Blue Dragon: Awakened Shadow

Blue Dragon: Awakened Shadow
North American box art
Developer(s)	Mistwalker tri-Crescendo Namco Bandai Games
Publisher(s)
Director(s)	Hironobu Sakaguchi
Producer(s)	Hideo Baba Hiroya Hatsushiba
Artist(s)	Akira Toriyama Kaori Tosa
Composer(s)	Nobuo Uematsu
Platforms	Nintendo DS
Release date(s)
Genre(s)	RPG
Mode(s)	Single-player Multi-player

Blue Dragon: Awakened Shadow (Japanese: ブルードラゴン 異界の巨獣, Hepburn: Burū Doragon: Ikai no Kyojū, lit. "Blue Dragon: Great Beast of the Underworld") is a role-playing video game developed by Mistwalker and tri-Crescendo and published by Namco Bandai in Japan and Europe and D3 Publisher in North America, for the Nintendo DS video game console and is based on the Blue Dragon series. It is the third installment to the Blue Dragon series and is a direct sequel to both Blue Dragon and Blue Dragon Plus. Hironobu Sakaguchi (Series Creator), Akira Toriyama (Character Designer of Blue Dragon) and Hideo Baba (Brand Manager of Tales series) are involved in the development of the game. It was released in Japan on October 8, 2009, in North America on May 18, 2010, and in Europe on September 24, 2010.

Gameplay

The game has a different Battle System from its predecessors which involved role-playing video game and Real Time Strategy. Blue Dragon: Ikai no Kyojū is an RPG with real time action-oriented combat. The player is able to explore 3D fields, attack enemies directly as well as call upon shadows.

The game allows the player to customize their character's appearance, such as their gender, hairstyles, eyebrows, eyes, voices, among other traits. Players are able to use their customized characters in multiplayer with two other friends, locally or online.

Characters

For the first time in the series, the player doesn't play as Shu and his companions. Instead the player will play as an unnamed customizable protagonist. Shu and his friends are not playable characters, but AI controlled party members.

• Unnamed Customizable Protagonist
• Shu and Blue Dragon (beginning only)
• Jiro and Minotaur (beginning only)
• Kluke and Phoenix (beginning only)
• Marumaro and Saber Tiger (beginning only)
• Zola and Killer Bat (beginning only)
• King Jibral and Qilin (beginning only)
• Nene
• Himiko
• Toripo and Tarantula (beginning only)
• Sahlia and Cat Genie (beginning only)
• Yasato and Pegasus (beginning only)
• Szabo and Jack-O-Lantern (beginning only)
• Fushira and Rafflesia (beginning only)
• Jyum
• Ganda

Reception

Japanese gaming magazine, Famitsu, awarded the game 31 of 40 (8/8/7/8). 1UP summarized Famitsu's stance on the game as "a solid standard action RPG but not an exceptional game". Famitsu praised the amount of extra content put into the game such as character customization, item synthesis and boss battles. However, Famitsu noted that with the battles on the lower screen of the DS and the status on the upper screen it may cause some problems for the player. Famitsu also noted that there was a large amount of cutscenes in the game which may make the player "feel like a passive viewer at times."

External links

• Official Japanese Blue Dragon: Ikai no Kyojū website