The Blue Dragon Hype Thread

[WhatsHisFace]

So should I be anticipating a Shadow of the Colussus type adventure, or a large-scale PoP?

 

[CM Punk]

Cry On? It's an RPG, so I guess expect a cross between Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey, only much better looking since they have extra time on it, like Odyssey compared to Blue Dragon. Other than that, we really don't know anything other than "involves sand giants" and "will evoke emotion according to Sakaguchi"

 

[WhatsHisFace]

Wait, what project is "Tri-Ace" working on? The developers of "Star Ocean: 'Til the End of Time."

 

[CM Punk]

Tri-Ace is doing Infinite Undiscovery (will also get a name change probably), which is probably the most graphically impressive game out there, much moreso than Lost Odyssey. There's some scans at Xboxyde I think, that's the only thing I've seen of it so far. Tri-Crescendo (however you spell that) is doing Eternal Sonata, and Mistwalker is doing Blue Dragon, Lost Odyssey, and Cry On, even though you hear other names attached to those because they outsource coding duties. That should clear everything up.

 

[WhatsHisFace]

I can't keep track of all these damn names and all these damn games.

 

[CM Punk]

Just buy them all

 

[CM Punk]

TOKYO--Blue Dragon, the upcoming 360 RPG from legendary Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi, was playable in a closed-off section of Microsoft's booth here at TGS, and we were able to play through a good chunk of it, and get a taste of the game's combat and roaming system.

The demo we played (there were two savegames that were selectable, but we only had time to play through one) saw four of what appear to be six main playable characters team up to take on an army of robots sent by the game's villain, whose name is unknown but who appears to resemble a purple Yoda, if you can envision that. This robotic genius has apparently designed an army of warbots to enact whatever nefarious plans he's set out for himself, and it's up to your group to fight through them and give chase to the evil purple man before his goals are met.

The roaming system here is in full 3D, as you control Shu, the spiky-haired main protagonist, as he wanders about the inside of the robotic castle the enemy has constructed for himself. There are few actions available to you while roaming, which includes an action button that lets you open up chests or doors, and a jumping attack which you can use on any enemies that you spot while roaming. It's unknown what this attack does at the moment, although if you manage to hit an enemy with it before they happen to engage you, you appear to get a “first strike” type ability, where your characters will attack first when you enter the battle mode.

Said battle mode will be instantly familiar to anyone who's played a Final Fantasy game; we managed to easily defeat a few parties of enemies, despite not understanding a word of the Japanese menus. It's in battle that you begin to learn where the game gets its name, as each of the party members has his or her own special blue dragon that floats behind them during battle and acts as a proxy during combat. Instead of your characters attacking or casting magic, they'll start the action, then the dragon will bash the opponent or cast the spell for the character. Your characters are the ones that get hit, though, so you can't expect your dragons to do everything for you. Essentially, the dragons appear to be extensions of your characters, so that they have to act in unison.

Speaking of characters, we managed to learn the English names for four of the six characters that appear to be playable in Blue Dragon. Shu is the main protagonist, a small black-haired warrior. Kluke is presumably his love interest, if standard Final Fantasy conventions play out; she's an offensive magic specialist, apparently. Marumaro is a small goblin-like character that's some kind of trickster; he has extra options available when you select his Attack command that may let him combine his attack with another character. Lastly, Jiro is a prim-looking male magician that seems to be the party's best healer. In addition, there appear to be two other protaganists involved in the game's plot, although neither of them were playable here. One is a soldier-type sword user, who we imagine fulfills a similar role of Auron from Final Fantasy X, being the party's most powerful physical attacker, while the other is apparently a female sky pirate (judging by the skull-and-crossbones on her black bandana) of indeterminate abilities.

When you hit combat, a standard Final Fantasy X-style turn order menu will appear, letting you know the order in which your characters and the enemies will attack. The classic actions are available here, including attacking, spellcasting, defending, and running. In addition, your characters can switch from frontline combat to rear combat in the middle of a fight, presumably allowing characters in the rear to take less physical damage while dealing less, as well. Some actions will take up more time than others, so you'll have to act in such a manner that will let you destroy your opponents before they're able to attack. The combat is entirely turn-based, though, allowing you to sit and deliberate before making your move.

