Blue Dragon Demo Is Live!!

[quote name='ighosty']ya i would agree, It is the kind of game i will rent from gamefly and play. I also found (might just be in the demo tho) that there was no music playing during the fights which i didn't like.[/QUOTE]

Really? I have spent 2 hours with the demo and I heard music in every battle.... I know because it started to get repetitive (so does ff)
 
Yeah, there's music during battles.

It's interesting, the demo. I liked the music, it didn't really seem to kiddy (just looks that way), and the shadows were pretty sweet (I like the idea of them having classes). It all just seemed a little bland. Plus, I was quite confused about what to do, and didn't feel like talking to people to learn it. The battles were very confusing as well. Ah well, maybe next time.

For the record, I played the Eternal Sonata demo and loved it.
 
[quote name='Kendro']This was near my most anticipated list but after playing the demo, it has fallen off quite a bit. I was ready to pay full price for it but I think I'll wait till it hits the $30 mark.

The game is decent but it seems pretty generic. The graphics in my opinion are breathtaking and seem as if you are controlling a CGI movie however the music (battle music in particular) leaves a lot to be desired. My main beef with the game is it doesn't have that "epic" feel that Final Fantasy has.

Since playing an RPG means you have to invest a lot of time into the game, I generally stick to those that are on the grand scale since I don't have time to play every RPG that I come across.[/QUOTE]

I really stole the words right from my mouth- I couldn't agree more. It seems like Lost Odyssey has more of that epic feeling I'm looking for.

And I don't know if anyone mentioned it yet, but that fighting music sounds just like "Let's Fighting Love" from South Park.
 
Alright, dammit, all the downer comments on this game are making me go play it right now instead of doing the work I'm supposed to be doing ;).

I'll report back with my impressions later!
 
[quote name='Greetard']I really stole the words right from my mouth- I couldn't agree more. It seems like Lost Odyssey has more of that epic feeling I'm looking for.

And I don't know if anyone mentioned it yet, but that fighting music sounds just like "Let's Fighting Love" from South Park.[/QUOTE]


the boss battle song was unbearable. reminded me of the burning rangers song in PSO-- just on an endless loop and annoying as hell.
 
[quote name='Apossum']the boss battle song was unbearable. reminded me of the burning rangers song in PSO-- just on an endless loop and annoying as hell.[/quote]

yea, i hate the song so bad :bomb: that make me think if i really want to play this game or not with the song looping like crazy.
 
[quote name='Apossum']the boss battle song was unbearable. reminded me of the burning rangers song in PSO-- just on an endless loop and annoying as hell.[/QUOTE]

I liked the song, but it didn't do well looping. The regular battle music was the same story. I've always had the same complaint in FF type games, just have a bank of 20 random battle songs for shit sake, and don't loop.
 
[quote name='Rodimus Donut']The demo was okay but I hate time constraints, it kills all motivation to even play. I had more fun with Eternal Sonata.[/QUOTE]

Agreed - I was right in the middle of the boss fight against Nene and it ended. :bomb:. Why can't they just let you play through that fight? It's not like you could get out anywhere else and explore.

The boss fight song reminded me of something right out of Sonic Adventure Battle 2 - seemed like just the type of cheesy music Sega likes to use.

Otherwise, I liked the game though. The art style doesn't bother me at all. It looks like a nice, clean, HD version of the types of games I like on the PS2 so that all works for me. The text was perfectly readable on my TV (a 51" HDTV - albeit an old outdated one ;)). The dialog was OK - I wouldn't say the voice acting was great or horrible - it just "was". The story, what little we see of it was sparse, so I can't really comment on that (except for one point below). The framerate seemed to suffer a little during the corporeal special attacks (while they appear pre-rendered at first they clearly are not since the enemy you are currently fighting appears in them).

I like the battle system with the charging mechanic (trying to hold the button down for just the right amount so you go before any tough baddies with the strongest attack possible). I like the non-random encounters and I *really* like the energy ball or whatever it is that you can put around yourself and use to bump off minor low-level monsters that you have already fought at least once. That will be a VERY nice feature to cut down on the repetitveness of battles. The "tension" attack (the corporeal thing I mentioned above) adds some more strategy to that already there with the charging mechanic. In some ways the charging mechanic and non-synchronized turns (ie, not simply 1-for-1 or 2-for-1, etc) reminds me a bit of Grandia III (minus the positioning for attack part and being able to knock enemies back around the turn ring). The battle screens started up and closed out fairly quickly (always an issue with RPG's with lots of battles). Thing is, we'll have to see how that goes when the game is running from a disc on not HD-based.

