What Dragon Quest Swords might be like

One of the surprise games coming to the Wii is Dragon Quest Swords: The Masked Queen and the Tower of Mirrors. The short teaser that Square-Enix showed at E3 had no gameplay footage, just a person slashing around the Wiimote and a simulated golem. While no one has seen the game in action yet we might have a clue about how Dragon Quest Swords might turn out. Back in Japan Square-Enix released Kenshin Dragon Quest, a motion activated TV game in 2004. While the game bears the Dragon Quest name it isn’t exactly an RPG. It has more in common with Time Crisis or an arcade game than a dungeon crawler. Everything in the game is controlled with the plastic sword. By pointing the sword forward you will walk straight ahead. You can’t turn or explore freely. If there is an alternate path the game will prompt players with a choice to take it or not. While on your casual stroll slimes, moles, skeleton knights and other Dragon Quest monsters will pop out right in front of you. As you probably guessed you’re going to use sword slashes to fight back. Check below the jump for the rest and a gameplay video of Kenshin Dragon Quest.

Here’s where the game is sort of like a shooting gallery. Enemies pop up in set formations maybe in a horizontal line, so you can hit a group of slimes with a single horizontal slash. Or they will bounce up and down for an added challenge. The game is fairly accurate when slashing either vertically or horizontally, but it has a hard time picking up swift diagonal slashes. You can also defend against attacks with your shield by holding the sword still. Some enemies require blocking, like the magician. After deflecting a few flame blasts with your shield the magician will get tired and it’s your chance to strike. The game also has a few magic spells that you can access by thrusting the sword forward to bring up the spell menu. Casting fire allows you to create a trail of flame by pointing your sword or you can save your precious magic points for to recover your HP.

The boss battles in Kenshin Dragon Quest are one of the best parts of the game. It’s a one on one fight where you slash away to victory. Each slash and successful block fills up a super meter and when that is full you can unleash a fast barrage of sword slashes. Later on fights get more complex like when you’re battling the dragon your focus is on dodging first. The only way to defend yourself from the dragon’s fire breath is to follow the fire attack with your shield. A later boss battle against a Silver Batboon has players bounce energy balls back at the winged ape. Red energy balls can be bounced back at the monster by hitting them as they fly towards the screen.

There are eight stages to play through in Kenshin Dragon Quest and a couple of mini games to keep the game interesting well beyond the story line. One mini game challenges players to kill 100 slimes as quickly as possible. While another mini game is more like a reaction test. A single slime will dash across the screen and the player will have to swipe the sword fast to hit it.

We took some gameplay footage of Kenshin Dragon Quest. Check it out below to see how the game plays.