Most of the enemies we faced were easily dispatched by our party, but eventually we caught up with the Yoda-like villain. In a mixture of in-game and CGI cutscenes, he rocketed away from his base and prevented our pursuit with one especially large robotic enemy, consisting of two large rotating saw-hands and a large four-legged pod-shaped body. The robot had some vicious attacks, including some stabs with its claws, sawblade swipes, and an energy attack that would take off around a third of all of our party members' health in one blow. We countered it with all of the tools at our party's disposal, including standard attacks and elemental magic, which eventually managed to destroy the beast.

After the robot guardian had been defeated, our party was led to another rocketship which it used to fly after the villain. In a series of cutscenes, we saw that the villain's huge mobile warship/headquarters, which we had just abandoned, was actually a flying ship suspended over the ocean. Well, suspended for a moment; it quickly crashed into the sea, sending some of the other human soldiers fighting the robots jumping off and parachuting away to avoid being caught in the cataclysm.

Unfortunately, we were ushered out of the booth just before things were about to get interesting. Our ship and the ship piloted by the mad robotic scientist engaged in a bit of a dogfight, firing machineguns at each other as they flew over the ocean. Just as we were being escorted out of the booth, tutorial screens began popping up, showing us how to pilot the ship and fire its weaponry, which implies that the game will have some kind of aerial combat mode in real-time.

The trailer that ran after the playable demo implies that the game will have a suitably epic scope; many of the setpieces involve incredibly large events and enemies, such as a massive, mountain-sized robotic enemy, straight out of Final Fantasy IV. Although everything is still currently in Japanese, hopefully we'll be able to finagle more details on the game's plot and characters in the future, so stay tuned to GameSpot for more information.

link


Hopefully it doesn't take too long to localize this. If this game doesn't help in Japan, nothing will.

 

[WhatsHisFace]

Lost Odyssey will.

 

[THWIP*]

I can't keep track of all these damn names and all these damn games.

OR AS SAMUEL L. JACKSON WOULD SAY:

"I'VE HAD IT WITH ALL THESE MOTHERF***IN' NAMES, AND ALL THESE MOTHERF***IN' GAMES! "

 

[CM Punk]

According to BlimBlim (the Xboxyde guy), there's a 90 minute wait to play Blue Dragon, which is by far the longest at the show. The only thing that even comes close is DMC4.

 

[WhatsHisFace]

OR AS SAMUEL L. JACKSON WOULD SAY:

"I'VE HAD IT WITH ALL THESE MOTHERF***IN' NAMES, AND ALL THESE MOTHERF***IN' GAMES! "

I love that Samuel L. Jackson and his profane language.

 

[XwolverineX]

According to BlimBlim (the Xboxyde guy), there's a 90 minute wait to play Blue Dragon, which is by far the longest at the show. The only thing that even comes close is DMC4.

Yep, 360 support in Japan. This should be good.

 

[Delusive]

I also heard Lost Odyssey had somewhat of the same wait.

So based on how many people played each companies's demoes...Who won? It'd be really weird if Microsoft won considering that they have very little support in Japan - if they did then maybe Mistwalker's games WILL save the 360 in Japan. I'm also not saying that just because Microsoft "won" TGS (I'm not even sure if they did) that Sony will get killed from this, I'm just saying it's neat that Sakaguchi's games are getting noticed and along with that, the 360.

 

[WhatsHisFace]

1up says they both had HUGE lines.

 

[CM Punk]

I also heard Lost Odyssey had somewhat of the same wait.

So based on how many people played each companies's demoes...Who won? It'd be really weird if Microsoft won considering that they have very little support in Japan - if they did then maybe Mistwalker's games WILL save the 360 in Japan. I'm also not saying that just because Microsoft "won" TGS (I'm not even sure if they did) that Sony will get killed from this, I'm just saying it's neat that Sakaguchi's games are getting noticed and along with that, the 360.

Listen to the 1UP podcast, Microsoft won hands down. The only thing Sony brought to the show was an xbox port and a few terrible looking games....and Afrika, which no one can figure out. Microsoft on the other hand showed just how good an investment Mistwalker really was, had Lost Planet, Trusty Bell (Eternal Sonata), Infinite Undiscovery, and a few other announcements. Sony walked in expecting to win "because we're sony", and it backfired, just like at E3.

