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Blue Dragon: Awakened Shadow - or DQ9: Before it got changed
Gilder
Aw snapMacaroni PartyRegistered User regular
Aw snapMacaroni PartyRegistered User regular
What's a Blue Dragon?
Blue Dragon is a series created by Hironobu Sakaguchi, the guy behind Final Fantasy. It is a series that has no goddamn idea what it wants to be anymore. The first game was on the 360 and was developed by Mistwalker, the guys behind Lost Odyssey. Also Artoon, but mostly Mistwalker. It was a love-or-hate game that played like a very old-school RPG with a class system. After this Blue Dragon went on to become a card game and it also got an anime series. Then Blue Dragon became a strategy game for the DS and it was developed by Mistwalker as well, but with help from Brownie Brown and Feelplus. It received mixed reviews that were generally positive, however nobody bought the game. Now Blue Dragon is on DS again and it plays in a completely new way yet again, but I'll get to that.
Why should I care about Blue Dragon: Awakened Shadow?
You should care because this game looks to be really good. Awakened Shadow is developed by Tri-Crescendo, the same people behind games like Baten Kaitos and Eternal Sonata. So they know what they're doing..... sort of. Eternal Sonata was at least pretty, okay? Also this game will be a lot more accessible, as it no longer plays like a strategy game.
So how does it play then?
Remember when Square-Enix first announced Dragon Quest 9 and they said it was going to be actiony and have online multiplayer? Then Japan bitched and moaned until they changed it? Well Tri-Crescendo basically stole that idea completely and Awakened Shadow is a cross between the DQ9 beta concept and Crystal Chronicles. It's an action game where you create your own character and can play with two other people. You can play offline with any of the characters from the series that are included (The mains, like Shu and Zola) or you can play online with 2 others! That's right folks, this game has online multiplayer so you can share your shame of liking BD with other people!
So the way the gameplay works is you create your own character to quest with, and they join up with the normal BD cast. Apparently everyone gets the same kind of shadows, so you can make everyone useful in their own ways. Also you don't have to use Marumaro because you can just make someone else what he would be. Then you do missions like in Crystal Chronicles and.... do that kind of stuff. You know what this all means. Do quests, get loot, do quests, and then you get cooler looking and beat the game. I say cooler looking because yes my friends your armor does change what you look like. You'll still probably look like Goku or Bulma though. Quests will go to a variety of places due to the events of the last two games and I would not be lying if I said you will go to a land of poo. It's in there. And it's waitin' for ya.
I never played the first two games. Can you spoil the story for me?
Sure, but the plots are very basic so don't expect much. Also I'm going off of memory here.
Blue Dragon
Shu, Jiro, and Kluke are all friends in a small desert type town. A landshark shows up and basically wrecks the hell out of their town until some WACKY HIJINKS ensue and everyone gets on a big air fortress. Here they meet the main bad guy Nene and his little helper "Deathroy". He is also called "Destroy", but this is a translation issue. I'm not sure what his canon name is now. Anyway Deathroy is a little alien helper like that thing Jabba the Hutt had and he just annoys the player. Nene also has a robot helper called Szabo that comes into play later. Nene himself is just an asshole that looks like a purple Piccolo and is causing trouble all over the world because he's Kefka at this point and doesn't give a shit. Also he's old and wrinkly.
Anyway the team battles Nene and loses. Then they get thrown down to a lower level of the ship and are swarmed with robots. Before their shit gets wrecked by the robots they hear a voice telling them to swallow some strange spheres that are in the room. They do and are imbued with magical powers called Shadows. These manifest in the characters' own shadow and give them a ton of strength. They escape the ship and more adventures ensue while they look for a way back to Nene. Along the way they meet Marumaro, a little yellow guy that has an annoying voice and never opens his eyes. During this time they end up going to some ruins where they find out about how magic used to be in the world in people known as the ancients and this huge monster nearly destroyed everything. Nene is obviously one of the ancients as he can use magic naturally. The monster is promptly forgotten until the last 30 minutes of the game. They soon meet Zola who is the captain of the guard for Prince Jibral, ruler of the kingdom of Jibral. The whole team rests up in Jibral for a bit, and then Jbral launches an attack on Nene's flying fortress. The cast wins and Nene is driven back, but the journey to defeat Nene permanently continues. His fortress crashed somewhere in the desert so everyone goes to look for it.
In the desert the moon shoots lasers at the team and it's really weird.
