Looking at the load screen for the airship scenario (the one we'd seen before) confirmed our suspicions that the characters were overpowered for the demo. They were all level 70 characters, and quite capable of killing all opposition in one or two hits. We decided to boot up the newer scenario; a battle zone in a forested area. Using level 40 Shu, Marumaro, Kluke, and the female pirate character Zola, we beat up a bunch of snake and beetle enemies for about 20 minutes.
Each character comes with a unique dragon shadow. Shu and Zola's beasts were focused mostly on combat, though there were differences. Most of Shu's dragon attacks were elemental in nature. We busted out an energy punch, water blast, and earth spike to sunder enemy faces. Zola's pig-faced dragon was more of a melee type, preferring to smash enemies with its giant fists than resort to magical alternatives. Kluke, the female lead, hung back most of the time and casting protection and healing spells. These ranged from self to party heals, from what we were able to pull off.
Combat plays out in traditional menu-based fashion. In other words, no time limits. When one of your character's turns comes up, the dragon is automatically available for attack, there didn't seem to be any kind of necessary summoning to bring them into the battle. Different attacks affect the order of turns in battle for your characters and the enemies. A helpful display pops up to show you exactly how turns will be affected. There were also a few options for party formation. The four characters could either occupy a front or back line position on the field. Presumably the back line protects the character from excess damage while limiting their ability to deal it. This would explain why Kluke was automatically set to the back line, so she'd be able to survive the longest while healing the other characters.
Aside from the attacks, heals, and protection spells, it's also possible to set a character to defend for a round to preserve their hit points. Winning a fight yields experience, SP, and G (money). Characters have two different kinds of ranks, the general character level and an RK level. From what we played, we weren't able to increase any of these. That might have something to do with the characters being extremely powerful in comparison to the enemies being fought. In both scenarios, we weren't in danger of dying.
Enemies are visible onscreen in Blue Dragon, generally minding their own business until you get too close. At that point a text display pops up over them that reads "detected," after which you can either run away or try to hit them to engage. Instead of charging directly into a fight, it's worth hanging back and using a few of the out of combat abilities. Players can toss bombs at enemies to paralyze them, and pop up a red spherical shield. Once an enemy is paralyzed, players can either walk by it, or use it as an opportunity to land a guaranteed first strike. Bringing up the shield can kill enemies much weaker than the party, avoiding unnecessary hassles.
In the grassy forest area we fought snakes armed with spears, golden beetles, and some stranger looking gangly foes. Hitting the start button brought up a minimap, pointing us to area exits. We didn't have time to make it to any of the exits, and instead spent our time beating on underpowered foes.
Some story elements were shown off in a few of the cinematics. One showed Kluke with a metal collar clasped around her neck. The collar was no ornamental piece; it was a bomb. Shu grasped at her shoulders, attempting to hold her close as she cried for him to leave before he got killed in an impending blast. Shu expressed no worry at the danger, indicating he didn't care if he lived or died.
We also got to check out a mini game, which occurred directly after the airship went down from the level 70 character scenario. A boss enemy attempts an escape from the burning ship, and Shu closes in with his own. From a first person perspective Jiro, one of the other party members, has to unload bullets from the muzzle of a gun mounted on top of Shu's airship. The enemy craft dodges and weaves quite a bit, so it's fortunate lock-on missiles are available. There was a nice blurring effect on the gun muzzle as this sequence played out, eventually ending with the enemy craft spiraling down in flames. Afterwards, the party heads off to some kind of feast in a castle.
In a presentation during the first day of TGS, Sakaguchi loaded up a boss fight scenario in a purple swamp. The enemy, a floating cartoonish monstrosity in royal regalia, was dispatched with a single hit from Zola. Using what we're assuming is one of the most powerful moves in her arsenal, Zola's dragon morphed from a translucent blue shadow to a white flying beast. Rocketing skyward, it proceeded to hurl energy balls at the boss, finishing the attack sequence with a massive breath attack. When the animation finally ended, we saw Zola had inflicted over 640,000 damage on the boss, killing it.
We had a good time with Blue Dragon, though would definitely like to get our hands on the English version. The only concern we had was the apparent inability to skip the attack animations. Some of the more powerful abilities had sequences between five and 15 seconds, which could get annoying after you've used them 1000 times. We'll of course have more as soon as we can.