Blue Dragon (360)

Today we're reviewing on of the few RPGs on the 360. Let's see how it does.

Story: You take the role of Shu, Jiro, and Kluke, three children who want to bring peace to their village. This source of problems in their home? A creature that arrives every year known as the land shark. It goes around and kills anyone it can find. This year, however, Jiro and Shu have a plan to catch the land shark and Kluke wants to help. Of course things don't happen as they should, the children end up in lost in some ruins. At some point they discover these spheres that allow them to use magic by giving their shadows power. With powerful shadows on hand, they set out to save their village and the world. The plot isn't the greatest. It is in fact rather generic for an RPG, but this game encourages the feel of an RPG, generic or otherwise. 3/5

Audio: The music is amazingly beautiful. It is done by Nobuo Uemetsu, so you might recognize it as having a Final Fantasy sound at times. The voice actors are also decent, though they don't talk al that often and their script isn't the greatest. 4/5

Graphics: At first glance you might notice how similar the characters look to something from Dragonball Z. This is because Akira Toriyama (Dragonball Z, Chrono Trigger, Dragon Quest) did the character designs. Of course this leads all the characters to be very stylized, but if you don't mind the style then it's all good. Background and environments are beautiful. I especially loved looking at the water visuals. Cutscenes and gameplay graphics are so similar they might as well be the same. 4/5

Gameplay: There are a number of areas to touch on in this section. First is battle system. It's completely turned based. You have the option of charging a lot of attacks or spells to boost their power, but this can make you go later in the turn. There is a world map and a dungeon map, and besides the level of zoom there's no real difference. Monsters appear on the screen so you can dodge them or attack them. Attacking from behind gives you a surprise attack, same if they hit you from behind. Also, a nifty features is monster fights. If you get two types of monsters close enough you can pull up your attack ring and fight them both at once. If they are competeing monsters they will fight each other for you. Not all monsters will fight when you bring them together. If the two parties of monsters don't fight then you will fight one party then the other. Between these fights you will be given stat boosts. Another feature is the class system. You can designate what class your shadow is. After so many levels you will have the option to buy more class options for your shadow. The classes will level up and gain abilities. You can equip skills from other classes to customize your character. Gameplay is simple and easy to pick up. 4/5

Replay: There's no real point to replaying. 2/5

Overall: This is a traditional RPG that has made its way on the 360. If you like old school RPGs and have a 360 I highly recommend it. 4/5