Square Enix originally had the exclusive RPG Dragon Quest Swords: The Masked Queen and the Tower of Mirrors down as a launch title for Nintendo’s Wii, but has since delayed the game to ensure it is as good as it possibly can be. At the recent Square Enix Party people were able to go hands-on with the highly anticipated title.

The good folk over at Gamespot have gone on record to provide a detailed hands-on report with the on-rails role-playing game, the first ever spin-off of the main series that Dragon Quest creator Yuji Horii has been actively involved in. Along with the help of Eighting (Bloody Roar, Kuru Kururin) and Nintendo-owned Genius Sonority (Pokémon Battle Revolution, Pokémon XD), Yuji Horii’s Armour Project has been hard at work on the spiritual successor to Kenshin Dragon Quest, a TV plug-in game that was only ever released in Japan and has sold over 500,000 copies to date.

Square Enix is definitely putting a lot of focus on this new game, with it being on of the main attractions at the company’s special party last week, where it was playable, although it only showed the adventuring side. After skipping through a town scene, players were encouraged to head out onto a 2D world map, from which you then use the Wii controller to select the stage you wish to go through. The aim of the level in this case was to work through a forest environment, despatching numerous enemies and then eventually fighting a large Golem Boss character.

You can choose a partner to help you along the way as well, with the choice for the moment being a dapper male or sexy female character that can step in at certain points during battle. But other than having to choose which one to bring along at the start, you quickly set off on the road with a first-person viewpoint in an on-rails style. Using the d-pad allows you to move backwards and forwards, choosing different routes along the way, then moving the controller around to slash at enemies that jump in front of you from inside bushes, behind trees and so on. It must be noted that both attacking and defensive moves are dealt with via the Wii-controller alone.

In terms of attacking, so far only three main moves appear to be on offer; horizontal, vertical and diagonal slashes. However, holding down A can lead to locking onto specific enemies to keep the focus on them, which will come in handy when trying to kill smaller creatures quickly, giving you more breathing space to then direct all attacks on a main bad guy. In addition to slashing, though, you can thrust towards the screen for a similar on-screen action, adding some necessary strategic switching of moves when faced with trickier enemies. As for blocking, holding B brings up a shield that can deflect projectiles and so on, moving it around whenever required to do as such.

To make this more of a worthwhile investment, and definitely a proper RPG, items can be collected from various places, for example when slashing nearby bushes, new equipment can be acquired and adorned for greater protection and offensive attacks, plus there is gold to be collected from dead enemies and experience to be gained throughout. There is also a special move that can be unleashed when a meter below your life bar fills up (doing so after repeated attacks from enemies).

Topping the whole package off, the game’s visuals are easily on par with the PlayStation 2 effort Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King and the soundtrack is vintage Dragon Quest. Thankfully, for the Japanese at least, Dragon Quest Swords: The Masked Queen and the Tower of Mirrors will hit very soon - 12th July, to be exact, whilst North America must wait until early 2008 and Europe / Australia sometime after that.

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