I have to play through the ruins level and see how that one goes. One minor annoyance with fortress story is that at the end you face Nene and the cutscene shows him dealing with only 4 of your 5 characters. Then he steals your shadows, then all of a sudden the 5th character is back (I'm not talking about Kluke but the fighter-girl) and your shadows are back. Seems kind of unpolished there...

Anyway, first impressions for me are a bit like the rest of you, though probably less severe. I had maybe expected a bit more and this isn't quite as high on the wishlist as it may have been before. However, I'll keep my preorder for now and consider it. I'll still probably pick it up just because I want to play an RPG on the 360 soon!

Oh, and my son enjoyed watching me play it so that's always a plus - I can fit this one in as part of our gaming-together time (like Rogue Galaxy) instead of having to play it on my own late at night (like, say, a Shadow Hearts type game).
 
After playing the demo, I have a few concerns about the battle system. If you get everyone using their shadows at once, the screen becomes entirely too clutterred and it becomes difficult to see whats actually taking place.

In addtion, its hard to tell what the other charters are doing if you set them for charge attcks. I had several times where I would set a power attack and the screen would switch over to another character. I would then have no idea that actual power attack too place from the first character except for a glimpse of a number on the corner of the screen.
 
[quote name='AdvOfJet']After playing the demo, I have a few concerns about the battle system. If you get everyone using their shadows at once, the screen becomes entirely too clutterred and it becomes difficult to see whats actually taking place.[/QUOTE]

I also felt that the screen gets to clutered and the flow of battle tends to slow down. The battles seem to take a while.
 
[quote name='AdvOfJet']In addtion, its hard to tell what the other charters are doing if you set them for charge attcks. I had several times where I would set a power attack and the screen would switch over to another character. I would then have no idea that actual power attack too place from the first character except for a glimpse of a number on the corner of the screen.[/quote]
The length that you charge an attack determines what a character's order in line is and when they will actually perform the attack. I had the same confusion until I figured it out. For example, suppose there are characters A, B, C, D, and E (I forgot the names of the characters).

If you charge A's attack slightly, he will attack first. If you charge A's attack at maximum capacity, chances are he will skip all the way past E and be the last person to attack. When you charge an attack, you can see the meter at the top of the screen that determines how much you can charge while seeing where the order of the attack will be.

____B____C____D____E

Like my primitive graph above, if you are person A and charge your attack 3/4 of the way, your turn automatically goes to B and C and A won't attack until after person D.

This is a neat little strategic feature because you can determine whether you want to sacrifice a low charge attack to sneak a hit against a boss, or if you want to go for a damaging fully charged attack but at the risk of having the boss hit you first.
 
[quote name='io']

Anyway, first impressions for me are a bit like the rest of you, though probably less severe. I had maybe expected a bit more and this isn't quite as high on the wishlist as it may have been before. However, I'll keep my preorder for now and consider it. I'll still probably pick it up just because I want to play an RPG on the 360 soon!
[/QUOTE]

Nice to see someone not being such a negative nancy here. The game was pretty much what I expected.

Except the big boss didn't steal my shadows, and I beat him....?

I tried to play the ruins on hard,
got to this Hydra that totally kicked my ass without giving me a turn. I tried to fight him about 12 times before running out of time
so I don't want to hear about how this game was made for kids.
 
Other then the text which is small as hell and the battle animations (which I hope you can turn off), this game is pretty enjoyable. I think I'll be picking it up at launch.
 
[quote name='thrustbucket']I liked the song, but it didn't do well looping. The regular battle music was the same story. I've always had the same complaint in FF type games, just have a bank of 20 random battle songs for shit sake, and don't loop.[/QUOTE]


yeah, that's such an overlooked detail in all RPGs...only one I can think of with a bunch of different battle songs is Nocturne...and they were all pretty great :)
 
I'm keeping optimistic about this game. Even the best games ever have had portions where, if someone who has never played the game was forced to jump in, you might not like it.

Would anyone think FFVII is great if the only dungeon they played was the ice one?
 
Many people seemed to dislike the "DBZ"-ness of the game (I haven't had time to try the demo yet).

Did you all also dislike Dragon Quest VIII?
 
[quote name='Kendro']The length that you charge an attack determines what a character's order in line is and when they will actually perform the attack. I had the same confusion until I figured it out. For example, suppose there are characters A, B, C, D, and E (I forgot the names of the characters).

