow the first disc from a friend [another homage to "ye olde schoole" - BRILLANT!!!]  or just buy it oughtright...for me it was well worth the trade in of several high-brow 360 games!

[Kikujiro]

I just finished it this morning. The game came out last week in Europe.

Anyway, great game. Lots of people/reviews seems to find too old-fashioned or classical, but I think that's precisely why this game is so great : all these classical elements you would find in any other RPG are put together really nicely. It's way more fun than DraQue VIII (for instance), which is just plain archaic to me.

The game is almost nothing original though. Sterotypical characters, basic story, turn-based battle (which I like)... We already saw that a billion times. Oh and it's friggin' easy too if you play it on normal. I never met a match for my party - final boss set aside.

While I wouldn't qualify as a masterpiece, Blue Dragon definitely deserve some attention. It may just be "the" JRPG 360 owners were waiting for so long. We'll just have to wait for Lost Odyssey, Eternal Sonata or Infinite Undiscovery, now

[NekoGnash]

I'm glad someone else found it as enjoyable as myself. 
I'm actually finding it hard to put in too much time for play because I'm also considering Persona 3 as one of  my most favorite JRPGs for the PS2 at the moment.  *sighs*  Why'd I have to be stuck with two amazing games at the same time is beyond me [I do this alot, most of my RPGs never get finished a week after they come out...I usually come back to them a year later or so.]

I wasn't sure what to expect with Blue Dragon.  I mean granted I'm not a huge fan of Toriyama's art [wich makes me think of Dragon Ball...and it sorta snowballs from there] but somehow I don't mind the fact that Shu looks like kid Goku, Nene a Namek, and the Pirate bandana wearing girl looks like Marle [from Chrono Trigger] because the game is simply too much fun. 

What shocked me is the music - Out of nowhere Uematsu's back out of the blue with a soundtrack of EPIC proportions.

[It is EASILY one of my most favorite soundtracks for a role playing game...ever
Oh and that one Ian Gillan song made me giggle uncontrolably the first time I heard it - for a Boss Battle theme it is absolutely FREAKIN amazing!!!

You know...I think I might actually play more later!!

MAD props to Mistwalker!! and to everyone else who's gotten a kick out of this game as I have!! 

As a post note:  I thought all of our hopes and dreams for a quality next JRPG were shattered with Enchanted Arms [well I for one didn't like it] I guess I was wrong!

[Panda_Samurai]

I like Blue Dragon, but I don't see anything spectacular at all in it.  Everything is just "g00d", 'cept for some of the dialog, which can be pretty horrible and cheesy. The music well, it varies. Some of it honestly sounds like SNES RPG music, while other bits sound great and high-quality. Certainly not Uematsu's best. The graphics are great except for the character designs, which are pretty bad. Toriyama's art is pretty bad to begin with, and the transition to non-cel-shaded (or at least it looks that way) characters really hurts their appearance. The environments and whatnot are great, though.

[Infoseeker]

The game is almost nothing original though. Sterotypical characters, basic story, turn-based battle (which I like)... We already saw that a billion times. Oh and it's friggin' easy too if you play it on normal. I never met a match for my party - final boss set aside.

The anime can be described as so to; for video games it doesn't matter, since that's a working trend. But for the story as an anime it fails so very very horribly.

[Leroy]

I bought an Xbox 360 a couple of months ago to go with my new 46" 1080p HDTV of greatness. I immediately downloaded the Blue Dragon and Eternal Sonata demos (well, I grabbed Geometry Wars and Pac-Man: CE first, but the RPG demos came right after that). Now, at this point I was SUPER excited for Blue Dragon and kind of iffy about Eternal Sonata. The Blue Dragon demo sucked. The music rocked, but the demo sucked. I was despondent. On the other hand, the demo for Eternal Sonata was AWESOME (except the music was shit). My tables had been turned. But, I was still going to buy Blue Dragon. It had been one of the major factors in me wanting a 360 for the last year or so and I was going to give the game a chance, maybe the demo was just bad.

Lo and behold, I was right. I am LOVING this game. I just made it to disc three last night. It does remind me a lot of Dragon Quest 8, which is a good thing as I loved that game too. The class system feels like they took what was established in Final Fantasy V except they made it good. Being able to carry over more than one single skill to other classes really adds some depth to this.. and having only ten well-rounded classes as opposed to thirty classes with twenty useless ones helps to. I still think Eternal Sonata is going to be a better game overall, but Blue Dragon is quite the treat for somebody growing up on SNES era RPGs.

I do have some minor nitpicks though. The graphic style. I LOVE Toriyama's artwork, LOVE it. But after Dragon Quest 8 (and all the Dragon Ball Z games) being cel-shaded, who's ill-conceived, bone-headed idea was it to put his characters in this bland 3D style? I think the biggest problem is the character's eyes. They look like freaking stickers placed on the character models. Secondly, the fact that almost every single background item is searchable makes traversing new areas EXTREMELY tedious and tiring. Granted, most of the crap is useless, but the good stuff is good. I also don't like how they gave Shu a man's voice, when the Japanese and French dubs have a more suitable child-like voice. It's the same crap they pulled on Dragon Ball Z, except since Goku was actually an adult, it wasn't as offensive. Still, it's better than the ear-raping Japanese over-acting, so I can't complain too much. Finally, I hope they get a more competent developer on for the sequel. I remember reading some worries when they brought Artoon in for developmental duties and I can sort of see why now. The game tends to feel very choppy in places and has an inordinate amount of screen-tearing. Also, having all the cut-scenes be pre-recorded segments of in-game footage? Despicable. The game should have been one disc if not for that crap. Overall though, these are all very minor issues.

By the way, my Gamertag is PixyJunket360, if anyone wants to add me, just send me a message telling me you're from.

[Leroy]

What shocked me is the music - Out of nowhere Uematsu's back out of the blue with a soundtrack of EPIC proportions.

[It is EASILY one of my most favorite soundtracks for a role playing game...ever
Oh and that one Ian Gillan song made me giggle uncontrolably the first time I heard it - for a Boss Battle theme it is absolutely FREAKIN amazing!!!

Crap, I can't believe I wrote all that above and forgot to mention the absolutely BRILLIANT soundtrack. This is Uematsu's best work since Final Fantasy VI BY FAR. It is so very incredible. There are so many varied styles and they are all imbued with a gigantic sense of fun and adventure. It seriously feels like he was able to let loose after breaking free of the shackles of the crappy modern Final Fantasy games. The boss battle is so awesome, it gets me pumped up like nothing else in an RPG. The heavy rock song in the mecha base at the end of disc one was fantastic as well as the mechanical/electronic song in Nene's fortress at the end of disc two. The orchestral piece that plays during some intense cut-scenes (also during the last boss on disc one, I think) really sounds like an Uematsu homage to Sugiyama! The one piece that really sold me though, sold me on buying the soundtrack once I finish the game, is the Italian guitar piece that sounds like it came out of the soundtrack to The Godfather. It's played in the basement of the town surrounded by the green barrier and in the living forest at the start of disc three.

It's really going to bum me out in a major way next week when I start Eternal Sonata (if I've finished Blue Dragon, that is) and having to put up with the hack-job Sakuraba's generic soundtrack right after playing through this musical masterpiece. Hopefully the actual piece's of Chopin's scores that are supposed to be used in the game make up for Sakuraba's lack of musical talent.

(By the way, I actually liked Enchanted Arms..)

[Infoseeker]

haha, I enjoyed Enchanted arms too; though I played it on the PS3. But I doubt it was much different.