Ironically, there are a ton of Blue Dragon pre-orders at my local EB, so we'll have to see.

I do agree there were tons of tedious battles - I ended up avoiding them. However, I think they were tedious since my character levels were real high, and took quite a bit of time to level up. Of course, you do get that attack ring to fight them in multiples (something I never figured out how to do), and of course, the instant-kill (ala Earthbound). So that'll make it more interesting.

And of course, for me, the grinding will be loads of fun with the 10-esque Dragon forms. I cant wait to see what the abilities are to unlock for each kind of dragon.

hmmm, I was actually dissapointed with the demo. After playing it for a bit I stopped.

One, You start it with every skill and what not kinda ruining some of the feeling of growth and getting better that you get from RPGs, and I had no idea on what to do.

I did, though, like the battle system. I liked how you could charge up attacks to do more damage.

it's tempting to buy a 360 just for this game.

Pretty much a textbook Japanese rpg. Its a good one too!

Graphically it doesnt disappoint.

I like the fact there there are no random encounters, you can see the mobs beforehand and can supposedly get them to fight each other if encountered in the right combination. I wasnt able to do this yet in the demo though.

Fighting groups of mobs at once gives you a stat bonus between each group, which is kind of cool.

The 'charge up' attack delay takes a while to get used to but it adds an interesting twist of strategy to the combat.

From the demo it seems pretty simple on the surface but under the simplicity lies a very satisfying combat system.

The 'corporeal' attacks are cool to watch, I hope there are more in the full game.

I cant wait for this game! My gf is anxiously awaiting it as well.

Well I have to say I'm kind of disappointed. But not in the way where I now think the game is gonna be bad or anything, just that I expected more excitement from the demo.

I think it's a bad demo for the game. Beyond that I have a few notes:

- It looked very nice on my monitor and it's one of the first games that I get to play in HD right off the bat on the 360 so it was a treat. The art style is pretty good, I am not against the whole Dragon Ball Z/Dragon Quest art style.

- From what I played, the combat system is really simplistic that was kind of a disappointment. From what I read afterwards I found out that this game is supposed to be in the same mindset of Dragon Quest, while I knew it had taken its art style and whatnot I didn't know the gameplay would be simplistic like that too. Now I know that Lost Odyssey is going to be the FF competitor, so I expect to like the combat in that better.

- That said, I think the demo was boring, but not because the game is but rather because the choice of what demo to put out was disappointing. I didn't like that it was timed instead of a set progression. I would have preferred if it was made so that you go up to a certain point or boss or something and then it ends after you beat it.

- The music wasn't bad but didn't really stand out either.

The weird thing is I actually liked the Eternal Sonata demo better than this. That one was a lot funner to play through and the art in that game is just gorgeous making it look amazingly good.

I'm still definitely getting the game, it just didn't meet my expectations but I think that was the demo's fault not the game's.

Also, before I had given someone on the forum crap for complaining about the frame rate issues in the game, I take it back it wasn't as barely noticeable as I expect and I hope it is true that it's only the case in the demo.

Overall, I would have preferred if they had made the demo one that had you playing the beginning of the game not some random dungeon in the level 30's or whatever. Having all the skills right there from the start took the steam out of the experience for me.

I still haven't played one of the dungeons, I played the one that was set in some beach/wildlife area. Is the other dungeon better?

....So your saying you DON'T like Nobuo Uematsu!?!?

this game is my most-anticipated rpg of the year, only trailing after shin megami tensei : persona 3

Please, go read the official ~7,500 thread over at NeoGAF for Blue Dragon for actual game impressions. Everyone has been going on & on about how phenominal with it.

1. The combat system is basic at first, but mastering the chart attack system should take awhile. Not only this, put the game on Hard, and then learn to struggle through the most basic of battles. With the job class system, and various attributes of each dragon, the battle system should become quite a bit more in-depth. One of the complaints was that it was a little easy, so they put an insanely hard Hard Mode.

2. It's Uematsu! Everyone has said the OST is just about the best ever created, and one of his masterpiece works, and even better than his FF7 track. The second level "fortress" has very very interesting music. The boss battle music is sweet (that, and the fact you fight 3 bosses in the fortress).

3. The other level is the fortress. It's very linear, and kinda short (imo). Your characters start @ level 23 instead of 33, and have weaker attacks. The music isn't as good as the ruins (imo), except for the boss battles (sung by Ian Gillian of Deep Purple!). However, you fight 3 bosses. 2 basic ones, with full voice acting and FMV/realtime cutscenes, and one of the uber-bosses, Nene. It's full dialog and voice acting, and very very cool. I thought it was real cool when Shu starts cursing at Nene and tries to attack him.

Blue Dragon - Dragon Quest competitor

Lost Oddessey - Final Fantasy competitor

Sakaguchi knows how to make FF and DQ games; his latest games show that. Listening to 1UP Yours podcast, they compared Lost Oddessey to Final Fantasy X, but still needed lots of polish.

I absolutely hated the demo.