Dragon Blade: Wrath of Fire

Dragon Blade: Wrath of Fire, known in Japan as simply Dragon Blade (ドラゴンブレイド), is a game for the Wii from Japanese developer Land Ho! publisher D3 Publisher. Dragon Blade follows a young adventurer named Dal who seeks six legendary pieces of the "Dragon Blade," each infused with the soul of different guardian dragons. In an attempt to build the ultimate weapon and vanquish evil, the young protagonist embarks on a quest to find and seal away each of the six dragons, taking their souls and abilities in the process.

Plot
The plot revolves around Dal and his quest to recover the six pieces of the Dragon Blade and vanquish the evil dragons that pillage the land. He is accompanied by a mysterious red dragon named Valthorian whose soul is the source of the Dragon Blade's powers. The plot was written by Richard A. Knaak, writer of Dragonlance novels. On a side note, the plot is similar to Christopher Paolini's The Inheritance Cycle, Richard Wagner's cycle of operas Ring of the Nibelung (Specifically its third part) and Lloyd Alexander's Chronicles of Prydain series.

Dal, a resident of the village of Gamar, is plagued by repeated dreams of himself wielding a fiery sword and being trained by a disembodied voice (serving as the game's tutorial). Upon awakening from one such dream, he is greeted by his fiance, Seri, who dismisses his dreams as the result of stress regarding their upcoming wedding. Suddenly, the village falls under attack by monsters. After instructing Seri to run and hide, Dal is drawn to a large stone by a disembodied voice. He is teleported to a hidden cavity deep underground, where the handle and hilt to the fiery blade from his dreams is located. He takes the blade, and the disembodied voice reveals itself as Valthorian, the fire dragon that took favor with mankind during a time of war and gave the forces of good the extra fighting strength to sway victory to their favor.

Angered by his actions, the other five dragons plotted against him, led by the shadow dragon Vormanax, eventually corrupting the six kings. Believing Valthorian was responsible for the invasion of their world, the kings rose up against him. Unable to harm the people he once loved and trusted, Valthorian was slain and his soul sealed into different orbs, pieces of the Dragon Blade. However, one of the kings, Jandral, had attempted to resist, only submitting after the other five pressured him. Regretting his role in his friend's death, Jandral fled to Gamar, where, having failed to free Valthorian, sealed his piece of the sword away before dying. For generations, Valthorian attempted in vain to reach out to Jandral's descendants, until he was finally able to communicate with Dal in the latter's dreams.

After learning of this, Dal returns to the village, finding it burning. Angered and empowered, he fights off the monster, but finds a mortally wounder Seri, who dies in his arms. Saddened by her death, he wanders into the area where the main leaders of the attack are residing. As it turns out, they had been searching for the Dragon Blade, which Dal now wields. Dal kills them, spending the rest of the day burying the dead. With everyone from his village gone, he sets out with the Dragon Blade, the piece containing Valthorian's mind, to slay the ones that destroyed his home and his love.

Passing through several lands, Dal regains portions of Valthorian's soul, which is won by slaying the five corrupted kings. The arms, tail, wings and head of Valthorian are recovered, as Dal slays each of the dragons. Upon reaching Vormanax, a great fight occurs, and in the end, Valthorian is revived and slays Vormanax, trapping his soul in the Dragon Blade to replace his own. After thanking Dal, Valthorian departs, entrusting Dal with ensuring that Vormanax does not escape from the Dragon Blade. However, Dal sees a vision in the sky of a still living Seri being held prisoner by a mysterious, shadowy figure. Valthorian realises that Vormanax was being guided by an even greater and darker force, and declares that is now up to Dal to stop this new threat.

Gameplay


The game is a Hack and slash game, mixed with Beat 'em up and RPG aspects, similar to God of War and Devil May Cry.

In the game, the Wii remote is used as the weapon held by the main character. At first, it is a sword that can only slash and defend, but as players advance, they gain more weapon transformations. Confirmed usable weapon modes are a dragon fist, two dragon fists, a dragon head, dragon wings and a dragon tail. There are twenty levels in the game, and five worlds (four levels per world). To fight, players can lock on to enemies and either shoot fire with the dragon head or do various close combat techniques depending on which weapon is being used.

Reception
The game received "mixed" reviews according to the review aggregation website Metacritic. In Japan, Famitsu gave it a score of one seven and three sixes for a total of 25 out of 40.