Blue Dragon Plus Review

Unfortunately, poor controls and AI make combat frustrating.

Even worse, your party will just stand there like dribbling vegetables even when there's a monster standing right next to them. This flaw is most noticeable once you've defeated a monster that's right next to another one. Unless it attacks you your units will just stand there admiring the 16-bit quality graphics.

Most frustrating of all, however, is the awful pathfinding. Talk about taking the scenic route – your units will often move back and forth like demented robots as they try and work out how to get to that monster you've just told them to attack. Pathfinding success seems completely random, too. Some of your units will speed off as the crow flies, others will run around in circles.

Still, you can just about manage. The game's clearly aimed at younger gamers, with Pokemon-quality dialogue and cute, colourful anime characters, so the challenge it poses is never too difficult (rushing the nearest enemy seems to work in almost every scenario). The fact that every character has access to a Medicine skill, which instantly restores some life, tells its own story. So, the frankly shoddy controls and AI are never exposed to a great degree.

Shu is still his annoyingly up-beat self

Where Blue Dragon Plus disappoints most, however, is in just how bland it is. The characters might have been designed by Final Fantasy creator and JRPG legend Hironobu Sakaguchi, but they fail to stand out from the overpopulated spiky-haired crowd. The plot's predictable, the music's staid and the graphics certainly aren't up there with the best the DS has to offer. In fact, Blue Dragon Plus shares a lot with its big brother, Blue Dragon – we've seen it all before.

In its defence, there's a bright and breezy feel to the game, with a compelling reward structure and skill system that, if you fancy putting in the effort, lets you tinker with character-specific support abilities and Shadow powers. There's nothing here that will surprise RPG fans, and because of the easy difficulty you never really need to employ tactics or strategy, but there is fun to be had in trying out new Shadow powers as your party members level up.

All told, experienced gamers will be better off with Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings, which admittedly suffers from similar problems but is an altogether more captivating DS RTS. Blue Dragon fans will probably be willing to put up with the game's failings, simply because it's more Blue Dragon. Everyone else, avoid.