 

[Delusive]

Listen to the 1UP podcast, Microsoft won hands down. The only thing Sony brought to the show was an xbox port and a few terrible looking games....and Afrika, which no one can figure out. Microsoft on the other hand showed just how good an investment Mistwalker really was, had Lost Planet, Trusty Bell (Eternal Sonata), Infinite Undiscovery, and a few other announcements. Sony walked in expecting to win "because we're sony", and it backfired, just like at E3.

Going along with that, there was a source on another forum who told everyone about Ninja Gaiden Sigma three days before it released and said it would release for both the 360 and PS3. It would make sense seeing as how all of Itagaki's games are coming out for the 360 first and foremost, not to say they couldn't go multi platform later. I guess we'll see if that comes to fruitation later. Anyway, I'm not trying to down the PS3, I'm probably getting one but right now I have to say that Microsoft has taken a HUGE step toward getting good quality games.

And there was the very first poll about the three systems right after TGS and the question was "which system do you plan on buying?" The XBOX 360 won by 59% in Japan, no less. Seems Microsoft's advertisements about Hironobu Sakaguchi's games have paid off. If I were you, I wouldn't solely rely on that poll, it could be misleading of the general population but it looks like Microsoft is getting noticed which is a good thing for them.

 

[CM Punk]

Itagaki actually has nothing to do with Ninja Gaiden: Sigma, it's not even Team Ninja, it's another nameless team within Tecmo, but yes, it makes sense to head to the 360. I wouldn't count it being a signal that Team Ninja is going multiplatform however.


Anyways, that poll is pretty damn interesting, I hadn't heard about that. If those numbers turn out to be legit (as in, go from poll numbers to actual sales), that would be a huge deal for Microsoft. I think their TGS showing was great, but if it really turned the tide that much, then wow.

 

[Delusive]

Yup, here's the poll:

http://quizzes.yahoo.co.jp/quizresults.php?poll_id=3482&wv=1

Here it is translated:

Will buy both (2%) 810 votes
Will buy Wii (14%) 5753 votes
Will buy PS3 (14%) 5622 votes
Will buy 360 instead of Wii/PS3 (61%) 25244 votes
Still waiting to see how things go (11%) 4219

Here is where I got all this information:

http://boards.gamefaqs.com/gfaqs/genmessage.php?board=987&topic=30693900

EDIT: It went up 2 percent for the 360, it's STILL going strong! Wii and PS3 are now tied with Wii a bit in the lead if we go into the numbers.

 

[XwolverineX]

61%, wowch.

 

[CM Punk]

New Footage of Blue Dragon

Enemies are visible onscreen in Blue Dragon, generally minding their own business until you get too close. At that point a text display pops up over them that reads "detected," after which you can either run away or try to hit them to engage. Instead of charging directly into a fight, it's worth hanging back and using a few of the out of combat abilities. Players can toss bombs at enemies to paralyze them, and pop up a red spherical shield. Once an enemy is paralyzed, players can either walk by it, or use it as an opportunity to land a guaranteed first strike. Bringing up the shield can kill enemies much weaker than the party, avoiding unnecessary hassles.

Just to make sure that there's no confusion about "random battles" - there aren't any, it works like Anachronix.

link

 

[WhatsHisFace]

Anachronox was, and is, the best ****ing turn-based RPG, ever. And I mean ever. It was so damn good that nobody could handle buying it I guess, because we'll never see a sequel.

They did so much right in that game, and they made it work with the conventions so well along the way. I loved the world and the characters, how they were 100x more interactive than anyone or thing in a JRPG...

America did JRPGs better than Japan by a mile, and no one noticed.

 

[XwolverineX]

No, FFVII is.

 

[WhatsHisFace]

No, FFVII is.

No, FFVII has random battles, static environments, the silliest 3D moment ever (flying into dragons... or whatever the hell that was trying to be) and a total letdown ending.

 

[CM Punk]

Don't bad mouth final fantasy, he'll "report" you


And yeah, I'm glad this is following the Anachronix model for enemies and stuff and not just "you're walking along and suddenly seizure lights flash across your screen and you're fighting several enemies with your 2 hp". The game keeps looking better.

 

[WhatsHisFace]

And of course, the flashing lights are accompanied by a song opening that can give you a heart attack.

*walking along to mellow music*

BAAH BAAH BAAH BAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

*flashing lights, battle starts*