Thanks to John Ford and Led Zeppelin we all know how the West was won, but over at Microsoft, they’re dying to know how the East was won. Japan has notoriously been something of an impenetrable fortress for Western companies, its gaming culture doesn’t typically interest the market and the...

If you're a regular reader of either the magazine or this very website, chances are you're sitting there in a slightly puzzled state, muttering, "but didn't they review Blue Dragon last year…" to yourself.

This game has a lot of expectations riding on it. It's a new RPG, born from the talent behind the storied Final Fantasy and Dragon Ques...

Engaging story; Beautiful visuals; Addictive character-building

Boring battles; Graphical glitches; Ridiculous Achievements

We understand the rationale, we really do. The Xbox 360 is going down in Japan in a manner which makes lead balloons look like a sound investment, and Something Needs To Be Done. What does Japan like It likes Final Fantasy, and it likes Dragon Quest. A lot.

Famed game producer Hironobu Sakaguchi of Mistwalker and developer Artoon present the highly anticipated Xbox 360 exclusive Blue Dragon. Featuring the character design of Akira Toriyama of Dragon Ball Z and music by Nobuo Uematsu of Final Fantasy, Blue Dragon is an epic role-playing game that...

Blue Dragon is not a game that is going to elicit a strong reaction from you. It's not terrible, or particularly great or memorable, so the most remarkable thing about it is how unremarkable it is. It's big: three DVDs big, thanks to loads of cutscenes and voice clips.

It's fun to watch your dragons do battle; Occasional minigames mix things up; Class system lets you customize your characters in endless ways

Unfortunately; class system turns party members into a generic mishmash of spells and skills; You won't care about the long; boring story or cookie-cutter characters; Visuals are bland and rely too much on blurry depth-of-field tricks

Blue Dragon is a beautiful RPG, there is no doubt about that. In fact, it is probably one of the most graphically stunning efforts at the genre ever created. It's got a top-notch intro that excellently introduces some of the game's eye-catching main characters.

As I enjoyed the demo so much, Andy at Britxbox was kind enough to give me the opportunity to review the full game, so how did things pan out for the Microsoft Game Studio's title

The first game to come out of Mistwalker, a studio formed by Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi. Featuring music by Nobuo Uematsu and art by Akira Toriyama, Blue Dragon was the first game since Chrono Trigger to feature this all star lineup. This game had some high expectations placed upon it.

Great Graphics; Solid Battle System

A By the Books Adventure; Marumaro's Voice

If you like Japanese-style RPGs, with the stand-around combat with the menus happening every four minutes, the bizarre monsters showing up at the most unusual places, the stilted awkward dialogue, and the promise of hours of play that end up being less than advertised, but you also want to look at...