Blue Dragon: Disc 1 FTW (10 hrs)

In this age of Blu-ray and 1 terabyte harddrives (for $100!), I somehow got stuck with a game that has 3 (count em’!) discs.  In all fairness, Lost Odyssey has 4, and I plan on slugging it out with that one too.

I forgot how much I actually liked switching discs–that moment of brief triumph when the loading screen finally makes its static appearance.  Check the jump for more updates / spoilers (and possibly some Marumaro insults as well).So somehow I destroyed a giant, cool-looking fortress belonging to this guy, who looks a lot like my grandmother:

He got away.  I’m not entirely sure, but I’m going to put a pretty hefty bet down on finding him later on, and perhaps fighting him again; maybe after some type of power-up that makes him bigger / badder / etc.

In the good column, I did meet Zola along with her inexplicable pirate headband.  If all goes well, I’ll be treated to a 45 minute cutscene about the origin of the HEADBAND OF THE INFINITE STEALING.

That wasn’t real, by the way.  I don’t know much about the headband.  Or if it has a story.  What I do know is that the headband makes Zola look a tiny bit less like a DBZ character.

Clearly not much less, though.

In terms of the actual game it’s still JRPG through and through, with no new twists on the battle system to speak of.  I am finally getting to the point where the job system is letting me create some interesting combinations of characters (my favorite being Sword Master / Assassin) but there’s nothing really special about that either.

Another day, another dragon…I’m still enjoying the game a ton, but given the inventive majesty of MadWorld (which I owe a lengthy, thoughtful  post) it’s really hard to sit down and play something that draws its strength from reaching back for those days of nostalgia when grinding for a couple of hours was my cup of tea.