The next couple of months look to be very interesting to those of us who bought an XBox 360 for reasons other than Halo. The Microsoft behemoth has been lacking in RPG’s, but there are some good ones coming around the corner. Recently, I’ve had the opportunity to play demo versions of two highly anticipated RPG’s — Blue Dragon and Eternal Sonata. How are they? Hit the jump for my impressions!

Blue Dragon

Three of Japan’s top names came together to create this game. Hironobu Sakaguchi, creator of the Final Fantasy series, helped develop the game and wrote the scenario. Akira Toriyama, famous for Dragon Ball Z, Dragon Quest, and Chrono Trigger, designed the characters. Lastly, Nobuo Uematsu, long-time composer for Final Fantasy, created the game’s soundtrack.

In the demo, story details are sparse. You’re given two areas to explore — a dungeon and a forest — and one hour for each one. Your party consists of five typical RPG characters — your thief, warriors, white mage, and black mage. Instead of random battles, you see your enemies onscreen. When you approach them, a standard turn-based battle will begin. Before that, though, if you manage to strike the enemy before the battle commences, you can receive more turns before they attack. However, if the enemy hits you before the real battle starts, they’ll get the extra turns. Instead of weapons, each character attacks with a shadow creature. Each creature also has special abilities, such as magical attacks, support magic, and the like.

Given that the three head-honchos working on this game also worked on Chrono Trigger, it’s really no surprise that this game plays nearly identical to it. But despite that link to a classic game, I wasn’t blown away at what I saw. The graphics were good, of course, but everything looked very child-like. Toriyama’s designs in DragonQuest VIII a couple of years ago were much better — BD’s just seem too simplistic for my tastes. Uematsu’s score is, of course, very recognizable, and suitably light and child-like to fit with the look of the game. The music in the demo isn’t as good as his past Final Fantasy efforts, but it’s hard to judge based solely on the limited amount of material given.

To sum things up, Blue Dragon looks like it’ll be a solid RPG, but for now I haven’t seen anything that makes this a must-buy title. Hopefully, as it gets closer to its August 28 release date, we’ll see some better things from it.

Eternal Sonata

Unlike Blue Dragon, Eternal Sonata probably doesn’t have a trio of video game heavyweights in its corner. Instead, it’s developed by tri-Crescendo, the folks who have brought us the Baten Kaitos series.

The story’s a bit out there, to say the least. Composer Frederic Chopin, lying on his deathbad just hours away from passing, dreams of magical world. In this world, the people have incurable diseases, just like himself, but also great magical powers. As Chopin wanders this world, he meets a girl named Polka, whose beau is away trying to find a cure for her. However, this girl seems to possess something special, and there are those who would take that power and use it for ill gain.

The action takes place in a hybrid turn-based/real time battle system. Like Blue Dragon, your enemies are visible as you go through the world, and you can catch them off guard and vice-versa. Once the battle is initiated, your first character is given a few seconds to move around, attack, use magic, or whatever other ability they control. Once this time is up, control switches to your second character, and then finally to your third. Your enemies get their turn, and then it comes back to you.

Your enemies are affected by a very interesting light-and-shadow mechanic. If you draw an enemy into the light and initiate battle there, they will be weaker and easier to defeat. But if you pick a fight while a creature is standing in a shadow, they will be much stronger and harder to defeat. When in battle, this has an affect on your characters as well. Each character has a special attack or ability, and being in light or darkness decides which one you can use. For example, Polka has a healing spell when she’s standing in the light, but a powerful meteor spell when she’s in shadows.

The game looks great — bright, colorful, and wonderfully detailed. Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear that you can zoom in or out to look at finer details, which is really a shame — there were some areas in the demo that looked like the camera was pulled out too far. As expected, much of the music in the game comes straight from Chopin’s own works (played by Stanislav Bunin) and is augmented by original music by Motoi Sakuraba. In short, the sound is beautiful.

This demo has definitely sold me on Eternal Sonata. With an interesting and fun battle system, a great presentation, and terrrific music, Eternal Sonata looks to be my 360 RPG of choice.

With the two games mentioned above, as well as Mass Effect, Fable 2, Two Worlds, and Lost Odyssey coming out for the ShooterBox, RPG fans should be quite happy for the year to come.

If you liked that, try...

1. Eternal Sonata Demo Available on U.S. XBox Live
2. The Eternal Sonata Review
3. The Infinite Undiscovery Review
4. Plenty for Twenty: Final Fantasy X-2
5. Square-Enix Loves the DS: PSP Still Alone in its Room, Listening to Linkin Park

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