Eurogamer writes: "Three games in, and Blue Dragon is starting to feel like a franchise that hasn't quite found its niche yet, perhaps because it spends most of its time trying to squeeze into someone else's."
Nintendo Life: "Awakened Shadow is the third RPG game in Hironobu Sakaguchi’s Blue Dragon series. Developed at Mistwalker Studios, this iteration also marks the third completely new gameplay style after the turn-based tactics of the original and the RTS stylings of Blue Dragon Plus. Awakened Shadow has a more real-time action RPG flavour than its predecessors, but when a series swaps styles more often than a quick-change magic act it’s difficult to feel comfortable with any one type of gameplay."
Videogamer: "It upsets me to speak about a Blue Dragon game with such venom – this is a franchise I'd really like to see succeed. The truth of the matter, though, is that Awakened Shadow is a sub-par RPG, with sub-par role-playing and sub-par storytelling. Considering the game combines the talents of both Mistwalker and tri-Crescendo - two incredibly experienced studios when it comes to JRPGs - Awakened Shadow can only be considered a major disappointment. My advice would be to forget it ever happened, and to keep those fingers crossed for a proper Blue Dragon 2 release in the near future."
If the multiplayer aspect of Monster Hunter Tri and Dragon Quest IX did it for you, by all means check this out. If, however, you like to go solo and settle into your RPGs, you might find too many outside distractions get in the way here.
