Blinx and you'll miss it.In an unusual turn of events I bizarrely find myself reviewing, of all things, a real-time/turn-based/strategy/RTS/RPG mish-mash. Not a genre I have a natural affinity with, I'll be honest. But well, sometimes it's good to try something new and alternative, and Blue Dragon Plus certainly represents me broadening my gaming horizons and giving the RPG genre another chance to remind me why I typically dislike it so much.
And actually, even writing this review is really quite difficult for me because of my inherent dislike of the genre as a whole. In fact I'm really fighting hard to remain objective and neutral. And I'll lower my blaspheming voice here as I admit that the first thirty minutes of Final Fantasy VII were enough to bore me to tears and put me off RPGs forever - at least that is until I played Advance Wars and Fire Emblem - which aren't really true RPGs are they?
Anyway, I'm digressing yet again and going out of my way to avoid talking about Mistwalker and Brownie Brown's Blue Dragon Plus which is, after all, what we're all here for isn't it?
OK, OK. On to it then. Blue Dragon Plus is the sequel to the modestly received Xbox 360 original, a title the game does very little to actually address. In fact, the narrative lost me almost immediately. But then un-skippable walls of text and spikey-haired protagonists with Blinx-alike sidekicks hardly fill me with confidence upon a game's opening. But I persevered and fought against my natural urges to go play something shinier and noisier and pushed on into the game proper. And actually, my eyes were opened slightly, because Blue Dragon Plus isn't your typical turn-based RPG snore-a-thon - well it
is a snore-a-thon but that's not the point I'm trying to make - what I am trying to say is that it's part Role Playing Game part Real Time Strategy game, and actually just about works. Only just mind.
Your merry band of warriors can be moved around the game's 3D but isometric playing area exactly as you might expect them to in Command and Conquer, Age of Empires or any other RTS title. You can tap to select individual units or use the intuitive lasso tool to draw a circle around your party before quickly tapping your desired destination. Then you'll sit, scratch your balls and wait as they slowly trudge towards it. Of course it's nothing like as fast-paced as a typical RTS but then it ought not to be as the whole speed of play is much slower throughout. Encounter enemies along the way and a quick tap commands your gang to attack it, and it's here that the game's RPG trappings are revealed as each unit can be individually selected in order to unleash their unique powers - the 'dragon' part of the title. Typically, healing herbs, spells, medicines and various collectable make a predictable appearance and otherwise it's exactly as you probably imagine the game to be. And to be honest, the whole experience is entirely predictable - even to me, a non-RPG fan.
And while the game should be commended for its RTS-lite mechanics, those of you that have played a proper RTS before will soon become annoyed by the fact that it's not immediately obvious which of your units you have selected at any one time. And the fact that all of your party's energy bars stay on screen all of the time (for obvious reasons) further confuses things, as in a typical RTS game you only see the energy bars of your currently selected units.
In order to maintain some balance between criticism and praise, the best part of the game is its mainly delightful appearance. The colourful characters are nicely designed and well presented and the full motion video clips that intersperse each level, while providing somewhat of a contrast to the rest of the game, are actually nicely animated and entertaining and prove to be a welcome distraction. There's rumoured to be well over an hour of FMV too, which for those of you that do get into the largely impenetrable story will be a god-send.
Otherwise, the game's slow pace, awkward controls, un-skippable text and boring clichéd and predictable narrative would ordinarily prove to be enough to guarantee a below average review score, yet somehow Blue Dragon Plus manages to exude a certain amount of charm and its positives manage to just about cancel out most of those negatives. It was never going to do enough to convince me that I was wrong all those years about RPGs and that I should go back and play Secret of Mana, Final Fantasy, Xenogears, Skies of Arcadia et al. But for what it is, it should be warmly and gently applauded. Blue Dragon Plus then is a reasonably successful melding together of ingredients from a whole array of genres in order to make a well presented game that ultimately proves itself to be a Jack of all trades, but master of none.
Bungie vows never to follow the Activision route and charge extra for online multiplayer
(1) (30/07) 
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#1 - NewYork - on 11/05/2009 at 21:32 wrote:
Read: "Nobody else would touch this with a ten-foot pole"
#2 - Hughes. - on 11/05/2009 at 22:51 wrote:
#3 - JimJam - on 11/05/2009 at 22:52 wrote:
#4 - dirigiblebill - on 11/05/2009 at 23:52 wrote:
Remind me never to borrow your DS without disinfecting it for several hours first ;)
#5 - peej - on 12/05/2009 at 08:32 wrote:
#6 - peej - on 12/05/2009 at 08:35 wrote:
#7 - HairyArse - on 12/05/2009 at 08:51 wrote:
#8 - peej - on 12/05/2009 at 09:33 wrote:
I still felt dirty and slightly guilty afterwards, but sometimes you have to do what a man's gotta do.
#9 - NewYork - on 12/05/2009 at 17:23 wrote: