Gameplay consists of embarking on specific, repeatable missions. On these missions your character travels along a rail, pausing only briefly so that you can choose to go either left or right. When enemies are encountered, you swing your Wii Remote through the air in a sword-like manner, slashing foes to kingdom come and blocking their attacks with your shield. At the end of the mission you encounter a boss monster that relies exclusively on patterned attacks. Defeat the beast and you are given a score, grade, and rank. Your grade determines what bonus items you walk away with.
That’s basically the whole game. In between missions you wander around your hometown of Avalonia, talking to NPCs and buying new armor and weapons. Because you accrue so much gold during each individual mission, you’ll rarely find the next level of armor or sword outside of your price range. Your sword can be tempered (with the right ingredients) to include an elemental charge. Your shield may break during missions, at which point you can repair it or buy a more resistant shield. Like other Dragon Quest games, mini-medals can be collected and traded for rare items and equipment.
Controls around town are simple: you hold the Wii Remote upright, interacting with anything highlighted by a red arrow. In first-person mode your character moves with the D-Pad, utilizing the outdated Resident Evil “tank” scheme. There is no option to plug in the analog stick, and D-Pad movement takes some getting used to. If you don’t like pressing “up” to move forward, you can just press B. While on missions, you similarly hold B to move forward, but since you’re on a rail I could never figure out why you don’t just move forward automatically.
The fun begins when beasties litter your path. You slash the Wii Remote horizontally, vertically, or diagonally to attack incoming creatures. You can theoretically also perform a stabbing motion, but I was unable to successfully stab anything. Stabs typically end up registering as slashes, which is problematic since there are encounters in the game specifically geared towards stabbing.
Pressing B raises your shield, used to guard against physical and projectile attacks. Some projectile attacks (like arrows) can be batted back at the enemy, and you can re-center your sword at any time by pressing A anywhere on the screen. Advanced “Master Strokes” require preordained motions for extremely damaging attacks which are best saved for boss encounters. Until you get used to the fast pace of matches, it can be easy to lose track of the cursor on the screen for targeting or blocking. Battles end as quickly as they begin, sending you back to the on-rails portion of the game.
Along the way your character recruits three heroic comrades, with one of them at a time coming along on missions with you (unfortunately, there’s no multiplayer element in Dragon Quest Swords, even though it would seem like an obvious addition). Your friends perform cheerleading and spellcasting duties, but also tend to suck up health items. Fortunately, this is balanced by each of them having a unique pool of spells that has new spells added to it as they level up. You can give your ally some pre-arranged AI commands, or take control of his or her spell pool directly from the menu.
Leveling up, as well as virtually all item collection, occurs seamlessly in the background. When you get back to town, however, you are quickly dragged down by the game’s traditional RPG menu system. You have to wade through about ten different menus to buy armor, and then go back and sell what you don’t want anymore. Sword tempering is another needlessly complicated affair. You must pick “temper,” then the sword you want tempered, then what you want it tempered into, then how much it will cost, then what items you have with which to temper it…it’s just a chore.
The story and characters don’t really keep you interested, either. Right out the gate you know that that mask in question is evil (I’m not ruining anything, folks), and that our heroes will have to confront the demon in the mask. In typical Dragon Quest fashion, it’s an ancient and pissed-off evil. The plot never diverges from this track, resulting in cinema scenes that soon become tiresome.
Dragon Quest Swords looks great, however. The aesthetic is that of Dragon Quest VIII, but with more lively color and shading. Individual character models have precious few movements so you’ll see your friends repeat the same motions to no end, but they look good doing it. Enemies are well-animated with far better textures than their PS2 counterparts. Better yet, all characters have spoken dialogue! Voices fit their characters most of the time, although some of the boss monsters have voices that are just plain silly. Like Dragon Quest VIII, all of the voice actors are British - some people like the charm, others don’t, but I loved it.
The parallels with Umbrella Chronicles cannot be ignored. This is a rail shooter in which your gun has been replaced by a sword that can’t stab. However, Dragon Quest Swords is not nearly as long or as deep as Capcom’s zombie-fest, and the unlockables are nowhere near as satisfying. One of the strengths of Umbrella Chronicles is that your skills always improve, and you can level up your weapons in a meaningful way. Here, you’ve mastered the game once you get the hang of swinging your Wii Remote around. Acquiring bigger swords is nice, but it doesn’t affect gameplay.
The Dragon Quest atmosphere of Dragon Quest Swords only goes so far before you start itching for some gameplay variety (although the visuals never get old). Fans of the series should certainly give it a try; but if you don’t count yourself among that niche audience, you should rent before buying since you might beat the game in a weekend.
Pros:
Lastability: 6.0
After you beat Dragon Quest Swords (a task that’s not difficult to achieve), you’ll find that there’s not much reason to go back. A new difficulty and “new” boss fights do not pique my interest. And how is there no multiplayer?
Final: 7.0
Dragon Quest Swords ends up being a fun but ultimately empty experience that gets old after a few hours, making you wish you could play through it with a friend. It’s not bad, but it lacks polish and longevity. Dragon Quest fans should definitely give it a look, but those looking for a similar experience are best to check out Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles, a longer game with deeper gameplay.
At the very least you guys said to give it a rent. I've read so many reviews that say to pretty much ignore this game. I've yet to play it so I am reserving my opinion but the game doesn't look terrible.
As for the story, I've only played Dragonquest VIII but the story wasn't fantastic either. It was solid and it worked but the DQ series has never been about deep and highly dramatic storytelling.
Finally, am I the ONLY on baffled with the comparisons to the main series? DQ is a traditional RPG series with random encounters and turn based battles. Swords is a real time on rails sword slasher. True it does have some elements from the classic games, but gameplay wise the two are different. So why am I reading these reviews saying "This isn't like the main RPGs"?. The videos, trailers and previews made it clear the type of game it was. Its like going to see a comedy, then complain it wasn't a drama. (BTW, I am not talking about this review, I am talking about other reviews).
I'll reserve my thoughts on the game's flaws since I haven't played it, but that's one thing that has been bugging me about the reviews.
I think I've only thrust like once
