2007-08-17 00:33:43

I don't have an opinion one way or the other really. I liked the demo. I'm just saying I can't really take the traditionalism explanation to heart since every critic seemed to love Dragon Quest 8 - which you'll find you'll have a hard time arguing isn't traditional is the strictest sense.

2007-08-17 01:02:41

Sure, but i also think reviewers are wise to the fact they have to review popular games with less bias, especially with games such as FF and DQ.

Also many JRPG fans are Sony fans and i get the feeling many of those people have already disregarded BD as a good RPG because it didn't fall on the system of their choice, its like having shane from EGM reviewing BD when we know how much of a Sony fan boy he is, he would go out of his way to discredit the game because it's a Microsoft produced game.

I would have to agree with Optimus that there is little point someone reviewing a game if they don't like the genre (and to some degree the platform), because most people who don't like JRPG's (or the xbox) won't even contemplate picking this game up in the first place.

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Marumaro for the WIN !!

2007-08-17 09:09:20 In reply to Jollipop (2007-08-17 01:02:41)

I agree 100% with everything you said. This probably isn't a popular thing to suggest, but I really do think if Blue Dragon weren't a 360 jrpg or had the name Dragon Quest or Final fantasy attached to it a number of reviewers would be singing a totally different tune about the game.

BD as a ps3 title would've been at the very top of 1up's top games for TGS 06. At the end of TGS it came away as a title that couldn't even make their most excited for list. How is that possible with the showing it had? It outshined practically everything there. That fact wouldn't have escaped 1up's editors had it been a ps3 title since TGS was sorta the ps3 coming out party.

In many ways aside from the games we all know will be a monster success for Microsoft this year like Halo 3, Mass Effect etc. I believe Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey are easily the 360's most important titles this year because they represent a change of landscape for the brand. People talk about broadening the audience? I think these games are the biggest chance the 360 has of that happening.

If these titles do extremely well it could mean the opening of a floodgate of serious jrpg support for the console (without Microsoft having to pay for it in some way) and I think a number of people are well aware of how important these titles are for the xbox brand and will likely try to do what they can to both it and Lost Odyssey look not so special to prevent that. It sounds like a conspiracy, but there really are certain things a site says that makes it painfully obvious what their game is.

Being turnbased didn't suddenly become a really bad thing for jrpgs until the Xbox 360 jumped on the bandwagon. Looking at IGN's question about Lost Odyssey being turnbased I think was very telling and seeing it I actually called that it was a sign that BD likely got owned in their review due to that. Lately I've been seeing sites refer to Lost Odyssey as basically final fantasy as if that has suddenly become a bad thing. I never thought I'd see the day where the words "Final Fantasy" would be used in an almost demeaning manner towards another jrpg. Not all sites did this, some did it as a way to compliment Lost Odyssey while others made it seem like Lost Odyssey was just a shameless ripoff.

All is not lost though I think because if or when Microsoft officially approve the making of another Blue Dragon or another big jrpg like Lost Odyssey from Mistwalker (or possibly a sequel to it) that will send a very clear message that Microsoft isn't giving up on the franchises and that in itself will be a major help for microsoft. They gotta stick with franchises like this to help them build a reputation and if there were ever 2 franchises to stick by they'd certainly be Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey.

Who cares what people want to say about Blue Dragon or Lost Odyssey in their second incarnations as Mistwalker is bound to get better and better as they go along and it will also put certain reviewers in a tighter spot to show it more respect when dealing with sequels to these games or else they give themselves away too easily.

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Hironobu Sakaguchi is coming back to reclaim the throne :)

October 20th 2007 (A good day)

Don't ask any questions just shut up and buy Halo : Ghosts of the Onyx one of the greatest books ever.

pssh! more like electronic gay-ming monthly! amirite

2007-08-18 00:13:46

http://www.gamesradar.com/us/xbox360/game/reviews/...§ionId=1000

Another one here they give it an 80, but they seem to really like the story and feel the game delivered. They just state they find the traditional battle system boring and it being evolved would've allowed the game to go from extremely good to indespensable.

