At Tokyo Game Show, after giving us some screenshots, some gameplay footage from Dragon Quest Heroes was shown. There’s commentary explaining the game, similar to Nintendo’s Treehouse Live broadcasts at E3, however, the commentary is all in Japanese. That won’t stop us from enjoying the footage, though.
Dragon Quest Heroes is a Musou-styled game, so it’s like Hyrule Warriors, except it combines Dynasty Warriors elements with Dragon Quest. The gameplay is very familiar; you go around as various heroes and fight hordes of enemies.
The video is rather short, clocking in at just four minutes and change. It starts with the player taking on his first swarm of monsters. Lots of familiar Dragon Quest baddies are there: Slimes, Drakees, Brownies, Skeletons and Magicians are the most noticeable, and they appear to be led by what looks like a giant Green Dragon acting as a boss type monster. The player uses various special moves to take down the horde and then continues to attack the dragon, mostly targeting its tail and head, which seem to be its only vulnerable points.
After clearing the area, another wave of monsters appear. More Drakees, Skeletons and Magicians, this time accompanied by a couple Golems. In this fight, the player enters Super High Tension mode — something that should be familiar to players of Dragon Quest VIII — and decimates every single monster there.
There was actually a party of four that was fighting the monsters. It wasn’t clear whether we were being shown a multiplayer mode, or if this is a feature in the main game. Nor was it evident as to how much control the player had over the other party members. If you do get to control a full party, this would be a divergence from most other Musou games, where you play as a single hero at a time. The party also included a healer (aka, a Healslime) so it appears monsters can join you as well.
And of course, the classic battle themes were played during the fights, with the first wave being fought to the original Dragon Quest battle theme, and the second fight accompanied by the Dragon Quest IV battle theme.
Dragon Quest Heroes will be released in Japan in 2015 for the PS3 and PS4. While there is no plans to bring this game to North America, there has been increased chatter regarding more Dragon Quest games coming Westward so hope is not lost. The game really looks like a lot of fun, and being a longtime Dragon Quest fan, this is one I’d like to see come over.
You can watch the video for yourselves below, and let us know what you think of the game in the comments!
