So, one day I was bored and was sitting at home, beating the s**t out of some random Disgaea 2 Item Boss in The Land of Carnage with a level 9,999 David when my husband David bought me home Blue Dragon to try out. At first I was skeptical because, hey, I hate to say it but, aside from Mass Effect, there wasn't really any great role playing games on the X-Box360. I popped it in and listened contently to the beautiful intro. But, hey, wait a minute, why isn't the game starting? I started to mess with the controller and discovered that I was actually controlling a character on the intro screen. Intrigued, I started to run around and decided to play in the water, cue the actual beginning of the game. I won't spoil anything for any of you but I found this game to be incredibly fun. I'm on disc two of three and I'm at level 40 with some kick a** shadows.

O.K., let me give a quick run down on shadows because I know that it'll be important, later. Basically, your shadows' level means more than your character's level. Why is that, you may ask? Because, well, your shadows fight in your steed... sort of. Think of the summons from Final Fantasy 10, take away their individual HP and replace it with actual characters HP, and add special abilities such as Total Guard, Field Barrier, Stealth, Stun Bomb, and a various variety of other things and give personification to some very important mythological figures (okay, okay, so the Sabre Cat and the Bat aren't very mythological but they do have some form of mythological background, so it stays.) Are you still reading? Good, because next I'm going to talk about character development.

At first, I was kind of annoyed with Shu because, well, he was just too damn... oh, I don't know, jovial I guess? Well, anyway, as the game progressed I just realized that he was like that for a reason but I won't go into too much detail so as not to spoil anything for you.

Jiro, in my opinion, was just too girlish at the beginning of the game but that opinion also changed as I got further into the game.

Kluke actually intrigued me because, well, she was a strong character and her magic, once she got it, blew me away. The only thing that struck me as odd was that she wanted to be a doctor and yet was a specialist at black magic in the beginning.

Marumaro: Uh, yeah, he annoyed me a LOT when I first met him. I was like: Stop yelling, you little ******** and join me already. But, nooo, he had to run off like a moron and do his own thing. But, again, as I played more I realized that it was just the way he was and, heh, after awhile he just grew on me. I don't know why, but I find the fact that his ears twitch in battle cute.

And, finally...

Zola: Holy s**t, when I first met the woman I was in love with her. She made this kick a** entrance and was just so level headed during the whole game that I found myself using her on the field more often than not.

Next up is

The Battle System. Think of Chrono Trigger's detection system with the added bonus of being able to sneak behind them using Stealth or defeating them as soon as they touch your Field Barrier provided you beat them once. Field Barrier 1 is useless as it takes up an ungodly amount of MP just to activate it and an equally absurd amount of MP every time you kill an enemy with. Field Barrier 2 is a bit better but, personally, I'd hold off using Field Barrier until you get Field Barrier 3 which is, in my opinion, the best way to gain SP for shadows. Have a weaker shadow that you don't want to take into battle? Throw up Field Barrier 3 and watch in awe as your Shadow's level in a certain class steadily climbs into the twenties, it slows down after about level twenty eight but it still beats going into a battle with a weak a** shadow and getting your a** handed to you when a slightly stronger enemy appears. I do think it is a good idea to unlock Generalist and Barrier shadow classes first, trust me, it's for a good cause. Another good class to unlock is Assassin and Monk. Naturally, Black Magic and White Magic is a plus.

And, finally...

Nene is a d**k, plain and simple. However, I can't help but feel that he's being controlled by someone else... I really don't know why, either.

Uh, so ends my spiel. Have a nice day. ^_^ heart