Dragon Quest Swords: The Masked Queen and the Tower of Mirrors (Wii)

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Dragon Quest as a series has always attracted children, and Dragon Quest Swords: The Masked Queen and the Tower of Mirrors is based on a Japanese children's toy that never made it across the ocean to U.S. shores. It shouldn't surprise you then that this Wii game is built to be simple, with role-playing trappings that are superficial without being completely tossed aside. It succeeds at entertaining you in spite of this simplicity and sometimes exactly because of it, but the developers seemed to know when its welcome would wear out and that's right where the game ends.

Strap on your Wii remote, because swinging, poking, and waving wildly is the demand of Dragon Quest Swords and you don't want to send your controller zipping through a window. Hand and arm motions mimic sword slashes and shield blocks, visible on-screen as directional cuts or thrusts in completely action-oriented combat. The shields come in various sizes and shapes but degrade as you use them. Monsters follow unique attack patterns, but conveniently line up for you to attack them singly or in groups with bonuses and bragging rights for chained hits. These very basic actions are a pleasure to perform as you pile up the slime carcasses with deadly efficiency.

You move around using an awkward combination of the d-pad and B-trigger. In town, your movement is unrestricted but there isn't much to do, while dungeons follow a set path with an occasional branch leading to some optional treasures. As you press forward, fights kick off in traditional Dragon Quest style, with monsters appearing out of nowhere followed by a quick interface change to combat readiness as the music swells. Crazy Akira Toriyama-designed foes then happily hop in, ready to kill you. These monsters have a charming, whimsical look with a bit of the absurd thrown in to keep you off balance.

Character designs are a highlight of this brief sword-swinging simulation. The aforementioned Toriyama has long been associated with this series' traditional entries -- soon to reach number IX -- and his presence as character designer almost guarantees a certain amount of interest no matter how the game plays. Toriyama is revered for his smiley-faced slimes and silly bosses, which cut against the traditional fantasy grain by lampooning the entire genre. At the same time, his monsters evoke no real sense of danger, and the characters on the side of good show a wide range of emotions and often even exhibit more human-like traits than some characters appearing in more serious fare. It's a triumph of design over technological sophistication on a system that trumpets that message to everyone.

It's too bad then that there's just not enough game to recommend this to anyone beyond their teen years except for Toriyama's fans. You can quickly clear all the "dungeons" in a day or two -- eight to 10 hours ought to cover it easily. Replay value comes from attempting the levels multiple times for higher scores. In that way it's something of an arcade and role-playing game hybrid, and there's nothing else like it. The story is a passable coming-of-age affair like so many Japanese role-playing designs before it, but once again Toriyama's characters help it rise above complete mediocrity. The translation is also better than average, though some characters are just way too talky for their own good. When the dialogue drags on, the game breaks down. You want to slash more slimes but there's drama that needs to play out between you and Fleurette, the perky girl seemingly straight out of a burlesque show -- who just happened to have been a nun before she left town to help her brother. The game is crazy like that, with one squat, older shop keeper who calls you "lover" and another that's a very masculine female, for example.