Review: Blue Dragon Plus for Nintendo DS

When i let the dogs out this morning, i found a plain yellow padded envelope on the front porch with a big UPS Ground label on the front. Inside was a nice letter from the marketing agency, thanking me for taking the time for the review and reminding me to find their web tool online and let them know when the review was posted; and the game: Blue Dragon Plus for the Nintendo DS.

My DS was dead from way too much Animal Crossing: Wild World over the last couple days, so it took me a few hours before i was set up to try Blue Dragon Plus.

But i'm probably getting ahead of myself. Let me start at the beginning. This is my first video game review, and i was surprised even to be asked to take part, but i want to make sure i do a thorough job and be fair.

I will say up front that i was not influenced by the marketing agency that asked me to review the game in any way. the fact that the game was shipped to me for free, i can only assume, is the standard in reviews, as evidenced from Penny Arcade and Ctrl+Alt+Del mentioning in their blog that such-and-such publisher sent them random-game to review.

I refrained from loading up the original Blue Dragon on my 360 while waiting for this game, wanting to go into the review fresh and perhaps as if i had never even played it. It has been about a year since i played the 360 game, and i couldn't remember much, so I'm off to a good start.

I also refrained from reading any other reviews or watching trailers of Blue Dragon Plus, so as not to be influenced by anything except my own experience.

The other thing I refrained from was the instruction booklet. I had two reasons for this:

• One - As a man, I have a natural aversion to instruction booklets.

• Two - I wanted to really know how intuitive this game was. Would it have controls easy to guess and navigate, or would it be incredibly complex and require remapping and a cheat sheet?

So, on with the review

Initial Thoughts

• Good intro cutscene, really reminded me of what i remember from the 360 version. Very cinematic and recognizable characters. Kind of surprised me for the DS (but the only other game I have is Animal Crossing, so I really don't have much of a basis for comparison).

• Feels like final fantasy tactics at first glance after the cutscene. 3D Isometric, shoulder buttons for rotating the camera, D-Pad for positioning the camera.


• I like that it introduces the characters in the party at the start and gives tips for how to effectively use them in combat.
  
  
• Controls were very intuitive and only took mere seconds to play with and figure out. No complexity at all.
  

Yes, so there are the first three thoughts I had. My initial impression is a positive one.

Initial Thoughts Rating: +

Storyline

The second thing I noticed is how story-driven Blue Dragon Plus is. Packed with excellent cinematic cut scenes and story-furthering dialog interspersed with some very strategic real time combat. For those of us that are fans of the Final Fantasy series and can handle lots of dialogue and cut scenes, you'll feel right at home.

The story was engaging and interesting. It built upon the world from the original title and flowed well, much like a comic book or graphic novel. It made sense in context and was well written.

Storyline Rating: +

Gameplay

The real-time combat takes a little getting used to. Most isometric games like this that I am used to (FF:Tactics and even Blue Dragon(360)) were turn based, but when the enemies don't wait for you to pick your action, they just start walking and beating on your characters out of the expected turn sequence, the world flips upside down and its time to build a new strategy.

This is where the simplicity of the controls shines. Three icons on the right side of the screen control party selection. The first is for scrolling through your party individually, the second is for circling the target party members with the stylus, and the third is selecting all party members. Clicking on an enemy sends all selected characters to release whoop-ass. There are two to three icons at the bottom of the screen for each character selected. Special attacks, and medicine for healing. Simply click one with the stylus and combat pauses so you can ensure the target of your spell.

I was easily able to group my combat-oriented members on the enemies to overwhelm them and send the scout out to gather treasure and medicine to keep them alive.

The rest of gameplay is spent reading through the linear storyline and watching the cut scenes, or making minor direction choices that automatically move you to an area occupied by either a monster or a shop. Simplified perhaps too much, but easy to understand and work with.

Gameplay Rating: +

Genre Elements

Blue Dragon Plus is listed as an Action RPG. Combat action is the primary element of gameplay, so I give it a + for that.

The 'Key Points' page of the marketing site boasts "Exciting RPG Elements Such As Item Collection, Character Progression and Robot Customizations".