A nice review. They didn't like the battle system, but they enjoyed the characters and story and essentially enjoyed the overall experience.

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Hironobu Sakaguchi is coming back to reclaim the throne :)

October 20th 2007 (A good day)

Don't ask any questions just shut up and buy Halo : Ghosts of the Onyx one of the greatest books ever.

pssh! more like electronic gay-ming monthly! amirite

2007-08-20 07:49:31

I love JRPG

2007-08-24 16:46:25

It seems today is the day of controversy! Blue Dragon gets a 5/10 from eurogamer
http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=81...

Fair review I must say but I already bought the game anyway :D
The weird thing is they game the JP version a 9/10 but the review has now been removed from their system ... lolz honestly dont know what happened there ???

I posted the link to that JP review in here but I cant find my thread, Can mods help me. I just want to have a look at it again!

2007-08-24 20:11:09

Marumaru = Cait Sith, western gamers don't like that sort of humor. While some see genius others see stupidity and both sides are right in their own way.

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Imperius Rex!

2007-08-24 23:01:08

http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/xbox360/...

Let me get this straight. There is a contingent here who believes that if Blue Dragon had another, more established name on the box, that reviewers would be giving it much higher marks than the current 7.9 average that it is saddled with at Metacritic?

Even the user review average of 8.1 is not that far off from the industry review average. I guess all those users would also have given the game a much higher review if it was not named Blue Dragon, but something else more established.

Of course you do know that this entire whacked line of thinking is going to be shat on come late September when reviews from Eternal Sonata (another game with an unestablished pedigree) are squashing all over the reviews for Blue Dragon. Or in November when Mass Effect (yet another totally new and unestablished IP) will be coming to steal away with RPG of the year awards (and possibly game of the year, as well).

Maybe the one thing that everyone is so afraid to look at is the possibility that Blue Dragon is getting rated so low because for a jRPG, it really is not that good. Or more closer to the truth, Blue Dragon is one of those games that you either love or you do not love.

I mean, c'mon, how many perfectly new IPs have shown up over the years (heck, just the last generation alone), which have gone on to get stellar ratings on their initial debut to the world? So many that you cannot even begin to name them all. But because Blue Dragon cannot pull it off, after a couple of years of being hyped that it should be able to, and everyone is upset and needs to create baseless theories why the game is not rating anywhere as near as high as anticipated.


Then there is the other contingent that believes the game is too deep for Western gamers . . .

Whoa, talk about another heaping helping of bullshit. Too deep for Western gamers? WTF are you, xenophobic? So all the other jRPGs over the past 30 years that have received stellar review scores and heaps of critical acclaim, I guess somehow all of those were watered down versions of the what Blue Dragon is, as obviously Blue Dragon is too deep and none of those games have any depth whatsoever, hence their very high review scores by Western game reviewers and fans alike.

But the sentiment of Western RPGers not appreciating depth is not only xenophobic, but is also quite condescending. Some of the deepest RPGs are in fact created by Western developers and for decades, even before the invention of the jRPG style (which was nothing more than Japanese interpretation of RPGs from the West), PC gamers have been eating these deep ass RPGs like soup. So to sit here and even insinuate that Japanese games are too deep for the shallow minds of Western gamers and use that as an excuse why so many Western reviewers are crapping on the Blue Dragon reviews, is complete and total bullshit.

Which brings us to this other weird school of thought I have seen floating about. That only people who do not like jRPGs, have a low opinion of Blue Dragon.

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaaaaa!!!

Well I know plenty of people, myself included, who have been playing RPGs and more specifically jRPGs for DECADES, who have a mediocre to low opinion of Blue Dragon. Fact of the matter is, no one, and I mean no one, in any videogame, should have to trudge through 15 to 20 hours of no substance whatsoever other than grinding, to finally get to the part where the story elements and character development elements of the game actually kick in. That is really unfair to the consumer, who for the most part, is looking to get away from their daily grind by playing games, not trade their daily grind in for a virtual one.

