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Dragon Blade: Wrath of Fire
Author: Brian Ehlert

Dragon Blade: Wrath of Fire by D3Publisher of America has set out to deliver a true hack-and-slash action game on Wii. The demo began by putting players straight into the action rather than showing off any of the story. This is unfortunate considering the plot was penned by Richard Knaak, author of the the Dragonlance series as well as multiple novels based on the Warcraft and Diablo games from Blizzard Entertainment.

As your character progresses into each area, enemies spawn and must be defeated before you can continue forward. The controls were simple: movement is done with the Nunchuk and swinging the Wii Remote logically swings the hero's sword in the direction of your movement (vertically, horizontally, or stabbing). Meanwhile, the B button is used to jump, and the A button handles blocking and rolling when running. It's a simple setup that makes for a very small learning curve.

After my fire meter had filled up following enough battles, I could press a direction on the d-pad to equip a special ability. By pressing right, the character's right hand, which is primarily used to hold a sword, became a large claw made of fire. Swinging the Wii Remote could then slash the entire group of enemies that were quickly approaching. It didn't take much before the area was clear and I was able to move on. Unfortunately, I was only able to use this one special weapon, since the save file with the others unlocked had been deleted during the course of the show. However, one of the other special weapons was dual fire claws in which you can control both arms by swinging the Wii Remote and Nunchuk.

The demo with Dragon Blade: Wrath of Fire was short, not even including a single boss battle or any of the story. Instead, I literally moved from one area to the next and fought endless enemies spawning from the ground. The repetition of enemies spawning from the ground got old after only a couple minutes. Activating my special ability quickly breathed new life into the demo, and I couldn't wait to use it again. It's unfortunate that the move drained my fire meter and limited my usage because I would've preferred to use it the entire time. There's hope that having access to all the dragon powers in the full game could radically change the gameplay experience.

In all fairness, I was never given an opportunity to play the demo straight through. I played three different areas, all in an attempt to find a save file with unlocked abilities on it. However, Wrath of Fire was graphically disappointing, and with a release date in the near future, I don't expect that aspect to change. If this game can deliver on a solid story, it has the possibility of being a solid action title for Wii. That is, assuming the game could possibly survive the Halo 3 hype, which will come to fruition on the same day of Dragon Blade: Wrath of Fire's planned release (September 25, for the unware).

PREVIOUS GAME: Bleach: Shattered Blade
NEXT GAME: Rockstar Games Presents Table Tennis

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