Nintendo
Dragon Blade: Wrath of Fire
By George Damidas
Oct 17, 2007, 7 :31 am

For those Wii owners out there dying for a generic action title with shoddy motion detection, Dragon Blade: Wrath of Fire has arrived. The title alone gives a good indication of how imaginative the game is. Why not just skip the pretense of trying and take blandness to the next level with Dragon Fire Medallion Scepter: Axe Quest or something? Just give me something – anything – to work with.

Alas, what I was given is an action title that will fall in the pile of ‘like Zelda, kinda, but not really good’ games. As an emotionless hero made up of approximately 25 polygons, Action Guy must harness dragon powers to destroy the invading demon hordes. Armed with a firey indestructible dragon sword and a pestering spirit that barks out orders, the player goes from spawn point to spawn point, targeting and dispatching minotaurs, spiders, boar men, or whatever else decides to warp en masse to that particular point. After a few of these brawls the level ends, and then a boss battle begins. The boss battles are a bit more involved with body-specific targets that result in multi-phase fights with dragon powers eventually becoming unlocked. Wrapped around all this is a voice-over-less story that is sparse on detail and heavy on commands, none of which lends itself to a very epic adventure.

There really isn’t much more to it than that. Aside from smacking around bland foes, health and fire power shards are absorbed off defeated enemies and in the endless supply of crates and vases, with a hidden piece of dragon armor hidden away in each level. And that’s about it. If you think I’m kidding, just take a look at the manual: 9 pages - 1 of which consists of notes and 3 have legal, support, and warranty information.

Being generic doesn’t necessarily make a game bad, though, nor does manual size equate enjoyment. Normally. I often find generic action titles comforting: I know where to go, what to do, what everything does by sight, and that I’ll eventually be a hero that saves the day. If I have to constantly fight the camera and motion detection while trouncing around plain environments that look like they are more at home on a C-grade Nintendo 64 title, then I have a problem. If the combat wasn’t so problematic, I probably could’ve settled in for the adventure, bland graphics, enemies, and all. Instead, it’s trying to target while centering the camera and blocking before an enemy’s auto detection attack hits, then wiggling the remote like crazy to perform some sort of combo.

In theory the sword motions are supposed to mimic the motions made with the remote, but what ends up happening is that the slash turns into a thrust, the thrust an upward attack, and the upward attack a slash. The combo system isn’t involved so it isn’t that the poor recognition hampers that to too great an extent, it’s that some of the moves leave Action Guy open to attack because they take longer to perform. To be a successful button masher, action games need a certain amount of variety in the extra powers or power-ups, interesting enemies, and a combo system that takes timing into account so it’s not just a steady beat of one button being hit a thousand times. Unfortunately, the combo system is dry, the enemies are boring, but there is one shining light: the dragon powers. The dragon powers are actually pretty fun. Initiated with a satisfying thud and dust being blown away, giant fiery appendages appear that can devastate enemies. The dragon powers are really the main draw here, and with good reason - it’s very satisfying to move the controller and watch that one swipe knock back a dozen enemies. Sadly, that’s about the only thing satisfying about Dragon Blade. The rest of the game is just a quiet, plodding from A-to-B action title that leaves one feeling both unimpressed and very bored.

Overall: 4/10