Fine, let's talk about RPG Elements.

Items are collected and assigned to characters to grant additional stat bonuses and counteract weaknesses or increase strengths.

After combat, characters are awarded experience points and possibly level up. There is nothing to do during level-up. Stat increases are awarded automatically.

I haven't even gotten to the robot customization yet. This intrigues me, and I'm looking forward to it.

But how does it play as an RPG? That depends on your definition of Role Playing Game. I'm a paper and dice RPG'er and text-based RPG'er, which means I have a much different view on role play than WoW or EverQuest RPG'ers. So for me, the RPG element was the weak point of this game.

But as for the Action, Blue Dragon Plus is all about action.

I would say this is a neutral, one plus/one minus, but the RPG portion is listed as "Elements", and not designated as the primary genre, so we'll catagorize it Action.

Genre Element Rating: +

Replay-ability

I know I haven't yet played the whole game through to the end, but in my experience so far, there isn't much to replay. Choices are limited to how you go about taking out the bad guys during combat. All conversation is pre-scripted with no input from the player, so once you've played through to the end, that's it. I'm not one who even re-reads books more than once, so I probably wouldn't play it more than once, but what I have played so far was good.

Replay-ability Rating: -

Summary

Blue Dragon Plus is a good story-driven combat game with some innovative elements in a familiar world. While not a true RPG, it does try to incorporate popular elements to appeal to everyone, and does an okay job. The 30+ hours of playtime is a fresh release in the wake of shorter games, but the complete linearity does not promote replay-ability. More of a graphic novel with combat breaks, but still recommended for fans of the original or similar titles. Having first completed the original is suggested for understanding the back story.

Summary Rating: (4 out of 5)

Blue Dragon Plus
Published by: Ignition Entertainment
Developed by: Feel Plus
Genre: Action RPG
System: Nintendo DS
Rated: E for Everyone
Release Date: February 24, 2009

Blue Dragon Plus images and video care of Rocket XL Marketing.

Dragon Score Image copyright: WarSpider Entertainment LLC, and is used with permission.
DragonClash.com is neither owned or operated by Nintendo and is not
associated with the Blue Dragon Plus product.

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Rating System

I thought it was important to post my criteria for game reviews, what with my review of Blue Dragon Plus coming up.

My video game reviews are rated on elements I look for in a game, and are completely subjective, based on my personal opinion. I try to be fair when writing a review and do my best not to allow outside influences to sway me.

Initial Thoughts - watching the opening cut scene and first impressions of the game.
Storyline - How engaging is the story, how interesting, how well was it written.
Gameplay - Innovation, intuitive, easy to control, any frustrations.
Genre Elements - How well does it meet the claims of the genre.
Replay-ability - Was it worth playing through, would you consider playing it through again.

I realize this isn't everything a game is made of, but it is more at heart to what a game is to me compared to other reviewers that consider more of how it looks and what it sounds like. Graphics and Sound are secondary, and therefore included in the initial thoughts, rather than separate categories.

If you have any questions about my review process, send me email.

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Comic Status Update

OK, so no, i have not disappeared again for months on end of no posts. I've just been busy. With normal full time work, addition of a code project, and getting things lined up for my comic, its been a little... hectic. I got the first four pages of script from my writer and had to arrange it in "sequential art" format, and i have the sketches done for the first two pages. I prolly won't be starting the comic until i have the first six or eight pages done, or at least sketched, so i can have material to post each week. I'm shooting for once per week, maybe wednesday or thursday posts. I think that's all the time my schedule will allow right now.

in other news, i have been invited, thru contact to this blog, no less, to review Blue Dragon Plus for the Nintendo DS. I have accepted, so should hopefully be receiving my copy soon. That's exciting. I've got the 360 version of Blue Dragon, and really enjoy it. I'm going to post their widget on the sidebar now to get ready.

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Game Theory - The Total Rewrite

This phrase really freaked me out when I first heard it. What could be cooler than a theory of games? But you know what? It isn't the cool new college course that all the design publishers are looking for, its actually military strategy. Which kinda works, if you're playing Total Annihilation. But I'm not talking about military strategem, or TA. I'm talking about design.

