Akira Toriyama

Released in 2006-07 as an Xbox 360 exclusive, probably with the goal of helping establish the console in Japan, Blue Dragon has inexplicably spawned sequels and a minor multimedia empire. It's reasonably fun, if you like turn-based role-playing games, but Blue Dragon is clearly a bad game.

We try our best to keep things positive, but Tim screws it up in the home stretch. The topic is "New RPG's We (Mostly) Love" and that means Dragon Quest IX, Etrian Odyssey III, Puzzle Quest 2, and DeathSpank. Guess which one we don't love! Plus we premiere a new segment: "Quote of the Week." With Chi Kong Lui, Brad Gallaway, Mike Bracken, and Tim "Spahnk" Spaeth.

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Topics discussed:

• 1 vs. 100
• Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies
• Etrian Odyssey III
• Puzzle Quest 2
• DeathSpank

Please send feedback and mailbag questions to podcast (at) gamecritics (dot) com.

Game Description: Blue Dragon is an epic role-playing game that centers on a young boy named Shu and several of his friends. These unlikely heroes possess the power to control phantom shadows that mirror the actions of their masters, giving Shu and his comrades miraculous strength and magical powers. The warriors can create and develop their combat styles by utilizing different types of Shadow Change, including Sword, Assassin, and Power Magic. Shu and his friends must use the shadows as weapons and wield their skills to save their world from impending doom. Encountering various people on a planet where numerous ancient ruins remain, the characters and their shadows travel through a world full of mysteries and illusions, where the slightest touch can cause reactions of unparalleled magnitude.

Where Dragon Quest VIII truly distinguishes itself from other RPGs is in the size and scope of its world. Beautiful and lush landscapes stretch for miles in every direction, and walking between towns feels like an adventure unto itself, with fields, mountains, deserts, and oceans.

According to ESRB, this game contains: Alcohol Reference, Fantasy Violence, Simulated Gambling, Mild Language, Suggestive Themes

Game Description: Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King is the latest installment of the immensely popular Dragon Quest series and the first to be released for the PlayStation2 computer entertainment system. For the first time ever, the colorful characters, exotic environments, and daunting dungeons of the Dragon Quest universe have made the transition to glorious 3D. In their continent-spanning adventure, players will be immersed in a unique world of seemingly limitless possibilities.

We've all lost people we love. I'm not referring to the spectacular cataclysms of Hollywood fare, but to the more typical losses caused by errors of the heart—mistakes that we were too vain to foresee and too proud to atone. If you could revisit that moment of your past, try to win back that person's trust, would you go?

Videogames have come under heavy criticism in recent years for conventions they refuse to retire, conventions that, the argument goes, are rendered absurd by the graphical realism and sophisticated 3D environments that have become commonplace. The RPG genre in particular has been the target of much of this criticism, but the reason is fairly complicated.