Square-Enix talk Dragon Quest Wars

When Dragon Quest Wars was first announced, we thought it would be a good idea to get in touch with the developers to find out more about the upcoming game. We caught up with Taichi Inuzuka, producer of Dragon Quest Wars, and he was kind enough to answer a few of our questions in this exclusive Nintendo Life interview.

Unfortunately the game saw a rather quick release and due to certain scheduling conflicts we are just now able to put up the interview. But for those of you that are still curious about the game, you can find out what Mr. Inuzuka had to say about it in the full interview below.

Nintendo Life: How did the idea of combining the Dragon Quest universe with a grid-based strategy game come about?

Taichi Inuzuka: It has long been my hope to create a simulation game with DRAGON QUEST, but it has been difficult to put things together. However, this time, we could partner with Intelligent Systems who has a proven track record with simulation games, and the plan came together.

Choose your team!

NL: Can you tell us a little bit more about the actual battle system used in the game?

The battle system for this title uses a turn-based strategy battle engine. Six different monsters are available, and the player chooses four monsters among them to assemble a squad. Each monster has various skills such as attack, defense, support and so on. The player chooses each monster's action during the strategy turn, and they will do the designated actions during the battle turn.

One of this title's features is that a monster's action will affect all monsters (both enemy and your team monsters) no matter what. For example, if some monster performs the action to stop target from casting spells, it will affect to all monsters in that action range. Thus, high-level strategy is needed while it still has simple gameplay. And unexpected things will sometimes happen.

Select your attack

NL: Were there any new monsters created specifically for this DSiWare release?

Inuzuka: Since the game system is completely new for DRAGON QUEST fans, we dared not to create new monsters, and only used familiar monsters.

NL: What are some of the advantages/disadvantages of creating a game on the DSiWare service as opposed to a retail release?

Inuzuka: The biggest advantage was that it is absolutely clear that the users are in an environment able to access Wi-Fi (If users cannot access to the Wi-Fi, they cannot download this game to begin with). To make good use of this advantage, we could create a game focused on Wi-Fi battles as a main element. I would say the capacity limitation was the only disadvantage. But we just needed to do things we could do within the limitation, so it did not become a big problem.

Fight!

NL: Since the soundtracks have always been such an integral part of the Dragon Quest series, can you tell us a little bit about the actual musical score in Dragon Quest Wars and who composed it?

Inuzuka: Same as for the past DQ series, Mr. Koichi Sugiyama is the composer. Like monsters, we selected music which suits the atmosphere of this tile from among the soundtracks of past DQ series, and used them in this title.

NL: Is the game controlled completely by stylus, or will there be a standard control system using the d-pad and buttons implemented?

Inuzuka: Yes. The control for this game is by stylus only.

NL: Is there any chance we might see add-on content made available for this title, such as maps or additional monsters?

Inuzuka: We do not have any specific plans for that, but we would like to consider it if we receive many demands from the users.

It's getting nasty now!

NL: Is there anything you'd like to tell our readers about the game in closing?

Inuzuka: DQ Wars is created only after the fun element of "think and play." At first, you sort of just have a "win and lose" feeling, but you'll be able to battle against foes with reading into the next step and next step after repeating the battle. From that time, the true point of this game starts.

We'd like to thank Inuzuka-san for taking time out of his busy schedule to do this interview with us and we look forward to his future projects.