Well, my title was supposed to be the amazingly witty: Dragon Quests Swords: The Masked Queen and the Unneccisarily Extremely Long Title, but, for this forum, even the normal title is too long. Anyhow, to the review!
While out shopping with a friend, I saw the game and decided that since I liked Dragon Quest, and since I kinda think swords are neat, that I should pick this game up. So I did. Then put it back down since it was wrapped twice around in tape. I'm not certain why. But every copy in that store was. Also, the highlite of that shopping trip was the intellectually lacking clerk informing my friend that Nintendo is intentionally keeping Guitar Hero 3 out of stores to raise demand, as well as the console, ignoring the fact that Nintendo doesn't control Activision or that the Wii's demand is so high that short of John Lucas starting production, there would be shortages.
Anyway, onto the game. I had a brief 15 minute go on it on my friends small 15 inch TV, then at my house, with my small 28 inch TV. I played until the beginning of chapter 8 (Final Chapter I'm led to beleive) and stopped because I couldn't take any more. Please note that this is 4 hours of playtime and I replayed a few dungeons.
Let me talk about what is good: It's Dragon Quest, so you know a few things. One, someone will be possessed by an ancient demon, there will be slimes, there will be metal slimes. Also, rather unusual, were the quantity of voices. Now, 8 isn't that fresh in my mind anymore, but I don't recall a german sand demon talking in 8. Whether or not that's for the better, aside from your silent protaganist, there is plenty of speaking, and while it's not inspired, you won't turn it off either. Oh, and combat starts off rather fun, as rather than ease you in with a single slime, the early combats often involve 5 of them at a time charging at you. There are sets of equipments to make you sound like a puppy or kitty also, if you are a furry or just really like cute noises. I never completed either sets.
If you read my words, you may notice that I couldn't take any more. So let's get on to the bad.
Equipment: There are 3 known special weapons I saw, each with upgrades, the kitty, the puppy, and the money maker (Which you shake). There appear to be...6 different helmets, 7 different armors, probably about 10 different shields, including a teaspoon, and a number of accessories I wasn't too bothered to find too many. The equipment for your allies are set. Which may explain the limited amount of equipment, though I left out probably 11-12 swords (which are the main ones you will likely get instead of meowing). Equipment is remarkably shallow. I didn't even need to change my main armour till Chapter 7, and even then, I didn't need to do it, I just wanted to spend all my money. When a shield can block 100% of attacks, who needs armour?
Which leads us to the combat. It starts out fun, different, challenging even. Then you notice, there is almost 0 variance in enemy patterns (It changes based on your attacks... to a minor degree). Hell, even the rare metal slimes are 100% occurances in some fights. If you want to level up, there's a nice metal babble fight where he runs right by you normally would be slashing, so as long as you don't stop, a nice free bit of experience. Once you catch them, metal slimes have never been easier to kill. Having the same patterns makes combat pretty easy, and very boring. The bosses at least kinda mix it up, having 2 "forms", one angry, one not, that changes their attack pattern minimally.
Combat on your end: Oddly, the slashes work pretty well. In the forced tutorial, they till you to always keep your thumbnail facing skyward and press it to the top of the remote. If you do this, you will have better control over your slashes. I did not say 100% control, but that could be me. However, there is also a thrust move. Either this is me somehow inadequately thrusting a controller forward, or something else, as this works... 10% of the time. If you're overly enthusiasticly thrusting your sword, and hey, that's half the fun(sadly), you may find yourself desperately trying to get your cursor back to the sensors so you can block the attack. Mighty strikes vary in complexity, from point up, to point down, to draw a circle. Yes, that is what you need to do to activate the special moves, but later on, they are very useful. Blocking well or hitting things builds up your power meter. Combat isn't particularily bad on your end, but with pattern monsters, it gets old quick. New areas provide the only excitement because no battles are random, and you can't skip them.
Bosses: They talk! They hurt! They demonstrate another weird combat flaw. While mostly enjoyable overall, the game forces you to equip a weaker weapon (and I wasn't power leveling mine at all). It's kinda fun to revisit old bosses that are now 2 hit kills, but the higher up bosses aren't any more difficult than the earlier, just take about 40x longer. This problem occurs in the upper levels on normal enemies. In fact, during chapter 7, so far as I could tell, without using a mighty strike, there was some enemies that I couldn't slash fast enough to kill before they ran. However, they only hit 3 times before running, so I just blocked them and fought things that I could kill.
To sum up those combat paragraphs: It started with: Cool, how does this grow and quickly became: Oh, it only gets worse.
Paths: It's a linear game. Point A is town, point B is boss. There are alternate paths that lead to treasure chests, then auto return you to the fork in the road, removing even that tiny choice of walking that alternate path once more for no reward. Also, some roads are blocked by giant rocks that you are not strong enough to hack your way through. Oddly, this is remedied by spending 3 mini medals (about what you would find if you looked through town) at a hidden store. I had presumed with their low cost and easy acquisition of 15 mini medals on the first 3 missions, that I would need to buy one for every giant stone I wanted bashed to get the treasures within (see, cat and dog armour). Nope, just once. You can move as fast and slow as you want, when you hit points xyz, you will enter combat, and it will always be the same combat. I imagine if you are freakishly dedicated, you could learn this game well enough to fight blindfolded. There are so few enemy strikes that vary(and 3 of your possible 3 allies auto heal you, unless you tell them to stop), you would be able to use sound cues alone.
Sound is fine, it's Dragon Quest, so unless you're new to the series, there is nothing but a mild departure from the norm, even the story is a basic Dragon Quest one. Not that the game is any good. Had A) Combat been skippable(yay, I need to spend 30 seconds killing 30 slimes at level 30!) and varied, even random attack patterns, the combat could always keep you on your toes.
Also, this game features a transvestite over-muscular man wearing the mask. If you know Dragon Quest, you know what I'm talking about. He gives you mini games, and rewards for them. I was never able to acheive rank S on any of them, but they are fun enough I suppose. Rank A nets you a healing herb (cost 8 gold). A Jailcat who trades minimedals for mostly useless stuff (including liquid metal armour for 100 of them, clearly the best armour, likely unneccisary). There is a "Tombola", a gambling thing. Highest prize I ever got was rank 2 (there are 2 better prizes), and it was an accessory that was far better than any I picked up during my play. Since your first play is free, theoretically you could keep re-loading till you get the best prize, but I am not that dedicated. This game didn't earn that.
People often complain that I don't finish games before I review them. In this case, the developers already have their money, there's no need for me to not enjoy myself. Maybe if I read about amazing secret areas I missed in my 4 hours of play, a secret dungeon filled with enemies with unique attack patterns, or anything else redeeming, I may consider playing it again. Until then, it's a nice 3.5 / 10 with an advisal only to rent if you want to kill metal slimes easy, and that's about it. Want a better Dragon Quest Experience? Play DQM. At least that has plenty of enjoyable moments, and will help tide you better than this.
See Ya George.
"He did not die - He passed Away"
At least following a comedians own jokes makes his death easier.
