Dragon Quest Wars

Nintendo exclusive

Dragon Quest Wars is a turn-based strategy game played out across a number of quick and challenging rounds. The player will pick four monster playing pieces to battle on their team, with Dragon Quest superstars Slime, Dracky, Hammerhood, Healslime, Chimaera and Golem all available to choose from. Played across a table-top style arena the ultimate aim of the game is to battle and defend against the opposing team to advance to the other side of the arena.

Released: 24 June 2009
Platforms: Nintendo DS
Genres: Board game Quiz Role-playing Strategy Turn-based strategy Turn-based tactics
Developers: Intelligent Systems
Publishers: Square Enix
Series: Dragon Quest
Modes: Multiplayer Single-player
Perspective: Bird view / Isometric
Country: Japan
Age ratings: ESRB E ACB G
Languages: English Japanese
Time to beat: 2hmain story5hwith extras8hcompletionist
Composers: Koichi Sugiyama

About

Dragon Quest Wars is a 2009 turn-based strategy video game developed by Intelligent Systems and published by Square Enix for the Nintendo DSi via its DSiWare download service. It is part of the Dragon Quest series and supports up to three other players in multiplayer.

Keywords

anime
magic
horse
grid-based movement
free-to-play
tactical turn-based combat
polygonal 3d
nintendo wi-fi connection
survival mode
training mode
dsiware

Media

The articlegameplay, story, development, reception

Gameplay

Dragon Quest Wars allows up to four players to battle one another with four monster units each on a four-sided battlefield made up a squares. Battles during the game are limited to five to ten turns. Players move units by touching and dragging them using the DS stylus. Commands are issued to units also by touching and dragging them onto a unit from the bottom of the screen.

These commands are color-coded and include red (physical attacks), green (recovery), blue (defence), and yellow (magic). Each monster unit has between one and three hearts. These hearts deplete as monsters are attacked, and when they reach 0, the monster walks off the field. A player can win a battle either when all enemy units are defeated or if one of their units crosses into an enemy's base.

Development

Dragon Quest Wars was developed by Intelligent Systems as part of a collaboration between Nintendo and Square Enix for Intelligent Systems to design six video games for Square Enix on the DSiWare service. As with most other games in the Dragon Quest franchise, development on Dragon Quest Wars was supervised by Yūji Horii, while Akira Toriyama and Koichi Sugiyama fulfilled their respective duties as character designer and composer. Producer Taichi Inuzuka states that has long been his hope to create simulation game (strategy game) with Dragon Quest. The developers wanted to design a game to "convey the fun of simulation games and to provide a gateway to users who’ve never played simulation games." Intelligent Systems previously developed the Wars and Fire Emblem series for Nintendo.

Reception

Dragon Quest Wars received "generally favorable" reviews, according to review aggregator platform Metacritic.

1UP.com editor Justin Epperson described Dragon Quest Wars as a board game, going so far as to say he wishes it were a board game so it would be more entertaining. He added however that it was definitely worth the price. Wiiloveit.com offered a high recommendation with a 24/30, praising the "surprising amount of strategy", as well as the "robust" online mode which "[brought] the title to life". Dragon Quest Wars was nominated for Game of the Year by Nintendo Power, as well as DSiWare Game of the Year.