courtesy of ign
Since its debut nearly a year ago the Wii has had its fair share of sports games, a strong mix of "un-games," and a seemingly never-ending list casual games. One thing Nintendo's new console hasn't had a ton of, however, is pure hardcore titles. Nintendo has paved the way with games like Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, and this year still promises a mix of more serious gaming ventures, but Wii is still remaining to be a fairly "young at heart" system. For that reason D3 Publisher is out to make a statement, as its latest original IP Dragon Blade: Wrath of Fire is on its way to Wii later this year, and only Wii.
Since its initial showings at E3 people have drawn their own conclusions about Dragon Blade: Wrath of Fire. Some are calling it Wii's God of War, while others harp on the design for being 4:3 and "too generic." To put a few premonitions to rest on both sides of the spectrum we had a chance to go hands-on with the game here in the IGN LA office, giving us time to get to know Dragon Blade in its initial stage and find out what the game has to offer.
For starters, Dragon Blade isn't the fan-proclaimed God of War for Wii, and it isn't some system-saving phenomenon; you'll find most games these days aren't. Dragon Blade doesn't hype itself up as anything more than a straightforward action beat-em-up that makes strong use of Wii motion, and for that we give praise to the game. It's had far less of a budget or development time as something like GoW, so to even compare the two games really isn't fair to Dragon Blade. Rather this is an originally conceived action game that stays true to older game design roots, using the Wii motion as its entryway to Nintendo's console. In Dragon Blade you'll assume the role of a young adventurer who's out to restore peace to a dragon-fearing world by fighting off legendary serpents and harnessing their powers piece by piece. As far as the story goes, that's about all you'll need, as the game hinges more on straight combat and gigantic combos, and less on fetch quests or convoluted story. In the words of D3, "Dragon Blade is all about kicking ass."
And from what we've played thus far the game achieves its goal. Dragon Blade's claim to fame is the dragon power-up system, which allows you to build upon attack magic as you rip through the adventure. You'll start with a simple blade in hand, but eventually pile on dragon hands, head, and tail to deliver a ton of extravagant combo fighting. And though the game's combat is - at its very core - like every other beat-em-up out there its use of the Wii-mote and nunchuk is where it makes a distinct difference, as the game's design works to achieve as close to 1:1 motion as possible while still being gesture based. You won't be moving your sword inch by inch on the screen, but unlike Zelda: Twilight Princess, for instance, your swings will be interpreted exactly as you do them. If you swipe left to right, your character will act in turn.
This move-for-move interaction works in eight directions when using the main blade, and hosts a ton of actions with the extra magic abilities as well. When using the dragon head, for example, a swipe from left to right will do a distance fireball attack. Shove the Wii-mote up into the air like you're holding the Master Sword, however, and the dragon's head will jut up into the sky, roaring in a huge kill-all attack that damages all nearby enemies. When using the dragon tail, a whip across your body will send the tail-whip in a similar motion as well, allowing you to hit enemies from right to left, left to right, or out in front of you with a quick motion flick.
Some of our favorite attacks, however, come with the dragon hands, which build from just the Wii-mote right hand to both Wii-mote and nunchuk as the game progresses. With one hand you can perform expected swipes and slams, but also jab forward to deliver a huge punch. Add in the nunchuk, however, and things get a bit more interesting, as you can clap the controllers together to create a huge dual-hand clapping attack, or lift both controllers up and slam them down to create an earthquake ground-pound. Having seen the game previously we knew about each of these moves already, but having tried it for ourselves we found that the actions were easy to pull off and rewarding to see on screen. It isn't exactly "1:1" in the pure meaning of the world, but Dragon Blade still delivers the best motion-for-motion combat we've seen on Wii, and that's certainly a great first step.
In addition to the main combat, Dragon Blade hosts some pretty cinematic boss battles as well, each focused around defeating a huge dragon guardian that must be attacked in weak points across its body. We've captured video of such battle in action, which shows off a fight with one of the game's fierce dragons. Each of these battles acts in traditional boss fashion, having the player whittle away at a gigantic life bar until area-specific damage can be done. At any point within the battle - as with any other combat in the game - players can lock on to the enemy to keep their bearings straight.
When in the point-specific portions of battle, lock-on becomes detrimental, as you'll need to combine air combos with ground-based attacks to knock out the sweet spot on the dragons. As a cinematic finale to the battle, players will perform motion-based "Core Breaker" attacks that make use of in-game cinematic and Wii motion. We had a chance to try them out, and they're a pretty rewarding way to top off a sometimes five minute long boss bout.
That being said, there are still some areas where Dragon Blade needs to come not only as a debut franchise, but as a (hopefully) longstanding Wii franchise. For starters the game's graphical presentation is a bit on the low end, and while it features some amazing looking bosses the general environments and enemy models are a bit too last-gen for our liking. In general the combat was easy and entertaining to pull off, so in our opinion it's just a matter of improving the overall presentation and really pushing the system to its limits, of course including things like 16:9 presentation for widescreen users.
In addition our first playthrough still included random bugs and quirky camera glitches, but that's par for the course when dealing with an unfinished product; especially one that looks to be building its engine along with the game itself. As a first effort, however, and as a game that still has time in development before release, we can say we had a fun time with Dragon Blade, and we're optimistic for not only what this game can offer action-starved Wii owners, but also where the series could evolve over the system's life.
We'll have more on Dragon Blade as the game nears completion, continuing later this week with another Dragon Reveal on Thursday, complete with exclusive information, video, and concept art of another boss in the Dragon Blade world.
http://media.wii.ign.com/media/924/924846/vids_1.html
#
#