My first major campaign for Star Wars Saga Edition is going on. We are up to the third episode, and since I didn't care for the original RPGA written episode 3, I'm rewriting it.

Now, I've got to tell you, this is not just an easy throw something together thing. There is real thought and planning behind building an episode for an existing established campaign. I wanted to keep some of the same elements in the game so that key things that took place in the original will still happen in the rewrite, but will fit my new setting and events.

But it doesn't work to just cut and paste areas of the text, because they are very different in content.

For example, I just couldn't bring myself to put my very aggressive players thru four days of playing cards. It just wouldn't have worked. They would have been killing random npcs by the second day. So that had to go. But there is a purchase / exchange that happens during the card game. Now I have to have that purchase / exchange go down anyway, but in a diffent manner, and to where the players discover it anyway, and make it more interesting than hiding in shadows evesdropping or sitting somewhere high up and watching thru macrobinoculars.

So. For the first installment of my new RPG focused hobby blog, here we have:

Episode 3. Rewriting the Adventure.

1. Keep the NPCs the same, just change their role. Rather than your Rodian being a scoundrel card sharp, throw him in position of the Noble. Dress him up in fancy clothes and give him an entourage.


2. Keep the setting similar, just change the location. The original may take place on Jabba's Sail Barge over the dune sea. But that doesn't fit your new setting, since you aren't including Jabba, or the Tatoonian Dune Sea. How about a five day-six night stay aboard the luxury star cruise Correlian Star Resorts Cruise & Travel.


3. Keep the main plot of the episode, just change the detail. The original was a rescue of the princess from the evil Empire's new space station detention facility before she's executed. Well, perhaps in your game, the Empire's base is an underground facility, and the rescue of the princess is freeing slaves. Plot: Rescue. Details: location / rescuee.


4. Add in new stuff that makes your game different, but similar. Basically not all the encounters from the original episode are going to work in your new location/setting/goal. But coming up with interesting encounters can be a challenge. You don't want your episode rewrite to be the same. you want to give it your own flare and creativity. Let's say in the original the heroes were going to come across a datapad that would lead them to an NPC that knew what they were looking for. Well, that's a data encounter. How about instead, your hero's droid slices into the central station computer and that data that was going to be provided from the NPC is available there.


5. Make it exciting. No matter how much you didn't like the original write, something about it made it exciting to the writers. Try to capture that element. It's okay to borrow from their example to do it. Just as the heroes save the princess and disable the tractor beam, escape from the big bad evil super villain (BBESV), they blast off into space only to discover their hyperdrive has been disabled. Dun dun DUN! Now they have to fight off waves of TIE fighters and fix the hyperdrive at the same time before the shields give out!

Yeah, keep that part.

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The Community

My wife has a blogger community. I've had my blog for about a year now. She's had hers for a couple months. She has a community and is getting comments and reads from other bloggers. What do i get? Random comments posted from random people, and once in a great while. I haven't been totally happy with that, but I didnt know where to go. What am I supposed to do to get a community? my friends don't read my blog. I can barely get them to show up to games (which isn't totally fair, because Sinister had a real emergency this week).

Well, I need a community. But my blog may need a target direction before I have readers. It may also need planned regular updates and themes. so far it is a collection of random thoughts and posts about my totally random activity of the day. Is that a direction? Is that a theme? Randomness in hobbying? I want a gamer community. Ah, well.

Forums, on the other hand, are a community that is easier to be a part of. I've been spending a lot of time on d20Radio in the star wars saga edition forums. I try to find things that I can throw in on from my experiences to assist those who have questions, even though I'm no master GM. I have been more on the pc side than gm side, but when our previous gm moved to Kansas, I stepped up to pick up the pieces as the next most experienced player (about 20 years).

I've had some good GM's in my time. Jake was our Shadowrun storyteller. He kept us interested and involved, and I've strived to provide some of the magic that came out of those games in my current group. Volgren was another. He had great adventure ideas and always kept us interested, and were always full of depth and sometimes the scale and scope was so far reaching that I'm amazed we survived at all.

