The Safehouse got a special invite to attend the Tomy Comic-Con party at the Rock Bottom Brewery to party and  see a preview of their Wii game Dragon Blade: Wrath of Fire. I accepted (really the free food and drink after a hard day at the Convention Center had nothing to do with it!).

At the event I was treated to a one on one demo for the game. Quite simply, Dragon Blade is a hack and slasher for the Wii. You are a swordsman who must find the pieces of the Dragon Blade and gain the skills of a Dragon (and of course fight dragons). The game is a “progressive equipment game” in the words of Sam Guilloud, Product Marketing Manager. It will span 6 worlds and is single player. Release is September 2007.

Gameplay is with the nunchuk and the Wiimote. Inititally you use the nunchuk joystick for movement, and the Wiimote for sword work, though there is two handed combat as well. Sword work is more one to one in its movements than other wii games involving swords -- no just “shaking the nunchuk” to do a spin around sword strike for instance, like in Zelda. And you can thrust in the game as well. I noticed that Sam seemed to have a little trouble with thrust at times so I hope that gets tightened up. As a fencer, the thrust is crucial and a sword game that can do this well will hold my interest much longer than just being able to merely slash at foes.

Aside from the movements described above, there will be special “gestures” to make for moves, so you’ll not just be using the Wiimote for sword work. I asked if these would be akin to drawing symbols like in Trauma Center: Second Opinion and was given an affirmative answer.

I expressed my disappointment in the single player only aspect of the game and was told that they wanted it to be strictly single player so that a player could quickly become engrossed and also be able to pick it up easily without needing to play with someone else.

The demo was fun, the graphics looked great for a Wii game, though they did not blow me away since I am more used to PC games. The animations had more polish though and anything with fire in it (which as you might guess, is quite a lot of things) looked especially nice. I definitely liked seeing the different “dragon powers” you could get. For instance, you still used your sword but there was a “claw” move which involved a two handed motion and flaming claws coming from your swords, or you had dragon wings sprout from you as you used another ability.

I watched one boss mob fight with a water dragon, it disappeared in to the water in which your character was standing, a cool effect. To defeat it, one did have the familiar, “But wait, you have to hit him 3 times!” but each step you did something different than the last, so it wasn’t simply making good hits in the same spot over and over.

When the demo was over I spoke to Richard Knaack (head writer for Dragon Blade as well as author of Dragon Lance novels and stories for Diablo and Age of Conan) who had been watching some of the game for the first time himself. I asked him how it felt to see his story coming to life. He said it was a lot of fun, especially the water dragon, he wasn’t sure how they would handle its water hiding skills but he liked it and was disappointed he could not see all the dragons. I asked about the game as a whole and he seemed interested in extending it as a franchise and maybe having a two player option (Ok, I’ll admit to pushing this idea on him). He seemed quite excited about the game in general which I take as a good sign

My final opinion after the evening was that Tomy throws a nice party and I shall definitely be checking out Dragon Blade. They personally had me at “Blade” -- as a fencer I am trying every Wii game using swordwork (yes even Super Monkey Ball Banana Blitz’s fencing mini game) – but for non fencers out there, the game does look well done and like a heart thumper. Take a sword to a dragon fight? Sure, why not?