Blue Dragon [360]

When Microsoft announced that it had enlisted Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi's new company, Mistwalker, to create games for them, Xbox 360 fans who were waiting for a Japanese RPG couldn't have asked for better news.

With a veritable dream team behind it, the game also features character designs by Akira Toriyama (Dragon Ball Z, Dragon Quest) and music by Nobuo Uematsu (Final Fantasy, Chrono Trigger). The story picks up when a boy named Shu and his friends try to rid their village of a menacing creature and find out that the situation is much more complicated than it first seemed.

Unfortunately, in many ways it feels as though this game is stuck in the past. From the stereotypical characters (including a male sidekick and token tag-along girl) to the general predictability of the story, there isn't much here that players haven't seen before. It often feels as though they went through Final Fantasy VII with a checklist, trying to duplicate its success as closely as possible. Even elements such as the battle victory music and items with names like "Phoenix Talon" are highly derivative and never really let the game have its own identity. There's some good news on the random battle front though, since players can avoid wandering creatures and pick their fights for the most part. You can also choose to fight multiple creatures at a time, which often pits them against each other, making your job easier.

The game also adds some training wheel style options that are on by default, seemingly making the assumption that since the Xbox 360 has been underserved by Japanese RPGs, somehow that must mean that the console's owners have never played one before. Graphically, Toriyama's designs work well, especially each character's shadow creature that they can use in battle. The creatures look good as well, and have a cartoonish look mixed with a touch of realism. The outdoor environments can be sparse though, and there doesn't really seem to be much going on that taxes the console's abilities. Musically, the score is competent, while suffering from the same "me-too" aspect as the rest of the game. The mini-boss battle music is laugh-out-loud bad though, with 80's hair metal blaring and screaming vocals that sound like a wanna-be Ozzy from the Black Sabbath days.

With the team behind it, this should have been a colossal event on the scale of a Final Fantasy release, but instead, comes off feeling dated. Hardcore RPG fans are likely going to want to give it a go anyway, and though the story is somewhat enjoyable in general, the game doesn't have the sense of scale or innovation that it should.

6/10