game producer Hironobu Sakaguchi of Mistwalker game studio and developer Artoon present the highly anticipated Xbox 360-exclusive Blue Dragon. Featuring the character design of Akira Toriyama, who designed Dragon Ball Z, and music by Nobuo Uematsu, the composer for Final Fantasy, Blue Dragon is an epic role-playing game (RPG) centered on a young boy named Shu and several of his friends. These unlikely heroes possess miraculous strength and magical power to control phantom shadows that mirror the actions of their masters.Shu and company must use their shadows as weapons as they battle the evil Nene and an antiquated human race of people who command a magical power thought to have perished long ago. Shu and friends must wield their skills to save their world from impending doom.Encountering various people on a planet with numerous ancient ruins, the characters and shadows travel through a world full of mysteries and illusions, where the slightest touch can cause reactions of unparalleled magnitude.

This is a genuinly fun RGP; little sidequests for the hardcore and many many shiny little items in items in chests for the treasure hunters. And teh ability to skip both of those for gamers with left time on their hands.
Although at 3-disks in length time is something you will need.

Battles are fun too, you hit an enemy to cause a battle with it and by using field tactics you can lure multiple ones into the frey. You can use items, attack or use magic in a Final Fantasy 3 reminicant class system.
On thing that FF3 did not have however is that here you can dabble in multiple classes, pick up the skills, and use them in other classes. Adding both fun, strategy and flexibility.

So on the good side there is a lengthy story, battle play variety and a genuinly fun experiance.
On the other hand it was imported and that always causes the inevitable dubbing issues - unusually this game doesn't dub enough! So many things like wording and catchphrases that would work in Japan just don't swing well over here. The main characters love of the words "I will never give up!" are only said at the most innapropriate times, that is; when your NOT ACTUALLY FIGHTING, when your, say; crashing a plane or falling into an ocean.

Akira Tokiyama took his artistic hands to character design again, just as he did in Dragon Quest, and although his talents in that area are good, the silly and oftain pink swily poo (of which there are LOADS) sense of humor can go amiss with western audiances. I think fans of Tokiyamas "Doctor Slump" or the Dragon Quest series will feel right at home with these touches

I could continue to ramble about flaws, oh believe me i could, but i could do that same for the good things and so i think this game should be summed up shortly thus:

Hours of genunine fun that i would highly recommend, and minutes of required patientce along the way which i would not.
Buy if your looking for a good long RPG to indulge in and don't if your not.

First off this game is criminally underated, I remember going to game to buy this, because of the relation of staff between Mistwalker and Square Enix. It suprised me though, i was hoping and expecting for something similar to Chrono Trigger. But what you get from this game is a collabration of feutres from previous game made by other devolopers, thats the main let down of the game. I know people may argue that they can't help this because Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest have near enough done everything with the RPG genre that is possible to do. But there is always a new idea out there some where. The games story in my opionin is very good and excellently presented, though it does drag on a tad when you get on to disc 3. All in all if i had to give this a review a score out of 10 i would give it around an 8. The game is very good but i do not recommend it to any in-patient gamers (because it does go on a bit and you will have to do like in every RPG tedious walk around and battling to get your level up.) or a person who dislikes RPGs (because its about as true to the genre as possible).

Pros:
* Well presented Graphics perfect for the story.
* Decent Storyline.
* Loveable Characters.
* A proper RPG that lives up to the Genre.
* No random ecounters you see the enemy (think Chrono Trigger.

Cons:
* Having to level up for boss battles all the time.
* Pointless parts of the quest that were only in the game to expand the main quest.

I though this game would be alot of fun when i bought it as it has the whole Dragon Ball thing going on, and it being an RPG (my fav type of game) but sadly i was wrong, the only thing i found good about this game was the grafics.

I started to play, and played for about 2 hours and though its has to get better, no way can this game be this boring all the way through. So i gave it a few more hours and found that i just wasn't having fun at all.

This game is boring, Simpley put. Maybe its because im 23 i dont no, Maybe this game is more for the youger geniration that is easly entertained by poor game play and fights that are so easy that it makes you want to scream.

Now this is just my opinion, i have read some of the other reviews on this game and they seemed to like it, but then again they are alot younger than me.

I say rent this game first if you must play it, Also its really seems to me that hard core and older gamers wouldn't injoy this baced on what i experienced. I thought it was a waste of money and i want the 8-9 hours of my life back after playing it playing it.

I hope some of you dont see this as a rude/harsh review, im just trying to be honest :),but if someone asked me to describe this game in one word, that word would be "Boring".

Piece out!! xD

Finished and thoroughly enjoyed. It is a little dark in places on default mode, but, changing the brightness settings in the settings menu on the game dealt with that. The graphics are not the best I have seen, but they're far from the worst so no complaints. All the chests and items that are available to collect are fairly easily visible and exploring the area and talking to people reaps rewards, as in most rpgs. The battle system is very like the old Final Fantasy games, turn based and simple to understand, and items and spells can all be equipped in the same way as in those games. I think anyone who loved FFs 7-9 will like this. I wasn't going to buy it based on some of the reviews on here, but I'm glad I did. I think it's a smashing game, a little bit repetitive in places and the having to go back round getting chests that were initially blocked off is a bit of a pain, but it's a solid RPG with endearing characters and a good story line. I loved the characters in it and I am a 47 year old woman. Superb game. One of the best I have ever played.

As a 32 year old professional female who previously detested all games consoles and so called computer based 'fun' I have become tragically addicted to this game.

After much nagging from my boyfriend I bought him an X box 360 as a gift, and it came with a copy of blue dragon. After complaining about how loud the music was one day, I sat down for a few moments to watch the 'game play'. I am now completely addicted. Having never really played any other computer games before (apart from Dizzy on my brother ZX Spectrum aged 11) I have found Blue Dragon to be completely brilliant and utterly addictive. As I have the co-ordination of an inebriated blind wombat and can't stand any game that requires you to hammer away on the controller like a woodpecker on amphetimine I found the 'RPG' turn taking format easy to learn and play. I also enjoy the fact that you continuously progress within the game, and there is none of this tedious dying and going back the the beginning business.

All the other reviews that positively rate this game cover all other more 'gaming' aspects (graphics, characters etc) and I fully endorse them, it all seems great to me (much better than Dizzy anyway). If you are an X box 360 widow and are fed up of watching him play Halo I cannot recommend this game enough.

My boyfriend is now my husband and doing the washing up. I am about to go and tackle hour number 39 of Blue Dragon, bring it on........