Here, I have a theory of what is really going on.

A couple of years ago it was revealed to the world that famed RPG legend, Hironobu Sakaguchi was coming out of retirement to make RPGs once again. For old school fans of jRPGs, this was cause for major amounts of celebrations - and so we did. Then later on, the world is alerted to the fact that Sakaguchi-san would be teaming back up with his old pals from ChronoTrigger (one of the greatest RPGs of all times) and would be working on a new title, Blue Dragon. Needless to say, the entire RPG community the world over went into raging hard-on mode the day this announcement was made. And for good reason, ChronoTrigger was a godsend in it's day. Full of a level of innovation and polish that rarely ever exist in a game all at the same time. Innovation which while taken for granted in the modern day, was very influential in an entire generation of jRPGs that would eventually follow. The very thought of yet another game of this magnitude, that would push a stagnating genre forward, potentially by such leaps and bounds, reinventing as it went and laying down the foundation for the next generation of jRPGs, well that is worth getting a raging hard-on for. And so the world of jRPGs fans (myself included), did just that.

But something happened along the way to Nirvana that was completely unanticipated by everyone. Sakaguchi-san only created a game that was . . . a few generations behind.

Not that there was not enough spit and polish on Blue Dragon to make it a solid RPG, far from it. The game is rock solid. Unfortunately, it's does not actually go anywhere. And let's face facts, almost everyone was expecting it to go somewhere huge.

So from this turn of events, you wind up with two camps of gamers. In the first camp, you wind up with everyone who was expecting the Earth to move the first time they touched a game controller with Blue Dragon in their system. And when the world did indeed not move at all, there is a certain amount of letdown here. After all, Sakaguchi was teh Master, and like anytime a person realizes their parents or someone else the idolize is only human, there is a sense of being let down by this realization. So we wind up with a camp of people who were expecting a brave new world for jRPGs, winding up with a game that tries too hard to harken back to the days of old, yet only manages to remind gamers why the need for progress and innovation is so important to an artform, that for all points and purposes, is still in it's infancy. And so, you see a wealth of review scores to match this feeling of being let down; from both the professional press and gaming community alike.

Then you have camp #2; a camp that no doubt many here in this forum fit in. As stated before, Blue Dragon is not a bad game, it just does not set the world on fire with sweeping new innovations that many were expecting. However, like all Sakaguchi products, Blue Dragon is loaded from head to toe with spit and polish throughout. The game's production values and the solid, stoic, competent manner in which it is executed, rings true in every second of the game, from the moment you boot it up for the first go round, all the way until the final credits have finished rolling, leaving the gamer who has gone on this journey, lingering, already nostalgic over this grand adventure.

See in this second camp, there is a certain appreciation for all of these niceties and the solid production that was put on here in Blue Dragon. Members of the second camp, do not mind all the of the grinding found in the game either. They see it not so much as an obstacle keeping them away from the real meat and potatoes of the game, but as a challenge; something to prove their worthiness to witness what transpires in Sakaguchi's epic tale. And as such, this perspective too is reflected in reviews from the pros and fans alike.

Which camp is wrong?

Neither. Both camps are completely right and legitimized in their POV of how Blue Dragon has turned out. The first camp is right in that Blue Dragon should have been the 2nd coming; a jRPG that would light the world on fire and irrevocably innovate the genre in new, exciting and fresh ways, who's influence would be felt for years, nay decades, to come. And they are perfectly right if they feel letdown by the fact that Blue Dragon, never shaped up to be that game.

The second camp is also right, Just because Blue Dragon is not going to do for the genre what ChronoTrigger did for it all those years ago, does not make Blue Dragon a bad game. Quite to the contrary, Blue Dragon is quite the good game. Yeah you have to put up with a bit more grinding than some fans may want to deal with, especially with an almost purely old school battle system, but aside from that, everything about Blue Dragon is as rock solid as a game could be, and sleeping underneath the surface IS an epic story worth being able to experience.