If you charge A's attack slightly, he will attack first. If you charge A's attack at maximum capacity, chances are he will skip all the way past E and be the last person to attack. When you charge an attack, you can see the meter at the top of the screen that determines how much you can charge while seeing where the order of the attack will be.

____B____C____D____E

Like my primitive graph above, if you are person A and charge your attack 3/4 of the way, your turn automatically goes to B and C and A won't attack until after person D.

This is a neat little strategic feature because you can determine whether you want to sacrifice a low charge attack to sneak a hit against a boss, or if you want to go for a damaging fully charged attack but at the risk of having the boss hit you first.[/quote]

I understand the logistics of how the attack sequence takes place. What I am saying was that there seemed to be little or no notification that the attack actually took place at the specified time.

Let say I had person A set a charged attack so that his attack would take place between person B and Person C. After making a quick attack with person B, the screen would move to character C with character A making their attack somewhere off to the side and seeing just the corner of the number showing up. There was no actual focus moved to the character attacking or any other type of notification that the action had indeed taken place.
 
[quote name='mykevermin']Many people seemed to dislike the "DBZ"-ness of the game (I haven't had time to try the demo yet).

Did you all also dislike Dragon Quest VIII?[/quote]This game is no DQVIII, I can already tell. Perhaps they all think that, since it's "next gen", the characters shouldn't look so.....plain, even though that's the art style?
 
I loved the Eternal Sonata demo but I did not like this one too much but that's ok because with so many other games coming out this fall, this is one game that I will gladly skip.
 
[quote name='VanillaGorilla']This game is no DQVIII, I can already tell. Perhaps they all think that, since it's "next gen", the characters shouldn't look so.....plain, even though that's the art style?[/QUOTE]


the plain-ness of it is sweet (though ideally that would do away with the frame drops when you attack and keep this game running at a smooth 60fps...)

it's the shonen anime design, dialog, and story that kill it for me.
 
Well, I'll see for myself soon enough.

Apparently, I'm going to go to my grave having never finished Xenosaga. Everytime I start that game, I get 10 hours in, and find a dozen other games to play instead.
 
[quote name='thrustbucket']Except the big boss didn't steal my shadows, and I beat him....?
[/QUOTE]

What, you didn't get a cutscene where Nene stole the shadows (blue balls of light that come out of the characters' mouths ;)) and then ate them and made his own huge purple composite shadow?? Then it just went into a fight with him and the chars all had their shadows back. It was a bit of a WTF story-wise. I'll have to see if the ruins one makes more sense :lol:.

myke - actually, the art style of DragonQuest VIII is what I thought of immediately - especially the design of the main character. However, I can definitely see someone calling him a more kid-like version of Hero. And the environment design, while sharp and all HD and such, just didn't aspire to that of DQ VIII. Now, wouldn't that be nice to see DQVIII with HD graphics... :drool:.

Also, the music sucked total and complete ass when compared to DQ VIII.

Having said all that, I still like the game. The battles were entertaining (and like I said before I like the lack of random battles and the ability to bump off weaker enemies without engaging them). The monster fights are pretty cool too (capture different monster types within your encounter ring and they may end up fighting each other instead of you). All in all, there are some nice new elements and/or remixes of other bits from different games in the combat that make it appealing to me.
 
Wait I thought the boss was unbeatable? I did like 5 damage to him max and most of my attacks didn't even connect including my magic. After surviving a few rounds, the game abrubtly ended (though I still had more than enough time left from the 1 hour limit). Are you supposed to beat him? I was under the impression that the only way to beat the demo is to last a few rounds against him and the demo would be over.
 
Well, I'm certainly glad I played the demo before running out and buying this at launch. There's no way I'm paying $60 for this--the controls were too unresponsive, the music is terrible, and the voice acting is bad beyond words. All 40 minutes I spent with it felt like some cheesy English-dubbed anime from 1982.

Average, average, average. This was at the top of my wish-list, too; I'm completely disappointed with what I played.
 
[quote name='Kendro']Wait I thought the boss was unbeatable? I did like 5 damage to him max and most of my attacks didn't even connect including my magic. After surviving a few rounds, the game abrubtly ended (though I still had more than enough time left from the 1 hour limit). Are you supposed to beat him? I was under the impression that the only way to beat the demo is to last a few rounds against him and the demo would be over.[/QUOTE]

I dunno - my hour timed out right about the 3rd round of attacks with him - but I was watching the time and it was definitely that (had about 3 minutes when I started the cutscenes with him).
 
