There are a million reasons to take a pass on Blue Dragon. Nobody's blaming you for being sick of turn-based combat. Or maybe you just can't stand Akira Toriyama's character design. Perhaps you just don't have the time for an epic-length role-playing game. Despite Blue Dragon's gorgeous next-generation visuals, the fights do feel decidedly old-school. And there's really no arguing when it comes to matters of taste. Toriyama's anime art style, seen most notably in the Dragon Quest series, is bound to be divisive -- especially among those burnt out on ?One Piece? reruns, or for grumpy ?grown-up? gamer types who bear a grudge towards anything that looks remotely like it was intended for children. And, yeah, the game spans three game discs. It's no Portal, that's for sure. But to dismiss Blue Dragon out of hand is to overlook a modest, but sparkling nonetheless, gem.

For the uninitiated, Blue Dragon is the first game from Mistwalker -- a studio founded by Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi. The veteran designer brought in legendary videogame composer Nobuo Uematasu (also a Final Fantasy alum) to provide the soundtrack. With Toriyama onboard to cook up the look of the characters and monsters the game's retro credentials are damn near golden. And despite their age, it seems like all three members of this Japanese role-playing game supergroup still have creative juices to spare. Sakaguchi's plot sticks closely to the tried and true coming-of-age template. Shu, Jiro and Kluke, youthful residents of a village under siege by monstrous, mechanical land sharks, set off on a journey to master newly acquired magical powers and put a stop to supervillain Nene and his robotic army. So, yeah, those labeling Blue Dragon as ?kid's stuff? have a point. The game's plot tells a universal story that resonates particularly well with the young. It's about kids mastering their lives -- about standing on your own two feet and becoming captain of your own fate. It's a story that stands up to multiple retellings. That's why people still love Star Wars and why the Final Fantasy series still uses the motif as its primary thrust.

The game plays like most classic RPGs. Players guide their party across overworlds and through dungeons, beating the crap out of the meanies they encounter. Blue Dragon's major diversion from the formula is that it does away with random encounters. This isn't a new feature by any means, but it immediately makes the game feel more sane than most of the Final Fantasy re-releases we've seen in the past year or so. A couple of minor details make fights a little more interesting. Players can ambush creatures from behind for a ?back attack,? which catches the enemy off guard and puts the good guys first in the game's initiative lineup. There's also an Achievement for nailing a hundred back attacks -- a decent enough motivation to try mixing it up when cracking skulls. A second minor tweak to starting brawls adds even more variety: When multiple jerks are within the player's ?encounter circle,? they can opt to fight both monsters at once. Dragging the right two beasties into a dustup triggers a Monster Battle, where enemies will fight amongst themselves before focusing fire on the heroes. The fights themselves are classic one-button matchups. Players select their actions from a menu and they go off in turn. Some attacks can be charged for maximum effect. A micro-game that lets players try to hit a sweet spot peppers in a dash more involvement. This game also determines where in the turn order a spell or a melee attack will go off. Strategy-minded players can bunt their powered-up moves to make them go off sooner or overshoot to further postpone the action.

The nuts and bolts of Blue Dragon's play will be instantly familiar to anybody who?s mucked around with an RPG. It's also accessible enough to be newbie-friendly. There's just enough treasure to make players feel like they're scoring better outfits every so often, but not so much that they spend more time futzing around with menus than adventuring. And players are never outclassed by enemies, suddenly finding themselves too weak and ill-equipped to survive a fight. The dreaded necessity to ?grind? to gain strength never rears its head, though the game does give players just enough rope to hang themselves if they're the type that likes to buff up their characters rather than drive the story forward.

Fretting over these fiddly gameplay details is all well and good, but to focus on them is to miss the bigger picture -- and what makes Blue Dragon so great. There's a level of artfulness, a mastery of the RPG as a creative medium, on rare display here. The game moves at a swift, assured pace. Just as the party dynamics start to feel stale, a new playable ally, like the diminutive (and frequently shrill) Maru Maro or the sexy and mysterious Zola, drops in to freshen the team dynamic. Scenery changes are frequent and dramatic. Toriyama's designs take imaginative detours away from his signature style. There's a colorful race of two-dimensional creatures who live in the murals on the sides of cliff faces and the walls of ruins. Their alien, ornate shapes seem to take more than a little inspiration from American independent cartoonist Jim Woodring. Even if the similarities are coincidental, these lovely creatures are a sign that Toriyama isn't resting on his laurels, cranking out heroes and villains from the Dragon Ball Z template. Blue Dragon shows a willingness to explore and experiment within the context of the turn-based RPG. Uematasu, known for his charming melodies and rousing, orchestral scores, throws in the occasional cheesy power metal tune to keep us on our toes. Action sequences, like a shooting mini-game and a gauntlet run that tasks Shu and company with protecting a wagon train, pop up every so often as palate cleansers between courses of adventuring.

Sadly, the game's localization may be its Achilles? heel. The English voice actors are typical anime talent -- and the script they've been given doesn't inspire them to rise above their station. The stilted, humorless translation is a little more palatable when the game is played with the original Japanese audio. Granted, some of the problems come from the source material. Sakaguchi's scenario is populated with its fair share of paint-by-number archetypes. Still, a game with top-notch music, eye-popping next-gen visuals and rock-solid action would be better served with a slightly more nuanced dramatic take. A Blue Dragon blessed with the witty scribes that grace a Paper Mario or a Portal would be unmissable. As it stands, there's a lot to recommend this fresh perspective on a classic way to play. Too bad you've got to sidestep a handful of caveats, exceptions and trip mines first.


This review was based on a retail copy of the game provided by the publisher.