I have a bad habit of wanting to give away endings and for me it is very rare to write a reaction blog without giving away spoilers. Though I doubt as many people care anyway, there really isn't much to say about the finale of the Blue Dragon story arch. The game ends, congratulations! There were a few things I took issue with, and none of them had to do with the story, which, despite being predictable, at least ended on a good note.

First, I would like to say even though there is now a hard mode option on Blue Dragon, that option was not available when I started my game, back when Blue Dragon was released. Anyway, I'm pretty good at JRPGs and I like a challenge when I play them and when you get to the third disc on Blue Dragon there are a lot of possibilities that open up, all of which are optional (a la Final Fantasy VII). In addition to five fairly difficult dragon bosses, there are two "super" bosses. One is King Poo and the other is Golden Mecha Robo. I was able to meet up with these monsters without checking any guides and fought them. I thought they were comparatively hard and had a lot of fun beating them, but when I looked online to see what I had missed in the game, I was confronted with the fact that these monsters, that I had easily beaten, were supposed to present the most difficult challenge in the game. Well, I didn't believe it and went through the final stage, just to compare.

The last boss in all of his forms was not only unable to hurt me, but was completely unable to even HIT me. I have five characters on my team and they were all able to attack three times before the boss even got his first turn. Additionally, all five of my characters are able to attack/cast magic 2x per turn. At that point the final boss didn't really stand a chance. It was the biggest last boss let down I think I've ever had.

So, I'm considering playing through on Hard, but I don't know that I want to invest the time all over again. It took me about 50 hours to get to the point and that is a lot of time out of my schedule. Additionally, I was to unlock some of the remaining achievements. It would be easier for me to unlock most of them just continuing on my current save.

One achievement that is annoying me is "MAX out all characters levels". I beat the game with my characters levels in the mid 50s and didn't even have a hint of trouble. Why should I be forced to spend the hours of work involved in getting the remaining 40+ levels when there isn't a monster in the game that can even hurt me? Unlocking that 20 or 30 gamerscore is more of a pain than fun, and there is no challenge except finding the time and willpower to do it.

Don't take my complaints too seriously though, because I really enjoyed the game. I honestly hate when any RPG I play ends, because, no matter how good the end, I always feel like all my time spent preparing was wasted. Blue Dragon did me a lot of favors with its field barrier which prevented me from needing to fight useless battles against weak enemies. Now, that's biting me in the rear trying to unlock the level achievement, but still it is an innovation (yes there are some in blue dragon) I would like to see other games copy. Anyway, I'll have to decide how much I want those achievements, and how much time I have free. I probably will try hard sometime later, but not right away.