So that's basically everything that happens for a long time, and at some point Kluke gets kidnapped by Nene. She gets an explosive collar put on her and everyone rushes to rescue her. Zola ditches at one point for a reason I don't remember. When they reach Kluke, Nene shows up and puts the same type of collar on everyone else. Little did everyone know that the collar was actually created to extract magic, and the collars force everyone to cough up their shadows and Nene absorbs them, thus becoming Perfect Cel- Perfect Nene. This makes him really young and smooth. Then he tries to destroy them and Shu drives him off by Deus Ex Machina and teleports everyone out. Zola is still missing. So after this everyone is disheartened , but through character development all get their shadows back naturally. Shu for example stops a girl from killing herself which gives him hope again. Much later on Zola comes back. After a while Nene makes a proclamation saying that everybody sucks because they can't use magic like him and he's going to wipe out everyone, and those that live are worthy of his world.
Okay now this is the important thing. This carries over into all the other games. At this point Nene literally opens the world up and reveals that the inside is composed of magical floating cubes, all of which are basically their own mini-continents. This is the Ancient's homeworld, and the world was not supposed to be closed. The world does not close back up again for the rest of the game.
So in the split world the whole team goes after Nene in his secret base. They fight Szabo again who was trying to be good but Nene will have none of it. So at the end of the fortress they finally fight Nene once and for all. They mostly win but HOLY SHIT ZOLA IS A TRAITOR WHO WORKED FOR NENE ALL ALONG. She has his shadow or something and he takes it back, but she became good on her journey and fights him. She gets her own shadow back. So the team defeats Nene and the world is saved. Then Deathroy pops up, swallows Nene's sphere, and becomes the gigantic monster the ruins mentioned way back. The team fights and destroys him, and then I think Nene's sphere gets tossed in the lava or something. Now everybody is living happily ever after on floating cubes. They also stole Nene's stuff and have flying ships and such.
Also Szabo is good now.
Anyway the team battles Nene and loses. Then they get thrown down to a lower level of the ship and are swarmed with robots. Before their shit gets wrecked by the robots they hear a voice telling them to swallow some strange spheres that are in the room. They do and are imbued with magical powers called Shadows. These manifest in the characters' own shadow and give them a ton of strength. They escape the ship and more adventures ensue while they look for a way back to Nene. Along the way they meet Marumaro, a little yellow guy that has an annoying voice and never opens his eyes. During this time they end up going to some ruins where they find out about how magic used to be in the world in people known as the ancients and this huge monster nearly destroyed everything. Nene is obviously one of the ancients as he can use magic naturally. The monster is promptly forgotten until the last 30 minutes of the game. They soon meet Zola who is the captain of the guard for Prince Jibral, ruler of the kingdom of Jibral. The whole team rests up in Jibral for a bit, and then Jbral launches an attack on Nene's flying fortress. The cast wins and Nene is driven back, but the journey to defeat Nene permanently continues. His fortress crashed somewhere in the desert so everyone goes to look for it.
In the desert the moon shoots lasers at the team and it's really weird.
So that's basically everything that happens for a long time, and at some point Kluke gets kidnapped by Nene. She gets an explosive collar put on her and everyone rushes to rescue her. Zola ditches at one point for a reason I don't remember. When they reach Kluke, Nene shows up and puts the same type of collar on everyone else. Little did everyone know that the collar was actually created to extract magic, and the collars force everyone to cough up their shadows and Nene absorbs them, thus becoming Perfect Cel- Perfect Nene. This makes him really young and smooth. Then he tries to destroy them and Shu drives him off by Deus Ex Machina and teleports everyone out. Zola is still missing. So after this everyone is disheartened , but through character development all get their shadows back naturally. Shu for example stops a girl from killing herself which gives him hope again. Much later on Zola comes back. After a while Nene makes a proclamation saying that everybody sucks because they can't use magic like him and he's going to wipe out everyone, and those that live are worthy of his world.
Okay now this is the important thing. This carries over into all the other games. At this point Nene literally opens the world up and reveals that the inside is composed of magical floating cubes, all of which are basically their own mini-continents. This is the Ancient's homeworld, and the world was not supposed to be closed. The world does not close back up again for the rest of the game.