Thought the game was good but not great/omg hype level great. Lost Oddessy still looks alot better, but i would have said the same with the blue dragon trailers. Oh well, prolly still gonna give this a buy in August along with Eternal Sonata and Mass Effect. Gota support RPGS if you want to see more.
 
[quote name='mykevermin']Many people seemed to dislike the "DBZ"-ness of the game (I haven't had time to try the demo yet).

Did you all also dislike Dragon Quest VIII?[/QUOTE]

That's the drug that burned me out on JRPG's. I didn't know it at the time, but that's what happened. Less than 10 minutes into the Blue Dragon demo and I was in psychic pain. Spiky hair? Big eyes? Turn-based battles against random evil'ed-out animals? I just... can't... do it.

Gonna head out to GS this weekend and move the pre-order to EA's Skate.
 
I liked the demo, nothing surprising really...its what you would expect if youve seen any sort of preview to the game imo. If you didnt like the anime style you could have passed upon seeing the first screenshots.
 
It's weird but after playing the demo a second time, it has grown on me quite a bit and I think it will be a Day 1 purchase for me. I think I was initially soured towards the game because I had no idea WTF I was doing since they throw you in a scenario 50% into the game and your characters are already buffed up.

I literally cruised through the demo a second time and was able to easily dispatch every enemy without any effort. It also made me appreciate the battle system a lot more the 2nd time.

If anyone is having trouble with the difficulty, I struck gold. Each character is able to equip around 6 to 8 "Skills" which are very similar to the Relics of FFVI. Some of them are downright nasty such as Double Strike (allows a character to attack twice in one turn) and Double Spell (allows a mage to cast black or white magic twice). This makes the game almost laughably easy but I'm guessing the demo lets you have access to all of them and you won't get many of them until much later in the regular game.
 
[quote name='Apossum']this was made for 12 year olds. no sale.[/QUOTE]

:roll:

At one point, everything you state started to lose meaning. After the past few days, it's pretty much gone. It's like when you say the same word over and over again, it loses it's meaning. Likewise, your constant pissing and moaning has sucked all meaning from you.
 
This feels very generic and boring. Hopefully the story can somehow save it and make it a good game. This feels like a "i told you so" type of game for me.
 
[quote name='-Never4ever-']:roll:

At one point, everything you state started to lose meaning. After the past few days, it's pretty much gone. It's like when you say the same word over and over again, it loses it's meaning. Likewise, your constant pissing and moaning has sucked all meaning from you.[/QUOTE]


wow...so what you're saying is that you just want me to stop having an opinion because it conflicts with yours. 'kay buddy, lemme know how that works out for you. ;)

(p.s. is this all because I wouldn't sell my PS3 to you? sorry man, I mean, you couldn't have really expected me to send first...but I sure am glad I didn't get rid of it :lol: hahahaha, now please stop stalking me and responding like an ass to all my posts.)
 
I was very hyped for this game, and just being thrown in the Demo I thought it was ok. I own Enchanted Arms, so what do I know.
 
[quote name='thrustbucket']Don't forget, those of you crying about the voice acting, supposedly this game will have the option of being in Japanese with subtitles.[/QUOTE]

I didn't think the voice acting was bad at all, seemed fine to me, so far....
 
It was ok but didn't convince me to buy it. How, may I ask, did you all skip the "limit breaks?" It was pissing me off having to sit through it every time. The voices as mentioned before are quite annoying, but I'm sure it's a 7-ish game at the least.
 
Once you learn the game, it's actually pretty fun. The battle system is nice although I wish you could skip the little cut scene (Sometimes they do it, sometimes they don't). Once you learn the system the game is quite enjoyable...plus you have to take the demo for what it is. You're not intended to go far, just test the battle system and kill everything. Plus it's a JRPG so there will be a lot of grinding and leveling, waiting your turn.

I will more then likely pick this up at launch depending on how long Bioshock is. If Bioshock is reviewed as a short title then Blue Dragon it is. Not sure which one I will be picking up first. Also, they need to fix the slow down in BD as it's a killer and a pain in the ass.
 
Hmm this isn't downloading for me, anyone else having this problem? I just leave the Xbox on and it stays at either 0 or 1% for hours...it's doing this with the other new demos too...
 
I cant download this or the C&C3 demo either. It gets to 6% or 70% and dies. It gives me an error and I can only go and delete what did load and start over. I have 13gb of free space. I can DL other games just not these. I have googled my problem over and over and cant find a solution.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
bread's done
Back
Top