Mistwalker's First RPG - Blue Dragon

[UberMonkey]

From The Magic Box (http://www.the-magicbox.com/0505/game050502b.shtml):

MistWalker confirmed the company is developing a new Xbox 360 RPG called Blue Dragon, the game will have 3 main characters: Shu (an adventure-merry boy), Kuruku (a girl with matured attitudes) and Ziro (a genius boy). The game features character designs from Akira Toriyama.http://students.washington.edu/jtl3/bluedragon.jpg

MistWalker is the new game company by ex-SquareEnix employee Hironobu Sakagichi - pretty much the Final Fantasy guy. Also on board are Daisuke Fukugawa (Legend of Mana/Final Fantasy Tactics) as Project Manager and Hiroshi Arai (graphic desiginer for most Square Projects FFVII through X) is supervising the 3D Modeling.

Blue Dragon marks Mistwalker's first title for the XBox 360. There's also another X360 title in development which is promised to be more "mature/adult." Both titles are also being co-produced with Microsoft Game Studios. Mistwalker is also developing a title for the Nintendo DS.

[Artimus Gigan]

So apparently the dragon spirit is the boy's shadow



and bless the Japanese for their love of wacky clown pirates

[Zyzzybalubah]

Alright alright. Akira Toriyama of DB, DBZ, and Chrono Trigger (one of my all-time favorite RPGs) fame is on the character designs, looking nice. We got many Square employees at hand, and it looks like there's a possibly promissing story. Now to see how the gameplays and I think we'll see a good RPG on Xbox 360. :D

If this does well.... maybe more on the way?

[Zach]

Seeing how Japan hates the X-Box so, I doubt many will buy the 360. So I assume these titles are directed at the American market...

[fuchikoma]

The purpose of having a Japanese made launch title is to get Japanese consumers to buy it. If the Japanese don't see the console as foreign which they interpret as inferior and instead as Japanese then they will adopt the console like hamburgers.

The anime style isn't accepted by the majority of Americans still or has that changed? Americans would want graphics in their games to look more real than the last title to hit the shelves.

[UberMonkey]

Seeing how Japan hates the X-Box so, I doubt many will buy the 360. So I assume these titles are directed at the American market...I think it's pretty obvious this is made with the Japanese market in mind first - I mean, pimping it in Weekly Jump already? Microsoft isn't really the kind of company to take failure lightly - it seems they've lured in Mistwalker and other Japanese developers to make them big titles to try to ensure success for the 360 in Japan.

Consider this - if this gets hyped a lot, this could be HUGE. I mean, Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy releases are already more-or-less on par with holidays over there. This is combining talents from both! And it's on a new next generation system. With all this, I'm betting it being a foreign system will probably matter quite a bit less. And keep in mind it's not the big ugly black behemoth this time, either.

[Invader_Spooch]

Crap.

Why does Akira Toriyama have to keep doing game character designs? He has one of the least diverse art styles of anyone out there, not to mention the fact that all his male and female human characters look almost exactly the same.

I was looking forward to what Mistwalker was going to be up to, but I'm less enthused about it now.

Hopefully the quality of the game storyline, character, and gameplay wise can overcome this obstacle for me.

arg.:crying:

[UberMonkey]

Why does Akira Toriyama have to keep doing game character designs? Probably because he likes getting paid. ;)
He has one of the least diverse art styles of anyone out there, not to mention the fact that all his male and female human characters look almost exactly the same. You can say that about most artists, really. It just means that's their style. Really, I think it's more that you can recognize the artist's style than characters actually looking the same. To me, it doesn't seem like Ziro and Shu look alike at all. There's certainly worse offenders out there.

Plus, these are just drawings - no guarantee the final product looking like this. Especially with a high calibur modeller in charge, I'm sure that when we see screenshots of the game, the characters will look great and unique.

[Artimus Gigan]

Plus, these are just drawings - no guarantee the final product looking like this. Especially with a high calibur modeller in charge, I'm sure that when we see screenshots of the game, the characters will look great and unique.
If anything it'll look like Dragon Warrior 8.