I’m really very fond of RPGs–I love how deep a storyline can get with those, and how easily you can be pulled along.  I love that role playing games often require a company to put out its very best in graphics technology, and also its best in sound design.  Indeed, a role playing game must often be the most polished title a company can release, packing innovation and clever game modes and variety like no tomorrow into one handy package on the Xbox 360.

This is why I enjoyed Blue Dragon, a game that took the best parts of Japanese animation and coupled them to a role playing game that made for hours of fun.

It’s a massive story, requiring several DVDs, and involves a boy named Shu and several of his friends given the power to control their shadows as weapons.  They can alter their shadows according to several different kinds of “Shadow Change”, to focus on attack, stealth or defense, among others.  From there, Shu and company must set out to save the land conquered by evil aliens.  And when I say evil, I mean evil, as in that kind of gleeful evil that’s downright sociopathic.  Think Kefka with godlike powers and you’ll get the basic idea behind the evil that’s infesting Shu’s world, and why it so desperately needs to be stomped out.

There is a lot—and I mean a LOT—to like about Blue Dragon.  There are literal hours of fun here, as you roam a vast countryside.  You’ll get to tinker with fighting styles, try to figure out the best mix of force and support to get the various jobs done that need doing, and that alone can suck up a lot of time.  Better, you’ll engage in various timing games where button press speed and accuracy is the key.  You’ll get to fly a ship and blast things with its various weaponry, you’ll fight evil all over the place, you’ll even manage to solve some puzzles.  There’s literally all things for all people sitting here, and it’s hard to find things to specifically dislike about Blue Dragon.

Oh, sure…there will be those that find the gameplay skewed toward the difficult side, and that’s a valid complaint.  I had a hard time with plenty of obstacles.  And of course, anyone who calls this “cartoony” can not be refuted.  It even WAS a cartoon for a while on Cartoon Network before one of its many schedule changes made it disappear from view along with stuff like Zatch Bell and One Piece.  Thus, calling the game “cartoony” is undoubtedly accurate as a result.

There’s a lot of parallel here with old-school RPGs; go here, beat this, get a new chunk of the story, advance to next portion.  I was raised on that sort of RPG gaming, so it’s a welcome treat for me to see it upgraded with next-gen graphics (can we really call them next-gen anymore?  It’s THIS gen now.), and I’m glad for it.

At the end of the day, though, it’s really a matter of personal preferences.  If you join me in the category of old-school gamer who’s glad for a little revitalization in what had formerly been regarded as a dying subgenre, then you’ll be glad for Blue Dragon.