In Japan, one name stands above all others in the minds of RPG fans and traditionalists - Hironobu Sakaguchi. His name can rightly be uttered in the same sentence as Shigeru Miyamoto and Will Wright. He is credited as the father of the console RPG, having birthed the company-saving Final Fantasy series, and steered the Square family through 20 years of successes and outstanding, trend-setting, genre defining gaming moments. In 2005, Sakaguchi dropped a bombshell that his splinter company, Mistwalker (founded in 2001) would be developing a new RPG exclusively for the very-Western and very locally unpopular Xbox 360.
You could almost hear jaws connecting with pavement and the sound of heartbeats beating dangerously rapidly in the chests of Sony execs.
This water tester, this breakthrough East-meets-West adventure, this saving throw was called Blue Dragon. Its importance is undeniable, and Sakaguchi's cooperation with Microsoft, a company struggling to understand and succeed in the Japanese market, is a curious tale. Let's take a stroll.
17 years later, it still stands out.
The game was indeed amazing. Great characters, gameplay and story!
But the dream sequences penned by Shigematsu were sublime.
I still remember many of these stories and I have integrated in the past in my D&D campaign many years ago.
Microsoft should have just kept pumping money into these guys. Same with a lot of the other studios... the blundered hard.
Lost Odysee deserved a franchise even though development wasn't smooth
It's not like it has had any competition since 2007. Would really like to own the short stories from it in book form.
The problem with most MS games on 360 was they didn’t make the games they paid for them and that makes you less money in the long run and isn’t something you can continue to do especially with declining sales of consoles. MS should have been starting and growing studios from the beginning but they went for paid games and it leaves them without the knowledge and culture of making games.
I had it all wrong...Blue Dragon is awesome!
Lost Odyssey is one of the best jrpgs of that era but got killed because it was bought up and released on the "wrong" console.
Great game. The 360 had some really good turn based games back in the day. Absolutely loved Lost Odyssey too. I think they are both Sakaguchi creations.
This game together with Lost Odyssey, The Last Remenant and Tales of Vesperia convinced me to buy a 360. This game made my 2007 which ended off with mass effect.
Honestly, a fantastic game, especially if you were a fan of old-school JRPGs. I hate that this genre rarely can come back to these roots.
Destructoid: I remember where I was when Blue Dragon was announced. Although I already had an Xbox 360 and was ready for it, some folks I knew bought one just for it given who was involved (Nobuo Uematsu, Hironobu Sakaguchi, Akira Toriyama): as Mistwalker and Microsoft Game Studios made a mad dash to put out more games from Japanese studios on the Xbox ecosystem.
Blue dragon was fantastic. Love that game. It was my biggest reason for getting a 360.
i wanted to play it, but ...
1. its on xbox
and 2. i missed it when it was on gamepass ha.
I thought it was pretty good but I personally I think Lost Odyssey is better
Also, I know a lot of JRPGs are cheesy but damn…this one was amped up to 11.
I really wish Mistwalker would remaster these games... they're too busy with mobile unfortunately.
360 has the games. Thats the bottom line.
yep this game looks sweet and having Hironobu Sakaguchi on microsofts side is a huge advantage
bring it on!
I believe it will sell very will in the states, but it hasn't done anything to improve the sales in japan of the 360.
If this game can sell 1.5 million copies in the states Sakaguchi-san will keep making games for the 360. But it rest soley on the fans of a system that are more western geared than eastern geared.
It DID improve the sales of Xbox 360 in Japan, albeit only temporarily.
By the way, Eternal Sonata a Mistwalker game? What idiot wrote that article?
... and failed.