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b-rabbit's ブルードラゴン Blue Dragon (360)
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| [February 9, 2008 02:11:05 AM]
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GAMEPLAY
While playing again for the second time, I found myself stuck in the game. I kept on playing it, and I didn't want to stop. It is really just a fun game to play. However, I still think that there can be a lot more improvements to the game. From playing for hours, I found that the game was not really any different than what it started out to be. The only difference was that the monsters got stronger and more there were more enemies to kill.
Since the game was very repetitive, the gameplay didn't astound me much. The monsters looked all the same when they got stronger, all that changed was the color of the moster to indicate it is slightly stronger than the last version of the monster. But since the game was easy, but sort of fun to play because when you level up you get more abilities for your shadow, and the abilities made the game more interesting to play. So I ended up sticking to the flow of the game because I couldn't wait to level up and get new magic and other abilities.
DESIGN
One design element that made this game good was most definitly the battle system that they had. The batlle system was unique in it's own way. Since the fighting style was turn based like final fantasy, they made a few changes to make it more interesting. For instance, instead of a person actually doing physical damage, they control their shadow to do the fighting for them for attacks and magic use. It is also unique by letting you control when you want to do your attack, and I like it when you have some control over elements of the game. I also like it when you switch classes for your shadow; it uses a different fighting style so it seems like it does different attacks. For instance, when you ar the black magic class, when you attack, its attack looks like a physical push force towards the target. But when you are the swordsman class and you attack, it does a spin in the air and comes smashing down on your target.
Another element of the game that made the game interesting was the bonus system. As you level up, you get new abilities for your shadow depending on which shadow class you leveled up. Those abilities could either by activated abilities or passive abilities. For instance, an activated ability would be "control" which enabled you to control an attacking monster. But one of the passive abilities would be "double strike" which enables you to hit the target twice when you do a regular physical attack.
The challenges in the game are the monster battles and the boss battles. The monster battle are a challenge because if you are not careful and plan out your attacks correctly, then most likely your characters will die. Especially when you end up fighting stronger monsters. Some of the boss battles were pretty simple, but later in the game they start to get more complicated. The bosses start using more powerful magic and area of effect spells to hinder your characters. On top of that, the boss ends up having insane amount of heath, and even finding the weak spots for the monster won't stop it. Because when you use a certain stype of magic on a boss monster, it does a lot of damage, but somehow the magic will help them get stronger also. For instance, one of the boss battles was a dragon. When you did a physical attack on him, he would get stronger, and attack more times in one turn. So even though you were doing massive damage to the dragon, the closer you got from killing it, the harder it got to stay alive. Even though sometimes the bosses were frustrating, I thought the boss element was a good idea because it kept the player interested and it made him plan out their attacks more stratigically.
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| [February 8, 2008 09:27:48 PM]
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SUMMARY:
Blue Dragon is a one player RPG with a turn-based battle system like final fantasy. You start out as ordinary kids and every year this land shark attacks your village when these violet clouds come. Then as the story progresses, the evil Nene had you swallow these spheres making you seem that they would help you get stronger. The spheres transformed your shadow into other creatures that can take physical form. With the shadows, you are able to use magic, and with it you try to kill Nene for attacking the village. The shadows have 9 different classes (like black magic, white magic, swordsman, etc.) and are able to level up which will let your shadow gain new abilities to fight with.
GAMEPLAY:
At first, this game was really slow, but when is any other game not slow at the beginning? But in this game, there was a lot of cut scenes to show the story line. Sometimes the clips were too long, and they made everything really ovious. There wasn't much thinking required to play this game. It is a simple progression game that tells you to go here and there until you have this item, and then go back and use the item on the door. A very simple game indeed.
What I liked about the gameplay was the unique fighting system that they have. The battle system is like final fantasy, however, they have some extra features to it that makes it different. One, you actually see the monster that you are about to fight unlike in some typical games where wild monster fights are random. Secondly, you are able to charge your attacks so that you can make them stronger, but it takes more time. But what I like about this is that it shows you when you are going to perform your attack while charging. For instance, there will be a line before a picture of the wild monster, and a space afterthat line. If i go over the line, I'll use the attack after the monster had his turn, and if I go before the line, my character attacks before the monster. I liked that part of the battles because you are able to strategize with your attacks. I also like how their are field abilities that can help you either run away from monsters and not fight them, or hinder the monster before you fight it.
Even though I liked the battle system that they use, the story line and how the characters are revealed through a narrative perspective were not so great. Since most of the characters where children, the characters were portrayed like they were really stupid and they don't know what to do. That is what made the game play so ovious sometimes because they would literaly tell you what you need to do instead of giving you small hints and trying to figure it out by yourself. Also, since they were only children, the voices didn't really set the characters straight. You would have like a 12-15 year old kid, but with like a 30 year old voice. So a lot of the dialogue to me was really poorly done, and it maded me not want to play anymore just because of how the characters are portayed.
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b-rabbit's ブルードラゴン Blue Dragon (360)
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Current Status: Playing
GameLog started on: Friday 1 February, 2008
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