See, everyone is right and everyone wins. If there is something in Blue Dragon for you, then you are in for a treat. If there is nothing their for you, there are certainly plenty of other good RPGs (both Eastern and Western) coming down the pipe to sate your appetite. Eternal Sonata is only weeks away, Lost Odyssey is still due out by year's end. Two Worlds just shipped this week. Mass Effect will be out by November. Culdecept Saga is also due out this holiday. And gems like Tri-Ace's Infinite Undiscovery, Squenix's Last Remnant and Lion Head's Fable 2, are already lighting up the sky for calender year 2008. Naruto: Rise of a Ninja, is some action-RPG love set for this year. And even BioShock has enough RPG elements and gameplay in it, that many pros and fans alike are eying it for an action-RPG of the year, nomination. For RPG fans, there is plenty to go around. And if you happen to be one of the ones who like Blue Dragon too, then all the better, as that is just one more game in an increasing list of RPGs coming to the Xbox 360. And man, you just can't beat that.

2007-08-25 00:30:23

Damn long post, but I don't think Blue Dragon was suppose to the second coming well atleast not for people that don't like that sort of thing.

I think it has exceeded my expectations although the battle system is different than what I originally expected, but I still love it the way it is :)

Yes I'm still of the belief that bigtime jrpg fans will love Blue Dragon. If someone is whining and moaning about the battle system why are they even bothering with the game in the first place? Blue Dragon is a game that even some jrpg fans wont immediately be attracted to in my opinion. By that I mean there are some people that look at Blue Dragon's art style and character design and say "what a joke" because they prefer character FFVII or FFVIII style character designs. For people that complain about the anime cliches tough luck anyone could've looked at the game and instantly tell it would have anime cliches the game is targeted at Shonen Jump readers.

taken from eurogamer review which gave it a 50 lol.

More whining about it being too oldschool boo hoo cry me a river they knew what they were getting into :)

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Hironobu Sakaguchi is coming back to reclaim the throne :)

October 20th 2007 (A good day)

Don't ask any questions just shut up and buy Halo : Ghosts of the Onyx one of the greatest books ever.

pssh! more like electronic gay-ming monthly! amirite

2007-08-25 00:51:56

1UP 6.5

Quote:

To hear some tell it, Blue Dragon is Microsoft's Great Japanese Hope: It's allegedly the company's Final Fantasy, the role-playing game that's supposed to single-handedly turn around their perpetually flagging Japanese fortunes due to the involvement of Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi, longtime Dragon Quest character designer (and Dragon Ball mastermind) Akira Toriyama, and veteran Square Enix composer Nobuo Uematsu, three legends from the Eastern RPG scene.

Slow down, folks. Let's adjust those expectations right here, right now: Blue Dragon is a decent roleplayer. But it's no "system seller." And sorry, but it can't hold Final Fantasy's jock. Not by a long shot.


Rest:

http://www.1up.com/do/reviewPage?cId=3162317

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Halle Berry: Delgado i am feeling really reall dirty tonight, shall i call Jessica Simpson for a threesome?

Delgado: HALLE what have i told you about bothering me when i'm playing Mass Effect!!! now get out and dont come back for 2 months!! (Slams door

2007-08-25 01:37:53 In reply to dcdelgado (2007-08-25 00:51:56)

Since when was Blue Dragon the company's Final Fantasy... if anything thats Lost Odyssey. 1up still as clueless as ever I see :)

http://xbox360.gamespy.com/xbox-360/mistwalker-rpg...:)

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Hironobu Sakaguchi is coming back to reclaim the throne :)

October 20th 2007 (A good day)

Don't ask any questions just shut up and buy Halo : Ghosts of the Onyx one of the greatest books ever.

pssh! more like electronic gay-ming monthly! amirite