There’s been a recent trend, where successful RPGs tend to spawn sequels. In an attempt to freshen things up, these sequels end up belonging to a different genre than the original game. Blue Dragon Plus is following in the footsteps of Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings – it’s a portable, real-time strategic rpg sequel to a console RPG.

Thankfully, like Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings, Blue Dragon Plus is successful in it’s endeavor. It manages to continue the story in an engaging fashion and may give players a greater appreciation for the original game. I know that after playing Blue Dragon Plus for the past four days, I find myself wanting to pick up the original game.

If you haven’t played the original Blue Dragon, you still should be okay to jump into Blue Dragon Plus. All you need to remember is that a boy named Shu and his friends saved the world after gaining the power of sentient shadows. Now, the main villain of the original game, Nene, is back, and the heroes have to save the world again…

Many people speculated that Blue Dragon Plus, the DS sequel to Blue Dragon, would be released outside of Japan. They were right – Ignition Entertainment has officially announced that it will be bringing Blue Dragon Plus to both North America and Europe in March, 2009.

As mentioned previously on Gamertell, Blue Dragon Plus is a direct sequel to the original Xbox 360 title Blue Dragon. Once again, Shu, Jiro, Kluke, Marumaro and Zola are the heroes, trying to explore a strange cube world and defeat a new villain – a dragon shadow known as Balaur. Like Heroes of Mana or Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings, Blue Dragon Plus is a real time strategic RPG. You send your Blue Dragon characters off into battles with enemies in the newly discovered cube world…

Konami and Viz Media have announced that the Blue Dragon Role Playing Card Game will be at Gen Con Indy, which fruns from August 14-17, 2008. Blue Dragon RPCG, as it is affectionately known, is a trading card game based on the Xbox 360 game Blue Dragon.

The Konami booth will have the game displayed and Konami representatives will be teaching people to play Blue Dragon RPCG and giving out free t-shirts and half decks. There will also be Blue Dragon RPCG tournaments on August 16 and 17, and a game mat and half-deck are in every Gen Con Indy attendee’s show bag. So make sure you stop by the Konami booth so you can play with a full deck.

The Japanese release date for the DS follow-up to Blue Dragon, titled Blue Dragon Plus is creeping closer. On September 4, 2008, the real-time strategic rpg will be released in Japan. So far a North American release hasn’t been announced, but since Konami released Blue Dragon in the US and the DS is the Nintendo’s golden child.

Blue Dragon Plus picks right up where the Xbox 360 rpg Blue Dragon left off. King Jibral and Zola have discovered a strange and possibly evil dragon shadow in a cube world, and Shu, Kluke, Jiro, Marumaro and Zola have to go investigate it. The game looks similar to Heroes of Mana and Final Fantasy XIII: Revenant Wings, so if you enjoyed those, you’ll probably like Blue Dragon Plus.

If you’re a fan of anything pertaining to Blue Dragon, you may want to hit up the Strapya World online store. Cell phone/key chains of Blue Dragon characters Shu, Jiro and Zola with their shadow counterparts are now in stock. They are a bit pricy though, at $7.21 per item, but are still nifty little mascots.

A demo of the new RPG by acclaimed Final Fantasy originator Hironobu Sakaguchi hit the virtual shelves yesterday (July 11, 2007). Blue Dragon was released last year in Japan and is scheduled for an August 28, 2007, release date here in the states. The game was developed by Mistwalker and Artoon, and published by Microsoft Game Studios as an Xbox exclusive. The demo comes to us courtesy of the madness that is E3 2007.

There’s not a whole lot that’s new in Blue Dragon. There’s an interesting tweak to the combat system that allows you to choose between…