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  Last week, I rented Blue Dragon, because of the mixed reviews the game has received. After playing it for a couple of hours, I thought that it was a pretty good game (despite it being very easy). I then looked that at the reviews for Blue Dragon that gave the game negative criticism, and one of the fundementals of the game that was mentioned in alot of reviews was the lack of "character distinction". After I read that, I asked to myself,  "oh!.. and what's Final Fantasy VII?!".

  What i'm trying to say is, 'if you are going to give a newly-released RPG negative criticism for not having character-distinction, and continue to praise Final Fantasy VII, you have to ask yourself alot of questions'. For those who don't know (or should I say "remember") about FFVII's character progression, there was very little distinction between the characters. I find it very ironic. In fact, a couple of months before the review of Blue Dragon, Gamespot ranked FFVII as one of the greatest games of all time, and even mentioned that the materia system was very deep (pfft). Plus I think that Blue Dragon's character distinction is way more consistent than FFVII's because you control all 5 characters during a battle (instead of 3 out of 8) which makes makes you customize all your party members instead of just 3 people.

  Another thing I should mention is the comparisons of Blue Dragon and Final Fantasy V. Character development in Blue Dragon is similiar to that of Final Fantasy V, where you assign the classes to your party members. What's ironic about this is that Gamestop gave FFV a way higher score than Blue Dragon, and didn't bring up the lack of "character distinction" in FFV.

  To sum up this whole blog, I find it very Ironic (even hypocritical) for reviewers to criticsize one aspect of Blue Dragon yet still praise that certain aspect in other games. Now, there are things in Blue Dragon that is worth criticsizing (the lack of an interesting story and difficulty), but don't say that there isn't any Character distinction in Blue Dragon while there is same and/or less character distinction in other games. Besides, YOU make whatever the party members become.