Charming,beautiful in some places,decent and traditional style JRPG.
The story in Blue Dragon is set in a medieval world that is being terrorized by a purple skinned villain named Nene.Nene has an army of robots,and machines that can devastate the kingdom with tsunami's,flying probes that can shoot lazers,airships with powerful weapons,and because the people in the world live a medieval style existance,they're not match for Nene's technology and army.
Nene released toxic clouds that kill living things and it forced many village people to relocate.Three teenagers named Shu,Jiro and Kluke have had enough of Nene's terror so they decided they will go on a journey to find where Nene is so they can try to stop Nene once and for all.Eventually they meet Marumaro,who's a cute creature that's over 100 years old,who joins their group and Zola,who's a tough 21 year female tomboy,who's also the leader of a group of knights and she joins their group too.
The characters don't have as much depth as most other JRPG characters,but they still have distinctive personalities.
Shu is an easy going,outdoors type of guy who isn't afriad to face a challenge.
Jiro is arrogant and acts like he's better than others.
Kluke is a cute,kind hearted 17 year old girl who wanted to be a nurse,just like her mother so she could help people,but went on the quest with Shu and Jiro after their village was attacked.
Marumaro acts a bit childish and cute,and comes from a peaceful race.
Zola is the tomboy I've mentioned before and is hard on others and will leave people behind if they slow her down.
Your journey will take you to different villages and across grassy plains,desert,forest(some forests are alive and some are dead due to the toxic clouds),caves,dungeons,ancient ruins,inside Nene's airships,a giant kindgom,a city of robots,snowy mountains and to the center of the earth.
Like in many JRPGs,you'll travel over a world map,and can do so in a non-linear fashion.
The villages have a good amount of detail,such as farms,waterwells,ponds,homes are full of everyday items and villages have people inside them.
There is no random battles,you'll see enemies before you fight them,and enemies keep respawning and will chase you but it allows you to level grind too.Some monsters will attack other monsters,and you can lead monsters who are chasing you to other monsters so they will attack eachother and it will make the battles over quicker and you can level up quicker.
The battle system is turned based and instead of using weapons,you'll use shadows of Dragons to perform attacks and you can also perform attacking spells and healing spells.There is different types of attacks you can perform,which depends on your character class(which is the occupation of your character that you can switch at anytime outside of battle),and you can perform elemental attacks too.
Some of the occupations a character can do include sword master,assassin,white mage,black mage etc.The classes level up,not just the characters and the class you select for your character will affect their stats(even their max HP).Some characters are suited better to certain classes than other characters,for exampl,Jiro is the best healer,but other characters can perform healing spells if they select the white mags class.But still,there is some skills that only certain characters can learn.
The characters can also perform corporeal attacks,which are like limit breaks or overdrives and extremely powerful.
The enemies and bosses are too easy until disc 3,because until disc 3,you won't need to do much level grinding and you'll be able to easily beat most enemies and bosses you'll face,as long as you occasionally use a healing spell.But on disc 3,the bosses toughen up a bit and you'll need to do a bit of level grinding,but,as long as you kill off the bosses quickly,you won't be in much danger of losing.
Still,the game is very fun,it was an enjoyable journey for me and was a long one too,40-60 hours worth.
The cutscenes are great and colorful.There's some beautiful CGI's,such as the scenes with the moon lite sky and long,entertaining airship battles.
The flowing water effects for the waterfalls,lakes and pond are beautiful.I still remember the beautiful garden that is near the beautiful waterfall,that has big butterflies fluttering around and colorful flowers and you can hear birds and it's relaxing.
The dead forests look depressing and do a good job of inspiring you to stop Nene,and they can have a creepy/morbid atmosphere with mist in the air,and purple colored acid filled lakes and toxic clouds and morbid looking creatures that pop out of the soil and try to attack you.
Akira Toriyama's artstyle shows for each character,and their appearance suits their personality reasonably well.
Shu wears a singlet and has long hair.Jiro has a nerdy hair cut and green colored dorky clothes which suit his ''I think I know everything personality''.Kluke is beautiful and cute in a more traditional way.Marumaro looks cute,cuddly and innocent.Zola looks tomboyish but s exy at the same time with her nice figure and hair long,white hair.
The corporeal attacks are spectacular,but they last for so long and feel overdone.Also,the game is already easy enough,and corporeal attacks make what could possibly be an exciting battle a no contest in your favor.
At times,the character conversations have a little emotional affect,such as when they talk about their dreams,and the love triangle between Shu,Jiro,Kluke made the story a little more interesting.
The music is nice,especially during the scenes when the characters haev deep conversations.
Overall,it's a decent JRPG for the Xbox360.