MS hopes Blue Dragon is Xbox 360 Japan’s “killer app”
source: http://www.oxm.co.uk/articles/news/role_pl...pans_killer_app

The RPG from the man who created Final Fantasy could be the game that kicks Xbox 360 into high gear out East…
It’s no secret that the Xbox 360 is selling slowly in Japan. It needs a serious kick up the arse to get consoles flying off shelves – a killer app that will encourage suspicious Japanese gamers to shell out on a console that has never performed well out East.



And if Hees Kyung is to be believed that game is Blue Dragon. He’s the producer of the game created by Hironobu Sakaguchi, the man who created the Final Fantasy series and proved that a distinctly Japanese RPG could find success around the world. “I believe that Japan will always love PlayStation over Xbox 360 and it will be very hard to change that,” said Kyung. “But Blue Dragon will undoubtedly be the killer app Xbox 360 needs to succeed in Japan. We also believe it will be very successful all across Asia.”

For Kyung, the key to succeeding in Japan is making sure Japanese gamers have a wide range of titles outside of the Xbox 360’s traditional FPS and sports genres. “Blue Dragon will broaden the Xbox 360’s portfolio of games and that’s very important when you are trying to be successful in Japan.”

And while success in Japan is hugely important for the Xbox 360 if Microsoft is going to compete on an even footing with Sony in the next-gen console battle, will a hardcore Japanese-developed RPG like Blue Dragon alienate Western gamers? “I don’t think so,” Hyung told us. “Hironobu Sakaguchi has proven with the Final Fantasy series that Japanese RPGs can find huge success in the UK. Plus, every gamer around the world recognises Sakaguchi’s name and that means there is a lot of interest in Blue Dragon from countries outside of Japan.”



While we chatted to Kyung we were able to get closer to the latest Blue Dragon code than ever before. Microsoft is making no bones about the fact that this is a traditional Japanese RPG, so expect lots of chatting to characters, a traditional RPG combat system (more on that in a minute), and an epic storyline slated to come in at about 40-50 hours worth of gameplay.
The character design and visuals have been created by Akira Toriyama, a renowned manga artist and long-term Sakaguchi collaborator. The result is a cartoony style that isn’t typically Japanese, nor like the hyper-realistic visuals that the latest Final Fantasy games are going for. If anything it doesn’t look particularly next-gen simply because the character detail is quite low. Toriyama designed all the characters in 2D first before they went into 3D, and Hyung tells us that keeping the 2D flavour is exactly what they were aiming for. Still, the 3D environments are huge and well-detailed, with some lovely water and fogging effects bringing everything up a notch.

You play a young lad called Shu who must defend the world from the dark powers of Nene, a demon who wants to drown out light with darkness. This mixture of light and dark plays a large part in the game, Hyung told us, from how the environments look to the types of enemies you’ll come up against. In fact, since your character and his mates are all kids they all need the help of mystical beasts called Shadow Elements. Shu’s is a dragon (hence the title), and his mates have a minotaur and a phoenix. These Shadow Creatures have special abilities and powers that the characters don’t have, and using both will be an important part of the combat system.



Speaking of, Sakaguchi and his team have been claiming that Blue Dragon will have a revolutionary new combat system for ages now, but it still remains shrouded in mystery. “We will be pleased to reveal details very soon,” Hyung told us, and after some pressing he did reveal that it was “a traditional RPG combat system with a revolutionary twist.” Our guess is that the combat system will be turn based, but during each turn you’ll have real time control over both your character and your Shadow Creature, possibly with the ability to perform special tag-team attacks.

But we’re just guessing, because despite being this close to Blue Dragon it still remains a bit of a mystery. Hyung promised us that we’ll see much more of the game at this August’s Tokyo Games Show, and then the Japanese games mags will be getting lots of coverage from September onwards. Japanese release is set for December, with Hyung estimating that any European/US release will follow around six months later (“although Microsoft is the boss!”).

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i think they need to start working on True Fantasy Live Online again