Blue Dragon

Microsoft sent out these images of Blue Dragon, which today got itself a demo on the Marketplace.

I've received my copy of Blue Dragon Asia version a few hours ago, and like a good fan of this excellent game I immediately started recording the beginning. What a pleasure it is to finally exactly understand what's going on thanks to the menus and subtitles in English. This is just the perfect version of the game for me, especially since us Europeans won't have the Japanese voices available. Anyway, I'm thinking about doing a "journal" of my adventures in the game, with new images and videos every few days. So it will be up to you to decide when to stop watching if you don't want to be spoiled too much. As for now, you can safely watch the very first 10 minutes of the game.
Update: Just a day late, here is the second video showing what happens next, with some really strange enemies :)
Update2: Just so you guys forgive me about my tardiness with the second video, here comes the third one where we finally get to see the shadows!
Update3: Because I feel generous today, here comes the fourth part where the shadows finally enter the battle.
Update4: Let's been done with this series of video with the first boss fight!

Microsoft and Mistwalker released just a few days ago the first real downloadable content for Blue Dragon, a rather nice 300 points and 18 MB download. This adds a new dungeon right before the end of the game, and since it's randomly generate it's quite replayable. As you'll be able to see by yourself in the video my characters were really underpowered against with booted up enemies, but it's still a nice watch while waiting for hopefully lots of english subtitled content next month with the new asian version of the game.

Hinorobu Sakaguchi was at the GDC yesterday to present some of his works, and of course had a preview of the localized version of Blue Dragon to show during his presentation. This version is now planned for an August release in the US, with no firm date for us europeans so far. And the good news is that we will get a choice between japanese and english voices!
Update: Some site report a September release for Europe, but as far as I can tell there is nothing official. Also it seems that the european version will not have the japanese voices because of the different localizations for the numerous countries. Joy.

Since there is still nothing new to report I've decided to do as some of you guys asked and do a quick tour of my favorit places in Blue Dragon. I've still not finished the game (I guess I'm about 80% done), but needless to say that a lot of these images are spoiling some of the game levels, but not really the story. But still, it's so beautiful :)

Mistwalker keeps updating the official Blue Dragon site with new medias even 3 weeks after the release. This time we get 2 new images and a video presenting the Overworld and the Mechat ship.

Even if the game has been released one week ago in Japan, Mistwalker keeps updating the official Blue Dragon site with new medias. This time 2 images and one video.

For the next Gamersyde Diaries I've been recording all my adventures in Blue Dragon's world (more than 13 hours of video so far...) et from time to time I capture some images when I find something I find beautiful or interesting. I've selecting some of them in this gallery, and as you can expect they have some spoilers, even if they do not show much if anything from the story itself.

I've spent quite a big part of my week-end playing Blue Dragon and I can now say that it's been a long time since I've had so much fun with a game. Blue Dragon is an almost perfect mix of eyes and ears pleasure (see video), typical Toriyama silliness (see other video) and of course deep but accessible gameplay. I just can't wait to get out of work so I can go back to the world created by Toriyama and Sakaguchi.

Finally it's here, the much hyped Blue Dragon. I've only played a little so far, but I'm not disappointed at all. What a beautiful and fun game! Our complete impressions will have to wait for Gamersyde Diaries 3, but I'll already let you enjoy the first part of the game's long introduction. Parts 2 and 3 (and maybe 4) will be uploaded during the week-end.
Update: The second part is now online, with some fights, a bit of exploration and of course lots of cutscenes.
Update 2: Third and last part available, with some hilarious robot-parrot thing and finally the shadows!
Update 3: I've been asked numerous times for yet another part so there it is, this time you'll get to see a bit more of the fighting and exploration system, and the first boss!