good game get! blue dragon plus

When Final Fantasy creator, Hironobu Sakaguchi left Square-Enix he went to Microsoft Studios and started his own game company which he called Mist Walker. One of the first games to come out of Mist Walker was Blue Dragon for the Xbox 360.

Blue Dragon Plus for the Nintendo DS is the sequel to that game. While it doesn’t feature any of the turn-based combat of the first title, it does posses quite a bit of charm for a mini-sequel to a much bigger predecessor.

In fact a lot of it’s charm comes from the Final Fantasy Tactics-esque graphics that Square-Enix somehow decided to not use for their Final Fantasy Tactics DS title. I’m talking about the 3D backdrops with 2D sprites. It has to be my absolute favorite graphical style, since it’s such an incredible juxtaposition of graphics. However, the graphic style works so well in games like Blue Dragon Plus.

The gameplay itself is extremely refreshing as it was developed by FeelPlus and Brownie Brown and involves unique real-time strategy and traditional RPG elements. You control the units with the stylus and click on them to initiate special attacks using their shadows and powers. You can select units by drawing a circle around them or you can click an All button to control all of the units.

Each character in the game has unique pros and cons, along with speed differences, and strength differences. You can also accessorize your characters to upgrade them and give them status boosts such as immunity to poison.

The game also does a fine job of informing the player of Blue Dragon’s history in case (like me) they haven’t played the original game.

Blue Dragon Plus is incredibly well done and everything is polished, right down to the logical and easy to use menu systems. It’s also one of my favorite battle systems to date, and the game really is just an incredible real-time RPG done with class and substance.