GENRE
	Action RPG
	DEVELOPER
	Genius Sonority, Inc. / Eighting Co., Ltd.
	PUBLISHER
	Square-Enix
	NUMBER OF PLAYERS
	1
	WI-FI ENHANCED
	No
	DS COMPATIBLE
	No
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Dragon Quest Swords is the spiritual sequel to Kenshin Dragon Quest, a plug-and-play game that used a sword-shaped controller to emulate the player’s real movements on-screen. The resemblance between the Japan-only Kenshin and Swords are numerous, so gamers walking into this Wii title should be aware that this Wii title serves up something quite different than a traditional Dragon Quest experience. Whether that is good or bad depends entirely on your taste in genres.

visuals

Square-Enix has a knack for getting the most, graphically speaking, out of the consoles it develops for, going back to SNES and continuing through PS2 and GameCube. Overall, Dragon Quest Swords looks and runs like a late-gen GameCube title; while it doesn’t stand up to some of Nintendo’s first-party offerings, neither does it look like an embarrassment to be on Wii. The modeling is crisp and colorful, with decent art direction and a reasonable degree of detail. The characters aren’t revolutionary in their design, but they do reflect a bit of style. The monsters are also pretty well-done, although more than a few of them suffer from being a repetitive case of palette-swapping.

The highlight of the graphics are the special effects. The player’s sword slices across the screen with bright flourishes, spells flare out and explode on the screen, and the game’s "master strokes" are wonderfully bombastic and satisfying. The whole package runs at a stable framerate in all but a couple of isolated instances.

audio

As with graphics, fans of Square-Enix games will find the sounds of Swords to be above par. The music is really good and creates great atmosphere wherever you are. The most frequently heard song, the combat anthem, is catchy and holds well throughout the game. The sound effects are also above-par and mirror some of the more audacious graphical flourishes, whether it be a pounding invitation to execute a master stroke or the visceral thrill of repeatedly cutting into a foe. In addition, the game does feature voicework in about half of the game’s dialogue, and most of it is top-notch, with great acting and some really memorable voice effects and ethnic accents.

gameplay

Although the game is billed as an action RPG, Dragon Quest Swords is more accurately described as an on-rails slasher with RPG elements. The game works from a first-person perspective, with the player moving forward in highly linear levels and the occasional branching pathway. Battles are scripted and happen in the same fashion every time the player traverses a given level.

The real showpiece of the game is its combat, which has a bit of a learning curve, but proves immersive and addictive. Swordplay is effected by swinging the Wii remote (the game includes support for both lefties and righties), and the game reads directional swiping, so an upward diagonal slice in real life translates to the same onscreen. Once the player gets used to it, combat proves to be a great deal of fun, especially when one gets to cut down groups of enemies at the same time. The game’s "master strokes," which are special attacks, all use specific motion controls and are tremendously satisfying, both in terms of control and in terms of effect.

Unfortunately, there are also a couple of serious control problems. For one thing, the game only supports use of the Wii remote; there is no nunchuck control. The Wii remote mapping is hand-cramp inducing, as turning requires reaching up to push the d-pad. Why Square-Enix didn’t at least include the option for analog stick control is beyond us. Certainly other games like Twilight Princess have shown that gestured swordplay and nunchuck control are not mutually exclusive.

A second problem involves the holding of the Wii remote during combat. In order to properly execute directional slices, the Wii remote has to be held level; holding the remote sideways will throw off the controls and result in slicing in the wrong direction. This is sort of counterintuitive, as swords are not held flat to the ground like that, and it would seem that some simple tilt-recognition to recalculate direction would have fixed the problem. It can be overcome, but it is still a bit of a disappointment.

Dragon Quest Swords wraps up after a short 7-10 journey that stretches across eight chapters. RPG fans used to 50+ hours of questing will feel like they are just getting warmed up when the closing credits roll, a situation made more painful given how little the main character’s inventory really changes from beginning to end. The title does add some extra length to the game by introducing a couple of mini-games and some special bonus missions after the ending credits, but this hardly proves to be consolation for a game whose namesake -- the Dragon Quest brand -- has a reputation for lengthy game experiences.

Given the game’s brief length, it is probably unsurprising that the storyline proves shallow. The premise is, by necessity, generic, and the plot twists, such as they are, create little in the way of emotion, because it's hard to get attached to such a short game. Character development goes little beyond what is minimally necessary for pacing, and the game world, including the game’s main town, is pretty small. It’s easy to see some hints of charm in the game’s tale and see some potential in it, but the game as it was realized doesn’t really make a serious effort on this front.

multiplayer

The minigames in Swords allow for one-at-a-time multiplayer, which is nice but ultimately of little or no value, and most gamers are likely to ignore it altogether.

overall

In recent years, Square-Enix has elected to forgo putting more traditional role-playing experiences on Nintendo consoles, instead opting for more unorthodox titles like the component heavy Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles on GameCube and this game, Dragon Quest Swords. While these titles have boasted above-average production values, they also leave one with the sense that the revered RPG publisher doesn’t have enough respect for Nintendo console owners to give them a game with the breadth and depth of, say, Final Fantasy XII or even Kingdom Hearts. (DS fans, at least, have something to look forward to in Dragon Quest IX.)

As a result, those hoping that this adventure would be Wii’s answer to the Elder Scrolls franchise will find that Swords is instead a beefed-up version of Kenshin Dragon Quest. While this is not automatically bad, nor is it necessarily good, either. While the production values are typical Square-Enix -- as in very good -- and there is a certain cool factor associated with the game’s frenetic swordplay, Swords lacks the depth of story or character that one comes to expect from Square-Enix. It also doesn’t help that the game is short and suffers from control designs that should never have been allowed to cross the Pacific.

So, to buy or not to buy? That depends on your tastes. If you're looking for an on-rails slasher that is good for 7-10 hours, you will probably enjoy this title. If you’re looking for a full-fledged RPG experience, however, you’re better off looking elsewhere.

7.0/10