Blue Dragon – Xbox 360:
Famed game producer Hironobu Sakaguchi of Mistwalker and developer Artoon present the highly anticipated Xbox 360™ exclusive Blue Dragon. Featuring the character design of Akira Toriyama of Dragon Ball Z and music by Nobuo Uematsu of Final Fantasy, Blue Dragon is an epic role-playing game that centers on a young boy named Shu and several of his friends.
These unlikely heroes possess the power to control phantom shadows that mirror the actions of their masters, giving Shu and his comrades miraculous strength and magical powers.
The warriors can create and develop their combat styles by utilizing different types of Shadow Change, including Sword, Assassin, and Power Magic. Shu and his friends must use the shadows as weapons and wield their skills to save their world from impending doom.
Encountering various people on a planet where numerous ancient ruins remain, the characters and their shadows travel through a world full of mysteries and illusions, where the slightest touch can cause reactions of unparalleled magnitude.
Blue Dragon Features:
– Innovative RPG gameplay features: As their quest progresses, warriors can create original attack methods by utilizing several types of Shadow Change, including Sword, Assassin, and Power Magic. You can choose to focus the hero on certain areas of expertise. Shadows level up and gain new abilities associated with the job they are currently doing. Once gained, abilities are not lost and remain available to use when needed.
– Massive scope and engrossing environments: Shu and his companions battle their way through an immense world filled with vividly illustrated remnants of ancient civilizations long forgotten.
– Stunning graphics: Taking full advantage of the power of Xbox 360, Blue Dragon engages you in a world and characters that are brought to life with vibrant colors and detail, from Shu’s wild hair to his martial arts-style garb, conveying the beautiful simplicity and sense of adventure found in this truly next-generation RPG.
– Dazzling character design and effects: Toriyama’s unique influence is evident in the design of the game’s anime style characters, as their actions are enhanced with next-gen blur effects. Additionally, the game’s algorithmic animation system adds heightened realism to character and creature movements.
– Famed developer: Mistwalker is a creative company founded by Hironobu Sakaguchi, the original developer of Final Fantasy. Operated by a handful of experts, the direction of new Mistwalker is influenced by Sakaguchi’s extensive industry experience. Artoon is a digital entertainment design, development, and production company with rich talent and experience. Centering on the design and development of original content, Artoon is mainly involved in the development of software through external cooperation, as well as the design and production of entertainment content in the mobile communication category.
Blue Dragon Staff: Bio and History:
Takuya Matsumoto:
Programmer for NIGHTs: Into Dreams (Sega Saturn game) and Ristar (Genesis game). Recently was a designer on Blinx 2: Masters of Time and Space (Xbox game). He will be helping massively market this game. He is known for launching Final Fantasy VII into the RPG beast it was in sales. Also speaking of Blinx 2, Artoon is handling the development of Blue Dragon.
Manabu Kusonki:
Credited with the Panzer Dragoon series (several platforms), one of the most highly regarded Sega franchises.
Akira Toriyama:
Known for his innovative humorous manga which started with ‘Dr. Slump’ series. He is also known for Dragon Ball which was created in 1984. He has also been on projects to create lead characters for games such as Dragon Quest, Chrono Trigger, and Tobal No.1. He’ll be tackling the designs for the lead characters in Blue Dragon.
Nobuo Uematsu:
If you played any Final Fantasy game (not including Final Fantasy X-2 or any handheld game) you’d know him right off the bat due to his music. Uematsu has created every soundtrack from I to XI and is well known as one of the best composers for video games. With winning “Song of the Year” awards for his song “Eyes on Me” in Final Fantasy VIII at the 14th Annual, Japan Gold Disc Awards in 1999, you can credit him as being one of the most beneficial additions to the team helping to complete the Blue Dragon package. The soundtrack for Blue Dragon is said to be relying on exotic piano music so it should be a dandy.
Blue Dragon Achievements:
Do the following task to unlock the achievement and it’s alloted gamerscore.
| Unlockable | How to Unlock |
| Simultaneous Encounter, Over 10 Parties (30) | Successfully pull off over 10 parties of simultaneous encounters and defeat all the monsters |
| Successful Simultaneous Encounter (5) | Successfully pull off a simultaneous encounter |
| 100 Back Attacks (30) | Successfully pull off 100 back attacks |
| Successful Back Attack (5) | Successfully pull off a back attack |
| 100 Monster Fights (30) | Set up over 100 monster fights |
| Rare Monster “Ousama Unchi-kun” (30) | Defeat Ousama Unchikun |
| Rare Monster “Golden Unchi-Snake” (30) | Defeat Golden Unchi-Snake |
| Rare Monster “Gold Mecha Robo” (30) | Defeat Gold Mecha Robo |
| Mechat Shooting, ST1, Perfect (30) | Clear Mechat shooting with no damage |
| Wagon Defense, Perfect (30) | Clear wagon defense with no damage |
| Dragon, 1 Category Rank MAX (30) | Max out the rank of one category for Dragon |
| Minotaur, 1 Category Rank MAX (30) | Max out the rank of one category for Minotaur |
| Phoenix, 1 Category Rank MAX (30) | Max out the rank of one category for Phoenix |
| Dragon, All Category Rank MAX (50) | Max out the rank of all categories for Dragon |
| Minotaur, All Category Rank MAX (50) | Max out the rank of all categories for Minotaur |
| Phoenix, All Category Rank MAX (50) | Max out the rank of all categories for Phoenix |
| All Characters Level MAX (50) | Get all characters to level 99 |
| Rare Item “Ultimate Weapon Bracelet” (10) | Find the rare item Ultimate Weapon Bracelet |
| Rare Item “Ultimate Conflict Necklace” (10) | Find the rare item Ultimate Conflict Necklace |
| Rare Item “Dragon Bracelet” (10) | Find the rare item Dragon Bracelet |
| All Warp Clip Set (25) | Activate all warp monuments |
| All Barriers Released (25) | Release all barriers |
| Monster Dictionary Complete (25) | Complete all entries in the monster dictionary |
| Item Dictionary Complete (25) | Complete all entries in the item dictionary |
| 1,000,000 Gold Accumulated (25) | Accumulate 1,000,000 gold |
Media Information:
Videos from around the web:
GameSpot Videos
IGN PreviewsBlue Dragon Website
Screenshot:
Screenshots
Quotes from the people that played it:
Verdict
Blue Dragon is an instant classic of an RPG. You’ll be hearing a lot more about this one in the future, mark our words.
Uppers
– Beautiful, dreamy visuals. Looks like warm milk
– Sounds like a classic FF game
– Finely balanced gameplay
– Huge challenge spread over three DVDs
– Downloadable items due in the coming months
Downers
– Not out in the UK just yet
– Not even announced for the UK yet
Conclusion:
Blue Dragon was a game that was made to please the Japanese audience to pick up a Xbox 360 and become a successful system, will Blue Dragon help the system, we don’t know for sure but I know one thing for sure, that his game will satisfy most of us with it’s fun and addictive game play, I have played this game in my recent trip to the Tokyo Game Show and all I can see is WOW. I hope you have enjoyed reading this FAQ I will update it as the game comes to it’s full release this was just written for those who don’t know what the game story and characters offer to the game play. Also if any of you have played the full version of this game and would like to add something feel free to put it on.
Acknowledgements:
– Thanks to the Xbox 360 Community
– Blue Dragon Developers.
