I've finally finished Blue Dragon. Man, it's been a long time since I've enjoyed a game so much. I guess Shenmue 2 was the last game to really "click" with me as much as that.
Every DVD has his own ending, so it almost feels like playing 3 games one after another. It's not just exiting a level and being greeted with a disc change prompt, each time there is a big and epic dungeon with one or more interesting boss and lots of cutscenes. Of course the very long ending of Disc 3 was the best, but it doesn't mean the other 2 weren't good. Disc 3 was just incredibly awesome, I just couldn't believe what they had done. Totally unexpected!
One part that really helped me enjoy this game was that it was quite easy. I'm pretty much a RPG n00b (only played FFX until inside Sin, and 80% of Enchant Arm, plus some Chrono Trigger) and I was playing in Japanese (with an item/powers guide though) so if the game had been really difficult I wouldn't have stand a chance. But it was just very nicely paced for me, there was no need for leveling except for the first boss, and it still took me 51 hours to complete the game. And I still had a lot of optional stuff left.
I also liked that the ending brought a complete closure to the story, it's a nice change from the last few games I've completed where there would always be something left open to ease the creation of a sequel. I have no real doubt a sequel for Blue Dragon will be released one day of course, but it's still nice that Sakaguchi didn't try to put something there that would have spoiled the pleasure of such a nice ending. And nice it is
I'd say my only bad point for this game would be that the tearing and slowdowns can be pretty bad at times. It's never to the point it gets unplayable, but for example there is no excuse for Zola's ultimate attack to run at like 5 fps. But thanks to the incredibly awesome lighting in that game I'm more than willing to forget about this, it just looks too damn good.
The music is also is well worth mentioning, it's excellent throughout then game, but the last one is just incredible. Some really good progressive rock. Great stuff!
Awesome game from the start to the end, can't wait to play it again with English text!