So far my game has been reading from the little orange hilighted boxes, then picking out pieces of the rest of the paragraph to use as details, then setting up the battle map with the miniatures so the players could duke it out with stormtroopers. i have a few of the swminis from Skipphag, but not many. the normal table is a mix of swminis, 40k soldiers, iron kingdom heroes, and the occasional large empty black base to represent big monsters. The maps are cardstock that i had grid squares printed and then i cut out the proper room sizes and have even gone so far as to create little additions, such as a raised dias for the hutt, or a speeder for us to cruise around Cato Niemodia in.

But i want to do more. I want the experience to be even more memorable, so in my over zealous way, I dived full on into google looking for resources, and am tripping over community.

Community.

It says so much, just sitting there like that, begging people to walk in the door. Begging them to sit at the table, pick up a pencil and some dice, and play. Perhaps its my lack of experience as storyteller that is my shortcoming. On the fly isn't coming together fast enough to be coherent. For my wife's solo game that i'm planning, i'm writing down everything. It may sound a little wooden, but she doesn't care, she just wants to know what she gets for loot loves me anyway. But i'm writing down the intro, i'm writing down what she sees, hears, and the little fluff elements. For example, the beginning of the adventure will consist of an immersive description of a daydream that is going on while she is supposed to be practicing controlling her force sensitivity.

You are Jedi. Sworn protector of the Republic. Feared and awed throughout known space. Limitless power, boundless knowledge, vast resources all at your fingertips.

Or, at least they will be in a few years. For now, you are still a padawan learner, following at your master's heels. She is stern and strict, but fair, and you have learned much. You have a few missions under your belt now. You've been off Dantooine a couple times. You helped to neutralize a cunning assassin with a contract on an important senator. You helped bring down a warlord in the outer rim that was raiding isolated settlements for supplies. Neither easy, but definitely worth it for the experience it brought you.

But lately it’s been back to studies. Focusing on lifting stuff, deflecting stuff, moving stuff... it seems to never end. Your dreams of glory and fame have never felt so far away. The only thing that makes these days bearable is Juuna, your best friend from one of the outlying farms. Her presence chases away the doldrums and her mischief brings a touch of excitement to your life. You look forward to after studies when you can meet up and do something other than study. Perhaps today there will be boys involved, though your master wouldn't approve.

You are brought sharply out of your daydreams by a surprised shout, and you look about. Padawan Doona Vlyn is hovering three feet off the ground, flailing wildly. Apparently while running through exercises, as your concentration wavered, so did your target. The stones lay before you haphazardly. Maybe you should do something about Doona.

There. I will read all that to her to immerse her in the story, get her feeling like her character and lead her to the mindset that I view for her character. For a full party I wouldn't be so presumptuous. They may have their own style of play, but this is specifically for Sage.

I hope she likes it.

Wait. I thought I was done, but then I looked at the title. The Community. How does ending on my current star wars game for my wife have anything to do with community? It doesnt, but now I remember where I was going with this.

I think I found them.

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Star Wars Saga Edition

Ok, so the procrastination post actually came from looking at one of the blogs my wife reads titled procrastination, and i had an epiphany and had to post. but now i'm on to real hobby-ing stuff.

Recently i've been itching to game. Not video games or board games or card games, but paper-and-dice-character-sheet-pencils-and-game-master-friends-around-the-table game. So i've convinced my friends to create level 3 characters to play in our Star Wars game, and i've written the beginning of an adventure that should take us a few days to get into, and then i have a couple campaigns and some plot hooks to take us further. should be pretty interesting.

But the hobby part. The blitz part. the part i get way too into. I went to the WOTC site and i downloaded it. The whole thing. Well,.. pretty much. I have now six additional planets, three space stations, eight new ships, four bad guys to collect bounty on, three adventures, twelve characters, and a four part essay on what it means to be Sith. I've downloaded the core rules book, four sourcebooks, and seven of ten parts of a national campaign. I think i've got a good start for them. Now I just have to make sure i do my part and keep their interest long enough to make use of it.

