UNSCleric.com

The following is written by UNSCleric.com reader LG, since he wants to see more coverage on these kind of games, so he made his own!

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Mistwalker Studios will be showcasing its greatly anticipated role-playing game, Blue Dragon, at this year’s Jump Super Tour. Jump Super Tour is Japan’s foremost anime and manga exhibit, but also features video game displays and more. Click here to read the article. As of July 3, Blue Dragon was ranked 7th of the 20 most wanted console games in Japan. This is a substantial feat for the game considering practically all of its hype right now is being generated solely from the names of the developers working Blue Dragon.

Watching over the game’s development is the founder of Mistwalker Studios, Hironobu Sakaguchi — otherwise known as the father of Final Fantasy. Heading the music department is Nobuo Uematsu, a musician and composer who achieved worldly fame for his work on the majority of the Final Fantasy series, was awarded numerous honors (including being named one of the top 100 musicians for the next-generation by TIME Magazine and winning a Song-of-the-Year award from the 14th Annual Japan Gold Disc Awards — the first time the award was given for a video game track), and the privilege of working with or being recognized by some of the best orchestras in the world (such as the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, the Los Angeles Master Chorale, and the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra).

In the art department is Akira Toriyama, who is known best for his design work for the Dragon Ball and Dragon Quest series — two of the most recognized franchises in the anime/manga and video game communities in Japan, respectively. Other notable staff include Manabu Kusonki (Panzer Dragoon series; one of Sega’s highest-regarded franchises) and the marketing guru Takuya Matsumoto (probably known best for his leading role in making Final Fantasy VII one of the best-selling video games of all time). Rounding out the team are a lot of the same people who brought us Blinx (Artoon)

Blue Dragon (along with Mistwalker’s other game in development, Lost Odyssey) is being touted as Microsoft’s best chance at achieving success in Japan . And Microsoft realizes this, as they’ve been saying it will be the Xbox 360’s big hit in Japan. Blue Dragon is expected sometime in 2007 in Japan, with a late-2007 or 2008 release in the United States and probably Europe as well.

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Thank you LG for the guest-entry. I think the success of Blue Dragon, Lost Odyssey, and the other games that are being solely made to try and please Japan are going to be very interesting to watch. If the Xbox 360 doesn’t see a jump in Japan after those games come out, I will be a bit surprised. Even Dead or Alive 4 and Rumble Roses recently gave Xbox 360 a bit of a jump in Japan, so I think the Japanese people might just be waiting for something they like, especially if Sony continues their trend of unpleasantness.

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