E3 06: Blue Dragon Impressions

LOS ANGELES--Microsoft showed off a very short trailer from Blue Dragon today during its E3 press conference. Although the trailer was only a few moments long, it is the first public demonstration of the game in action.

The trailer revolves around a young character that's unnamed in the trailer, but whom we know as Shu from our previous coverage of the game. In the trailer, he's flying a small personal aircraft of a retroish, '50s-esque design through dark clouds. Shu's design, as you might expect since Akira Toriyama is the character designer, is reminiscent of Goku from Dragonball Z, albeit in a much smaller package.

Unfortunately, his trip is a short one, as he soon encounters a massive robot that looked to be around a couple hundred feet tall. Although the robot didn't seem to actively attack Shu, his spinning metal arms did start to rotate, which appeared to cause some problems for Shu's vessel, and it began smoking before falling out of the sky. Although the ship seemed sure to spiral to the ground, Shu eventually managed to pull out of the free fall and resume on his path.

Although the Blue Dragon logo showed at this point, it wasn't the end of the demo. A short clip showed a bright sky through which Shu was flying, indicating that the game won't be entirely doom and gloom. Although Blue Dragon doesn't appear to be playable here at E3, Peter Moore promises that the game will be out in Japan by the end of the year, so stay tuned to GameSpot for more details as they arrive.