So in the split world the whole team goes after Nene in his secret base. They fight Szabo again who was trying to be good but Nene will have none of it. So at the end of the fortress they finally fight Nene once and for all. They mostly win but HOLY SHIT ZOLA IS A TRAITOR WHO WORKED FOR NENE ALL ALONG. She has his shadow or something and he takes it back, but she became good on her journey and fights him. She gets her own shadow back. So the team defeats Nene and the world is saved. Then Deathroy pops up, swallows Nene's sphere, and becomes the gigantic monster the ruins mentioned way back. The team fights and destroys him, and then I think Nene's sphere gets tossed in the lava or something. Now everybody is living happily ever after on floating cubes. They also stole Nene's stuff and have flying ships and such.
Also Szabo is good now.
Phew. Oh goddammit, I forgot about the story for +.
Blue Dragon +
So in cube world everyone is happy living on cubes until some weird readings on a new cube are detected. The team goes to check it out and oh shit, a huge shadow called Balaur shows up. It doesn't even have a master, it's just a monster shadow. It wrecks stuff up and then goes away. The team chases it down into the depths of a big cube where all the gameplay occurs. The most important thing is that during the game every minor character ever mentioned in the first game gets their own shadows. I'm not even joking, everyone gets one. Remember the girl Shu stopped from killing herself? She gets one. All of Marumaro's siblings? Shadows. Shu's grandpa? A shadow. A PINK POO GETS A SHADOW. It's a shadow free-for-all folks.
So down in the cube Nene revives, but they also meet a woman named Himiko. Nene is evil, but once he sees Himiko he changes and becomes a huge wuss. Now he's a good guy and actually joins the team because he was only evil when he thought he lost Himiko. As everyone goes down the cube they see mini-Destroys in tubes and such, but they dispose of them with little trouble. At the bottom they fight the shadow Balaur, but Nene and Himiko must sacrifice themselves to defeat it. They do and everyone goes back to their normal lives.
That's it. That's the entire story for Blue Dragon +. The only important thing is everybody gets shadows.
So down in the cube Nene revives, but they also meet a woman named Himiko. Nene is evil, but once he sees Himiko he changes and becomes a huge wuss. Now he's a good guy and actually joins the team because he was only evil when he thought he lost Himiko. As everyone goes down the cube they see mini-Destroys in tubes and such, but they dispose of them with little trouble. At the bottom they fight the shadow Balaur, but Nene and Himiko must sacrifice themselves to defeat it. They do and everyone goes back to their normal lives.
That's it. That's the entire story for Blue Dragon +. The only important thing is everybody gets shadows.
What's the story for Awakened Shadow then?
Oh god I hate you just leave me alone already. Look who cares, the stories are terrible in these games. Fine fine, it's something like evil shows up again and the team has to get rid of it. That's basically it. Also the cube worlds are still in full-swing.
When does this game come out?
It comes out in America on May 18th, 2010. Europe is TBA. Sorry Europe.
Friend codes maybe will go here?
You knew I'd put this in here.
Gilder on
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EDIT: Aw, dang. There goes some of my interest.
But this? looks pretty awesome. definitely on my want list
Release another BD for the 360 ffs.
I want to sell my DS because it gives me migranes when I play it.
Maybe the XL would be better, I don't know but I can't really afford to find out.
Origin: Galedrid - Nintendo: Galedrid/3222-6858-1045
Blizzard: Galedrid#1367 - FFXIV: Galedrid Kingshand
Oh and I'm not sure, but I think a reason for the $35 price tag is that this game is using a bigger DS cartridge. I think it's using the double-size one that's like a gig or something.
It went downhill from there. If this is even a slight return to form I'm game.
If BD2 isn't vaporware I'll eat a 360.
Oh you know what? Fuck them. They'd buy it anyway and they know it.
It's...it's nothing...just a bit of sand in my eye...
KING RIPTOR WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY
On Squenix's side -When your series dictates national Law you are pretty much free to ignore the fanbase and do whatever you want with it. Like you do with Final Fantasy but good
Original is barely tolerable, + sucks, but this? Might be worth my time. A warmup for DQ9 and EO III maybe. See if I can get it on the cheap.
Not really. This was never going to be a priority for any reviewer.
NNID: Glenn565
The game never pretended to be anything but a homage to old school RPGs but I guess people were expecting Final Dragon Fantasy Quest 42 given it's pedigree.
That's what his voice makes me feel.
I played a little online with some gamefaqs people. We fought a couple of bosses and did some battle simulations which is just re-doing dungeons you've cleared and fighting a boss at the end. Got some nice booty but then my DS died and none of the treasures or XP were saved.
Gilder are you fixed yet?? I assume not.
Also still can't play online, so it's 100% the netcode for the game. It's just really shitty and selective.