# Blue Dragon (Xbox 360)

*Published:* 2007-09-24
*Author:* Joe Dynamite

![](/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/bluedragon-review.jpg)I’ve been keeping my eye on this game for quite some time because I’m a huge Hironobu Sakaguchi fan. I’ve been playing *Final Fantasy* since the first one way back on the Nintendo Entertainment System. I might have waited a week or more to grab it (I’m kinda broke at the moment), but boy am I glad I went out and bought it.

It brings back many memories of my childhood. It feels like a Super Nintendo RPG on steroids, and that is a great thing. The last mashup of Sakaguchi and Akira Toriyama that I remember playing was *Chrono Trigger* and that was an SNES RPG. Some small bits of it also remind me of *EarthBound* (another of my favorite games), since you fight robots a lot, and there are a bunch of weird sounds, and a voice saying certain things to you at certain moments. You’ll see what I mean if you’ve played both… I hope.

The gameplay is very reminiscent of *Final Fantasy V* and its job system. You can change the class of your shadow from a Monk, Black Mage, White Mage, Assassin, Sword Master, etc. As you earn Shadow Points from battle, your shadow gains abilities that can then be equipped when they are a different class. So you can have a Sword Master who can cast White Magic or Support Magic. The graphics are insane, they look just like a Toriyama cartoon should. At some points, it almost looks like claymation (that’s another thing that reminds me of *EarthBound* because of all the clay models they used in their promo materials) but it’s mostly all real-time game engine, I’ve only noticed a few pre-rendered scenes so far.

The story so far (I’m only 5 hrs. into a game that spans 3 DVDs) is pretty standard, but it’s very well directed. It is everything you should have expected from this game. I highly suggest any RPG fan go out and get it.