[II Nawshus II]

Don’t look now, but yet another motion-driven, impossible-to-classify Wii game has arrived. Shocking, right? Especially knowing that it’s a spin-off of a popular franchise. Yes, Dragon Quest has taken a seat at the Waggle Table. And the results are… well, impossible to classify, but pretty fun regardless.

Dragon Quest Swords: The Masked Queen and the Tower of Mirrors is a little bit role-playing game — you walk around town, talk to people, get new equipment, build a party, fight random battles, use items and cast magic — and a little bit on-rails shooter. This certainly isn’t the first time the two genres have been merged, but unlike Elemental Gearbolt, Swords feels more RPG than shooter. Especially since you don’t really shoot — it’s called “Swords” for a reason, after all.

Unsurprisingly, the gameplay revolves around the Wii Remote — though unlike certain other Wii-based spin-offs, Swords plays out somewhat similarly to a real Dragon Quest game. A streamlined, fast-paced and fairly shallow Dragon Quest to be sure, but it’s easy to see how Square Enix made it from point A to point B here. Players take control of a young knight aspirant; after a quick gameplay tutorial and a survey of the local town, they head out into adventure.

This video has been removed from YouTube.

“Adventure” here consists of moving down a linear path, fighting off occasional monster ambushes. Everything is controlled with the remote — the D-pad moves you along the path, the 1 and 2 buttons bring up menus, and B blocks. Most importantly, the remote itself functions as a sword with 1:1 analog control, or close to it. A vertical, diagonal or horizontal stroke performs a similar sword slash capable of hitting multiple enemies, while a thrusting motion performs a precise stab. Foes appear in waves of two to six, and while they’re initially simple to defeat — puny Slimes that broadcast their attacks well in advance — things quickly become more complex as moles appear to blind players by flinging dirt, archers attack from outside the sword’s range and flying foes perform tricky aerobatics.

Combat consists of waiting for openings and performing the proper sword techniques to take down enemies, alternating offense with defense. Although it initially feels strange to use the remote for shield as well as sword, it allows pinpoint defense. Players can block incoming projectiles precisely, which becomes a necessity as your shield gradually disintegrates under the abuse of enemies, offering a smaller and smaller area of protection as your foes chip away at the edges.

Bringing up menus in battle allows the use of healing items, magic cast by the companions you meet along the way, and special sword techniques. The first two are simple enough, but the latter requires increasingly complex controller motions. The first sword technique you master is performed by raising the sword, then slashing forward; later techniques require figure-eight motions, small circles and more.

If all of this sounds like a brilliant infusion of Wii quirkiness into Dragon Quest tradition, that’s because it is. Well, “brilliant” might be a stretch. It’s all very clever and fun, but not quite as polished as one might hope. The sword input can be frustratingly inconsistent and unresponsive, often performing the wrong strokes even when you take extensive pains to make sure you’re doing it right. Assuming Square Enix brings the game to the U.S. — and there’s no reason to think it won’t show up next year — we really hope the development team takes advantage of the localization delay to tighten up the inputs. We also wouldn’t mind seeing some functions spread across to the Nunchuck controller, since moving around with the remote’s D-pad leads to severe hand cramping in short order.

These complaints aside, Swords is much more enjoyable than appearance might suggest. The first-person interface has far more depth and variety than most games of this sort thanks to the number of commands and some very clever enemy patterns. It also has decently high production values for a Wii game, with full voice acting, orchestrated music and far more polished visuals than the system’s library of lazy third-party shovelware has trained us to expect. Hopefully the U.S. version will have enough extra polish to make it truly exceptional.

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i have dragon quest on ps2 and it was fun as shit

ive played the other ones on the superfamicom/snes

if anyone has seen DBZ should know who akira toriyama is

hes the same dude who did the character designs for this series

ill get it if the american version looks nice enough…but i have to buy a wii first..

[II Nawshus II]

WTF? youtube videos dont work?

EDIT

FUCKIN MEDIA TAGS

[Chauncy Talon]

man I can’t wait fo that shyt……. reminds me of Shinning the Holy Arc…….. which was an excellent game that made me buy anotha Saturn

I do not want Trophies, Money or not even a title saying I am number "1". You can have your cheap trophies, paper titles, and dingy headbands. I am a "STORY" to my peers, a "LEGEND" for your kids to hear, and a "FOLKLORE" to keep you from dieing with fear - [b]Calvin D. Kates aka Chauncy "TRU" Talon. [/b]

[II Nawshus II]

its gonna be a good game the whole dragon quest series is good

[Chauncy Talon]

u already know my cuz-o got Dragon Warrior fo free from Nintendo when it came out I was like WTF how u do that……. it just showed up at his house out of nowhere…… but we didn’t know what we was doin seriously we was like 6 years old tryin to play a game where u have to have a Good Comprehension so we was just runnin round the world gettin’ merc

I do not want Trophies, Money or not even a title saying I am number "1". You can have your cheap trophies, paper titles, and dingy headbands. I am a "STORY" to my peers, a "LEGEND" for your kids to hear, and a "FOLKLORE" to keep you from dieing with fear - [b]Calvin D. Kates aka Chauncy "TRU" Talon. [/b]

[Agent WestCaliBoy]

ima get this when it comes out i played the ps2 version and from what ive seen of the wii version ill be getting this and fire emblem

[Agent WestCaliBoy]

yeah i took another look at the trailer and this defeinintly looks like a great game

[Agent WestCaliBoy]

just saw another vid of this game it looked sick

[Author]

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