(posted this on gaf, but figured some people might be interested here)
Hand hurts, played 10 hours today and I think I'm one long dungeon away from the 50% point of the game.
Been a while since I've played an rpg like this. Blue Dragon DS is has bad controls, the framerate sucks, and the interface is cumbersome and wastes time. Yet because it's also incredibly difficult, it's one of the most addicting and satisfying rpgs in a while.
The game is HARD. Once you get past the slooow startup, the dungeons get longer and longer, the save points get further spaced out from every 5 mins to every 10 mins to every 30 mins, and meanwhile every single normal enemy encounter can boot you back to the title screen. It's that tension of being there on the edge, knowing you haven't saved in 30 mins and seeing a tough enemy between you and the door you need to go through. That sweat on your hands, that shaking of your nerves, that feeling...is a good one.
Still there will be times when you'll want to break your ds. These are mainly boss fights because with normal encounters if you die you usually can tell WHY you died and accept that it was your fault and you were rushing things or doing things foolishly. With bosses though...sometimes it's just the luck of the draw. This is because your AI partners are terrible and when they die your goal becomes STAY ALIVE for 10-15 seconds until they revive. This can be extremely difficult and frustrating when the bosses are faster than you, their attacks undodgable, and even when blocked their attacks do 30-40% damage to you which is more than you can heal back between them. The best you can do is equip the right accesory to up your damage or defense, use the right buff/debuff, use the right partners & their shadows, and keep trying or give up and warp back to town to make some new equipment that'll up your chances next time. Unfortunately you can't warp BACK to the end of the dungeon, so as the dungeons get longer and tougher, the idea of warping out and redoing an hour that won't be any easier will keep you plugging away at boss attempts in order to avoid that scenario.
The loot in dungeons suck, but when combined using the recipe book to make good and cool looking armor & weapons, they become useful. The dungeons themselves are well designed although at about 8 hours in the developers decide the next useful ability you get to learn is CRATE PUSH/PULL; it's one of those times you'd rather decline new abilities. The dungeons are also getting longer and longer. By the 40% point the dungeons were at the "is it over yet?" length, so I fear the final dungeon will be an intense session where I'll need to keep the DS plugged in so the battery doesn't die out.
Combat's been described by duckroll. It's mainly running around, blocking, normal attacking with buffs, or using magic. Normal enemies CAN KILL YOU. The hits in this game hit hard. If you have 300hp, expect every hit from an enemy to do 80-100hp. Now if you have 3+ enemies rushing you at once...your party is DEAD. So the game becomes a slow and careful trip through the dungeons, luring 1-2 enemies out at a time and fighting tough but winnable battles. If the going gets bad it's best to RUN AWAY while your party members die from the enemies. If you are lucky you can lose the enemies and regroup and heal; if you aren't lucky...you shouldn't have gotten yourself into a 3+ enemy fight to begin with.
Graphics are fantastic outside of framerate. Best on DS? Maybe, it's up there with DQIX and some of the other great looking 3d titles. The framerate is playable but it's bad enough that it makes gameplay a little choppy. It's like being on the PS1 all over again.
Music is middleground. On one hand it's all your favorite BD tunes in worse sounding renditions with no new music. On the other hand those were good tunes in the first place, so it's not a bad soundtrack.
The story bits are there, but not really important. This is a dungeon game dressed up in story clothing.
Online is great for what it is: A place to trade equipment and to work together to fight dozens of cool looking optional bosses that give a piece of rare loot for beating them. The game tells you these bosses are impossible to beat with the partner AI, so you gotta do them with other humans, mainly because two humans are smart enough to do decoys and heal correctly, unlike the AI friends.
Like every Mistwalker game, Blue Dragon DS feels clumsy and full of problems, yet it's fun and addicting. The game really feels closer to an SMT game than any recent SMT has (not getting Strange Journey until next week, so no comment on that). The edge of your seat feeling of sneaking around dungeons fighting tough enemies one at a time and then HUGE and difficult boss fights gives a very rewarding feeling as you accomplish it all and progress further. On top of that visible equipment adds to the fun of upgrading your character.
In the 10 hours I've played so far, about 2 have been lost due to probably two dozen game overs. Yet I keep on playing and can't wait to play more and more. At the end of the day, like most Mistwalker games, it has heart.
