Blue Dragon follows the story of five friends: Shu, Jiro, Kluke, Zola, and Marumaro, as they travel across the world to confront the evil King of the Grand Kingdom, Nene. The setting inspired separate anime and manga adaptations, although these follow the story to different degrees and feature a different cast of characters. The game follows a traditional role-playing design, based around exploration and turn-based combat, with turn speed modified by characters' agility.

Blue Dragon is the first Xbox 360 title to make use of three disks. It was also the longest Xbox 360 game until Lost Odyssey was released with a story spanning four disks. Overall, the game has received a positive reception, with an average score of 77% on the review aggregator website Game Rankings. Blue Dragon was both applauded and criticized for its excellent adaptation of the traditional elements of role-playing games. In Japan, Blue Dragon was sold both as a standalone game and in a bundle with the Xbox 360 (including the game, the Xbox 360 system itself, and a Blue Dragon faceplate).

Gameplay

The gameplay of Blue Dragon is more traditional than many modern console role-playing games, because the game uses turn-based combat and a number of genre-standard elements. The game world consists of a mix of towns and dungeon-like areas, with the former having places to rest and purchase items, while the latter contain numerous foes to be defeated. Shortly after the beginning sections of the game, players gain the ability to "warp" to locations which they have previously visited, greatly reducing the amount of time spent wandering on foot.

Exploration

The player can see (and potentially avoid) enemies while exploring the game world, unlike other games that rely upon random encounters. In some cases, specific foes will block a path or desired treasure chest and must be defeated to proceed. Other foes will pursue the player characters once spotted, but players can elude them if they flee far enough away. Frequently, a single enemy or monster displayed on the screen actually represents a number of different foes (or potentially different types).

Combat begins somewhat differently depending on how the player avatar makes contact with the monster. If the avatar strikes an enemy from behind, a "Back Attack" is initiated. Similarly, if the avatar is struck from behind, an unfavorable "Surprise Attack" occurs. Players can also choose to fight several groups of monsters at once, with each combat taking place immediately after the previous one. This is encouraged by awarding bonuses to the player after successfully defeating groups of monsters. In rare cases, two groups of monsters may be bitter enemies, in which case a "Monster Fight" will occur, with both monster groups appearing at once in a battle against each other.