Collecting e-books is a bit of a hobby of mine as well. At home i have the entire D&D 3.5 system (up to a point, around last... April?), most if not all the Conan books, the entire D20 Modern and Future set, the new D&D 4.0 edition, Iron Kingdoms, World of Warcraft (Yes, as an RPG, not a video game), Traveller20, and a few random ones I've never heard of that I ran across and figured I'd better grab them "just in case". I have them neatly organized in My E-Books folder under RPG/D20/*.* and I've read each of them once or twice. Generally I just bookmark the pdf's for future reference. But I've played almost none of them. The Star Wars ones will be some of the lucky few. Maybe someday I'll find a party that loves to play and will want to make use of them, but for now, my few friends that will show up are proving to be true friends to put up with me and my blitzy ways.

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More on Chainmaille

In an effort to further my chainmaille-ing ability, and to save on costs, i purchased 10lbs of stainless steel in the 18swg on a spool. This brought me to my new project: Creating the tools i need to coil the steel.

I had the idea in my head from the beginning, and it only took small tweaks to make it work. First, i grabbed two pieces of scrap wood and cut them to approximately the same size. these i nailed/glued to another piece of scrap my approximate coil length. i drilled holes in the wood (yes, after it was connected, not while they were on the table, silly me) and then slid the coil rod thru the holes, marked where it hit on the other piece of wood, and tapped an indent, not all the way thru, for the coil rod to rest.

I'll get to the pics in a minute.

My first attempt was using the handle of a shovel across two chairs with the spool set on the handle. This proved not the best idea. The shovel moved, the spool moved, the wire didnt stay right, and i made a stainless steel rose, a pic of which i will post at a later date.

The second attempt was after another tool. i found a closet hanger dowel that fit the spool perfectly, grabbed a few more scraps, some screws/glue later, i made me a hanger for the spool. here is the whole setup and the coils i completed:















Yes, the green chair in the background is one of the chairs i was balancing the spool across with a shovel. Not recommended.

The coil rod is still a little long, and i'll be cutting that off when i get a hack saw. that will make it easier to mount the drill on. it just about hangs off the table now.

The next step is a coil cutter. I need an arbor and saw for my drill, plus a mount to hold the drill stable while i drop the coils thru a block of wood and have them neatly cut. Its pretty cool.

Here's a couple pics of my coils, the first two i've done.














The lighter is for size reference. yes, its short, but right after that the coil got away from me and i had to figure out how to better hold it. it wound back on itself.

This second one is significantly longer. There are some expanded places where the spool got away from me again, but i managed to get it under control, and it won't make that big of a difference when i cut them. they'll just have to be bent back a little more.












All in all, i'm pretty pleased with the way it turned out and am looking forward to getting my cutter set up. I made this one to handle 3/16" and 1/4" inner diameter coils.

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WoW - First dungeon instance

I found out the hard way that I am not that good a team member, and a really sucky team leader. Heading to the deadmines in westfall, being level 28 Paladin, I was sure that we could do some damage. I started looking for a team and picked up a 15th level warrior, 17th level priest, 16th level rogue. Within 2 minutes the warrior was dead. *sigh* we waited around until he got back, within another minute he was dead again.

I'm not sure if it was an unexperienced healer or just overall party chaos. being a pali and having some healing abililty, i expected to be able to backup. but when the rounds start coming down range, tunnel vision sets in and all i can see is the enemy. The cries of my quickly dying team fall on deaf ears as i drop blow after blow on miners so low in level i wont get any experience worth a damn. Two elites go down, the passage is clear, and i realize i'm standing by myself. the entire party is dead.

well, that was enough for the warrior. He never came back. Okay, Rogue, Priest, and me. we're ready to kick some butt and take some names. Well, the ogre did a number on us and it took another try before he fell. but that is when we lost the priest. sad, but she gave it her best.

The rogue and i tried several more times, killing elite goblins one by one, but the mechanical beast the gobo was riding was just too much for us and we parted ways; a little more experienced, a little wiser, a little richer, but not much.

