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Here begins an ode, or perhaps an etude for a videogame, eloquently created by the hearts and minds of many of our legendary forefathers and yet fell into obscurity. The game quite simply never resurfaced again. Almost as if it fell into nothing more than a shadow.
This is the tale of Blue Dragon.
Sometime in 2004, Hironobu Sakaguchi grew progressively dissatisfied with Square Enix after managerial issues that finally hit the top of the kettle after Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, he disbanded and formed his own company: eloquently titled Mistwalker.
Before I get further into the main appeal of today's thread, perhaps you've heard of the games, but not the company? Hironobu's new collective group of like minded people began to create games like The Last Story for the Nintendo Wii which was apart of the Operation Rainfall project which was purely a fan-based movement which wanted to spread global awareness to the games not being ported overseas and even given a chance. This very project was the revolution which turned Xenoblade Chronicles, The Last Story and Pandora's Tower the chance to shine on the Wii.
I digress, Mistwalker also produced Lost Odyssey, another RPG made for the Xbox 360 which garnered a cult following but never made a tumultuous splash as other games did.
So that deigns the question. Everyone is probably aware of the noticeable lack of RPG's, or rather, JRPG's in particular in Xbox's console lifespan. Even now during these golden ages of accessibility, the big M eludes this genre outside of a few select titles.
There are many theories we can dig into about why history panned out why it did for the few, exclusive JRPG's the 360 in particular received, but we're here and gathered today to discuss a particular one. Yes I'm very well aware this stems from the pollen of bias. Sorry if you're allergic to that~
Without further ado, Blue Dragon was led by the aforementioned grandfather of RPG's: Hironobu Sakaguchi, the artist? None other than the legendary and incredibly gifted artist: Akira Toriyama, popular for Chrono Trigger, Dragon Ball, Dr. Slump, and what have you.
Then the music? Could you ever possibly guess? Yes, your ears do not deceive you, this ear-theraputic sound is produced by none other then Nobuo Uematsu.
It was the literal Knights of the Round Table of JRPG goodness.
So how did this game slip under the eyes of many? With this many savant's gathered together, a beautiful, memorable flow of magic was all but assured hm?
I could not tell you, it's draped into so many mysteries abound, and the lack of a Playstation 3 release even more befuddling.
The game begins with our protagonist Shu surrounded by so many curious sights of his island village.
A village marked with the protection of hazardous cliffs, an observatory of a beautiful sky.
It doesn't take long for the peace to be quickly subsided however, the heralding Land Shark quickly leaves calamity in its wake, which it's well known as the interloper of so many destroyed homes, innocent lives being thrown into disarray and other horrendous and chaotic despair.
Shu's got a plan though, it doesn't take long for our boy to summon the courage within him to fight back. The latest encounter with the (mechanical?) looking Land Shark.
The trap that he set out for the foe is successful, and our first fight begins.
This is the battle screen. And this is where I start gushing like an anime schoolgirl who sees their love interest. Because holy moly I LOVE the presentation here, the 'view' which feels perfectly angled to surround Shu and his foe. The mirror shard camera which shows a close view of Shu has always been my favourite part of this game.
The effort that went into the presentation of the battles is quite insane. It never stops feeling so cinematic and jaw dropping. Why, when I remind myself of this game time and time again, I look up a gameplay video and see those beautiful cutscenes in battle. The angles, the cinematography in this game was beautiful. Nothing ever truly feels 'static' here, or polluted with dead air. It feels all so organic and full of life. Our heroes, enemies and bosses aplenty have a great amount of idle animations to oogle at as they gear for their next attack.
The battle system is familiar at first, but after your first encounter with the Land Shark, and a few foes, we're treated to the main force of this game let's say.
We've all seen that massive blue dragon behind Shu in the cover, so what's the tattletale about that?
Glad you (hypothetically) asked! Here's the ditty:
This here is your Shadow. After a prophetic event in the story which I won't describe for spoiler purposes, Shu and his friends now possess the abilities of Shadows and they all get their personal ones. Shu with the classic Dragon, Jiro acquires the Minotaur, and Kluke has a Pheonix. All brimming with personality which again, their animations show splendidly. The Dragon encompasses that undying bravery inside Shu, the Minotaur is draped in thought, much like the young tactician that Jiro is.
When we begin to attack with our Shadows equipped, a bar will show up on the top of the screen, it's traditional turn-based but with a small twist.
This is the Time Bar, You charge your attack button and the further it's pressed, you can deal bonus damage. Do you risk for a big attack or go for the quick payout? What tends to be the decisive factor of these decisions is the orange bar which is the sweet spot for max output in your attacks.
It's a very fun system to play around with because your strategic timing of going all out and being patient and waiting for what the enemy will consecutively do becomes almost vital in some battles.
Now, I've explained some juicy tidbits about the battle system, but let's go back to the Shadows for a bit.
Your shadows also take the property of one of the most fun mechanics in RPG's to mess with, which is the job system.
From Warrior, to Monk, Generalist, a class that focuses on accessories and et-cetera. There's a lot to work with here, and the more you invest in each class, the more perks you gain which you can equip on your main class. More passive slots? That can be arranged ...
It's a lot like FFV in that sense, but with some personality of Blue Dragon's own.
One more thing I want to point out with this amazing game and it's incredible mechanics, is one I REALLY love.
MONSTER FIGHTS!
When you're in the field, you can press RT to display a ring on your lead character, Any enemies within that ring can be selected and targeted to make the battles play at once without dealing with the hassle of going back to the overworld and going to fight the subsequent enemy. (You even get bonuses between enemy waves!)
But depending on the monsters you *mix* let's say with this encounter system, can lead to the monstrous wildlife interacting with eachother in a lot of mysterious and fun ways. The joy of experimentation shows itself once again here.
This Giant Rat for example, immediately activated his skill, "Omnivorous" which immediately devours one of the enemy roaches, killing it instantly. Such is the laws of predation ...
That's another thing I love about this game, the wildlife doesn't feel so systematically against you because that's what the game said so. The developers paid attention to how the monsters themselves are living things and have their own laws and what they hunt and or be hunted by. Such tiny little details like this which even play into the battle system is such a welcome idea.
Without rambling for potentially another 5 paragraphs, I believe I've sufficiently rambled enough to give a taste of why I fell in love with this game so much.
It sure isn't the most acclaimed Chrono Trigger, and it definitely wasn't a Final Fantasy that made me start with RPG's.
It was the one and only Blue Dragon, developed by Mistwalker, which was a love letter to the stories of RPG's and it's latent history.
One day, I can only hope for a decomplication and a port of this game onto PC, so that I may fall in love with it again. Did someone call the wedding bell?
That ends my thoughts of this game, what did you think of it? Did it deserve it's quick delve into obscurity, or did it deserve one more chance at fighting back? Justice is to be administered to this amazing game!!
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