Blue Dragon is My Favorite Thing

Today for my post on a video game I am going to be using a format from Five Penny Reviews (you can find the link in my blog list on the righthand side). Five Penny Reviews is written by my friend from college, Lucas. You should definitely check it out!

Release Date: 2007

Developer: Mistwalker, Artoon

Genre: Role-playing game

Platform: Xbox 360

# of Players: 1

What sets this game apart?

This is a typical JRPG (for non-gamers, that is a Japanese Role Playing Game). Just like most games of this genre, it has a turn-based combat system. In this case, the order that the characters can do an action is determined by their speed stat. What makes this game different than other JRPGs is that you also have shadows on your side. Each shadow has its own upgrades and type of class it benefits the best. You can change the shadow's class at anytime other than when you are in combat. The shadow will gain ranks in a particular class and be able to do new skills depending on the class. There are five types of shadows. They are dragon, phoenix, bat, minotaur, or a saber-toothed-tiger.

What is the difficulty factor?

I actually found this game to have a pretty easy difficulty. I played through the normal difficulty and did not have too much of a problem. I am a person who does not care how hard the game is as long as the story can captivate me. This game's story is not the greatest, but you will find out why it is on my list at the bottom of the review. Towards the end of the game there is a steep difficulty curve in my opinion. When I was playing, I easily went through the entire game until I came to the final boss and was quickly defeated. This was easily remedied by going and defeating some of the optional bosses. I went back to the boss and eventually beat him.

Does it use media effectively?

This game came out during the early days of the Xbox 360. Therefore, you will not get the stunning visuals that you get on games that are coming out currently. I think the game does a good job at sticking to its particular art style. Since this game was developed in Japan, you get a lot of the Japanese animation style, which explains why this game was later adapted into an anime and manga. It definitely is not the greatest graphics on the Xbox 360, but in my opinion, a game does not have to have amazing graphics to be considered a good game.

Best moment in the Game?

It has been a while since I have played this game, but there is one moment that sticks in my mind from when I played this game for the first time. The epic boss battle music! The music comes as a huge surprise. All the other scores in the game do not have words and are your typical JRPG music styles. When you fight the first boss that all changes. The song that is played is called "Eternity" by Ian Gillan. Here is a video of the music:

Who needs to play this game?

I think that if you are a fan of JRPGs you will enjoy this game. Also if you love the games where you can completely customize your character's classes you will also enjoy this game. I will admit that this is not the best RPG around. The story is typical (evil bad guy wants to take over the world) and I will admit that it is not very captivating. The main reason I decided to start off a video game post was so that I could mention the amazing boss battle music. I think using this music was risky and there are definitely people who love it and people who hate it. I am one of those who love it.