Dragon Quest VI: Realms of Reverie Hands-On

Dragon Quest VI: Realms of Reverie wraps up the Nintendo DS remake trilogy that had been announced in May of 2008. We haven't been given a North American release date yet, but the Japanese version is about to come out soon, so we can only hope that the English version is on its way. The game looks and plays just like the previous two games, so there's probably not much to expect in terms of surprises. We weren't able to talk to an English-speaking rep at Square Enix's Tokyo Game Show booth, but we've played the previous two games and can probably assume that Realms of Reverie will follow the same path.

There were two save files to choose from, so we decided to start from the beginning, even though we had no idea what would be taking place. Our hero, a blue-haired individual with a shiny sword was sitting by campfire and joined by a couple of his friends--a muscular guy with a purple Mohawk and a young blond woman. They eventually made their way to the edge of a cliff, and while a storm was raging in the background, the woman used some object to call a gold dragon as if it were a taxi. The three of them hopped on and headed toward a castle that was located at the top of a mountain and surrounded by jagged rocks.

Once we were inside, we ventured through the elaborate corridors of the castle and arrived at an empty throne room. The storm was still raging outside, but a strange mist was permeating through the halls, and it was obvious that something was about to happen. A demon with yellow eyes suddenly appeared in the chair, and our trio was then picked up by an unknown force and teleported into another realm. When our hero awoke, he was lying on the floor of cozy home nestled in a small village. His friends were nowhere to be found, so we wandered around the village for a bit before we decided to jump into the other saved game, which put us at level 27.

At this point in the game, we were reunited with our friends and had another wizard tagging along, as well as a wagon. We wandered around the plains until we encountered some enemies, whom we disposed of relatively quickly. The combat and exploration were exactly the same in the previous games, so there will be a lot of walking around and fighting enemies from a first-person view.

Dragon Quest VI has the same watercolor art style as the previous remakes and looks great when the action spans across the dual screens of the DS. We don't have a North American release date yet, but we'll keep a close eye on this one and have a more detailed hands-on down the road.