The creative brains behind Blue Dragon, Microsoft's new epic roleplayer, reads like a who's who of Japanese talent. Hironobu Sakaguchi, who originally masterminded the Final Fantasy series, is here as director, and Nobuo Uematsu, writer of the original score for much of the same franchise, takes on music duties. Character designer Akira Toriyama meanwhile, is best known as the creator of the seminal manga Dragonball Z. A strong pedigree indeed, and one that the Microsoft are only too keen to draw attention to, particularly in Japan where this type of game still sells by the bucketload and where the only people who own Xbox 360s aren't Japanese.

Visually, it's obvious that Blue Dragon has been heavily influenced by the CGI of early Pixar films, with bright, cartoony character models rendered in gorgeous full 3D. The characters are all very well realised, as you'd expect from a designer with Toriyama's background, and at certain points in the game even manage to convey the kind of light-hearted visual humour that's associated with the rest of his work. The environments are lovely, ranging from expansive outdoor stretches to detailed interiors and the game's many cinematic cut-scenes are well directed and engaging. The music is excellent, fitting well with the action on screen and slotting in a surprising number of catchy tunes, although the voice acting is a little cringeworthy at times. On the whole, it's safe to say that the graphics and music are as beautiful and interesting as you could hope for.

Blue Dragon's plot runs along fairly standard Japanese fantasy lines: group of plucky kids sets out to free their village from an evil wrinkly purple chap in a floating chair and have lots of adventures on the way. There's no point going into detail on how it ends – you've heard this story 100 times before.

Where Blue Dragon really lets itself down is the gameplay. What we've got here is essentially a very old-school Japanese roleplaying game, with turn-based combat and a large number of identikit character classes that will leave most gamers cold. While there are a few nice ideas in here (such as the way enemies will chase after you rather than appearing randomly), it's just not enough to keep things interesting over the course of a game that's expected to last around 80 hours. What's more, the fact that Blue Dragon is spread across three discs really highlights the fact that pretty much nothing happens for the entire first disc.

While it's not necessarily a bad game, Blue Dragon is certainly not a game that lives up to the promise of its creators. It's not even a case of the game's three big creative egos clashing – Toriyama's characters and Uematsu's music are both exceptional. The real disappointment is that Blue Dragon's gameplay belongs in 1993 rather than 2007. Xbox 360 owners who are desperate for a roleplaying fix would be better off waiting for Eternal Sonata or Mass Effect later in the year.

Blue Dragon is out now for Xbox 360