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Leather

Yesterday I played with the leather.

I went to Tandy leather here in town and picked up a slab of 12oz leather and some scraps. all told, about 45$. I took it home and started sizing.

For my first project i wanted a pauldron and arm bracers. One of the scraps i picked up was just perfect for the pauldron with just a little trimming. I boiled it in 200F water, pressed it between a couple cereal bowels while it was still stretchy, and molded it over my shoulder.

The leather didnt darken that much, but it did get rubbery and stretchy like the article said, so i figured i was about right on. I plan on melting the wax over it anyway to add additional hardening. I won't be using slashing weapons in my combat, so wax is fine, and it should darken it. I'm going to try it on a smaller scrap first, see what color the wax turns it. I want a nice dark brown/burgundy color. if that doesnt work i'll have to pick up some dye.

Anyway, the pauldron came out nice, fits my shoulder, and will work well with some padding under. I'm going to have to add a lame or two to extend it down my arm. Prolly attach it with rivets or heavy thread, not sure on finishing stuff yet.

Next i het up some more water and did the left bracer. I wrapped a small dish towel around my arm and had my wife strap down the bracer with an ace bandage. it left a slight texturing that i wasn't all too worried about. The bracer started really hot (remember 200F) but cooled quickly and i could feel it shrink slightly and get tighter on my arm as it went. I waited about 20 minutes until it was sufficiently cool and held its shape, then did the other in the same way, playing some SW:Republic Commando to kill the time.


























My wife doesnt care for the smell of leather (sacrilege!) so i put them on the back porch to dry. in a couple days they'll be sufficiently dry and ready for punching for the laces and buckles. I'm not sure what tooling i want to do, be it a design around the edge or across the top or a mixture of the two, but i'll be thinking about it and working on some designs before i wax it. It was so easy i'm surprised i wasn't doing this stuff before.

I need more leather.

My dad told me he'd give me his deer hides if i will learn how to dehair and tan myself. i've googled a little on tanning leather, and found some interesting articles. its pretty gross stuff (leather is often tanned/prepared with brain/urine/poop) but i'm willing to give it a try.

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Creativity

i sat down with my son, Demon Soul (his idea. Demon Soul, son of Soul Existence. heh.. i like it), to work on a project for school. Design and create a machine using at least 2 of the six simple machines. stuff like pulleys, axle and wheels, wedge, etc.. he was telling me what some of the other kids came up with, an elevator, a catapult, etc. all well and good, but i thought it would be better to come up with something new that no one in the class was doing.

the assignment is to create a machine that will make work easier. so we began by talking about what the adults he knew did for work, and what would make our jobs easier. he thought about it for awhile, but then came up with his own idea. what if an old person dropped their keys and had a bad back.. couldnt pick them up? they'd need something to help them.

wow.. nice idea. so basically, he designs this fishing pole. well, its pretty much a fishing pole. not exactly, but yeah. but its his design. but instead of a hook at the end, opt for the magnet, because an old person with shaky hands, like my grampa, isnt going to be able to aim for a key ring with a hook.

he showed his mother the blueprint before taking it to school today, and when i was talking to her later in the day, she said it was prolly my idea. nope. he's 8. he has a very creative mind.

for example, a couple weeks ago, he decides he wants to make his own video game. well, i'm game for helping him do whatever he desires, so sure. i'll help him make a game. he designs, i'll help with the technical stuff. i'm not much of a game designer, but i have picked up some skills.. basic 3d modeling and such. so i found a free game engine, i'm using Blender3D for the models, and basing them completely on his designs. he gives me a folder full of photoshop and paint jpgs and i turn them into 3d models. he has hitpoints and special attacks assigned, designed a level with a D&D map maker, just really going to town on it. I'm pretty impressed.

and he's 8. that's the great thing. maybe i can keep him involved with creating. teach him the modeling, maybe some day i'll be beta testing for his new RPG or platformer. its pretty exciting.

I knew he was a smart kid, but i never even thought about how smart until he blows me away with this. kids can be surprising

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