Dragon Quest Swords: The Masked Queen and the Tower of Mirrors review

Gets the sword swinging right and almost everything else wrong

GamesRadar+ Verdict

Pros

  • +

    Hacking

  • +

    Slashing

  • +

    Cute character designs

Cons

  • -

    Shallow story mode

  • -

    Annoying voiceovers

  • -

    Throwing your rotator cuff out

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Break out the Icy/Hot, kids - you'll never make it through Dragon Quest Swords: The Masked Queen and the Tower of Mirrors without loose joints. The game dispenses with the turn-based RPG combat and sprawling world map of other Dragon Quest games in favor of an on-rails, first person hack and slash adventure perfectly tailored to the Wii. A few things are thrown in for fans of the series - familiar music, typical character stereotypes, Akira Toriyama character designs - but for the most part, Dragon Quest Swords has gone in a new direction that almost works out.


Above: Trust us, this is harder than it looks

Everything in this game is done with the Wii Remote, but the only thing worth a damn is the sword swinging. We can hear some of you groaning as you picture jiggling your arm around like a monkey having a seizure, but fear not - this is the only game we've ever seen to have an arm swing produce a realistic sword swing. If you want to make a horizontal slash, you've got to move the remote in a horizontal smooth horizontal line; if you want to thrust at an enemy, you've actually got to thrust.

Scoring hits fills up a power gauge that your can use at full to perform a Master Stroke - which is the same as a normal stroke, but there's an interactive cutscene where you have to complete a series of Remote swings in the right order to score a big hit on your target. This slick mechanic, combined with the first person perspective, makes combat more strategic (and more demanding), than any other Wii Remote-dependent game out there.

More info

GenreAdventure
DescriptionThe gameplay is there, but there's just not much to do in this on-rails hack-n-slash adventure. Light-hearted Dragon Quest fans will approve.
Franchise nameDragon Quest
UK franchise nameDragon Quest
Platform"Wii"
US censor rating"Teen"
UK censor rating""
Release date1 January 1970 (US), 1 January 1970 (UK)
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