Nintendo Wii Fanboy

The latest batch of screens of Square Enix's rail-RPG Dragon Quest Swords focuses entirely on everyone's favorite part of any RPG: talking to townspeople. We don't know about you, but we were afraid the game would be all about swordfighting!

Sometimes we rush through the tedious boss fights and story progression so we can get back to town and hear the single, repeated piece of information from every citizen. We just want to hear all about their lives. It reinvigorates us for more hours of grinding right outside of town!

It looks like the Wiimote is going to be fully integrated into the game; what looks like a pointer can be seen in the battle shots. The article promises that the game will detect the sword strokes made by the player, with the direction of swing apparently matching the players action.

How well the first person swordplay works could well be the critical factor in the success of this game.

The game's 3 companions are also pictured, choose from soldier Dean, fatherly Boudo, or monk Seteia, who appears to have skipped on the brown cloth tunic and gone straight for the traditional pink bodice and leather wrist strap. We know who we'd choose.

Dragon Quest Swords is penciled in for a July 12 release (Japan).

Speaking at a fancy launch event for the European PS2 debut of Dragon Quest VIII: Curse of the Enormous Subtitle, the project lead, series producer and generally creepy looking guy Yuji Horii talked about everyone's favorite wand-waving wonder and the implications it might have for the gamer. He expressed excitement at the Revolution's interface, noting that the feedback one gains from playing with it would be very rewarding to players.

"You do something, and it reacts to you. It's human nature that to have some feedback from your actions is rewarding."

While it's important to point out that just about every game on every console provides feedback to your actions, the point Mr. Horii is no doubt trying to make is that your motions with the Revolution controller will directly correspond to the on-screen motions of your character. Dance Dance Revolution is one game that does exactly that, no doubt the reason for my chronic addiction to it.

So, does this mean we can expect a Dragon Quest game for the Revolution? According to the Eurogamer article, that's "TBD" (to be determined). Well, at least that's better than a "no", right?