YMMV / Dragon Quest Swords

• Catharsis Factor: After the sheer hell that the last few mirror bosses put you through, it's utterly satisfying to take up the Deathbringer's Sword and utterly crush every enemy in your way. Upgrade it to the Deathbringer's Shade and even the Mirror Bosses will fall to your sheer, overwhelming power.
• Fridge Brilliance:
  • Though it may be an oversight, it makes perfect sense that Absolute Zero is a far better Master Stroke to use on Xiphos the Deathbringer (and by extension Edahs Sohpix) than Figure of Fate. Xiphos is a monster with fish-like traits. Fish don't do so well against the cold.
  • The Deathbringer's Shade being the strongest sword in the game and having Figure of Hate as it's Masterstroke implies that you upgraded the sword from Xipho the Deathbringer's to Edahs Sohpix's. After all, Edahs Sohpix is Xiphos Shade spelled backwards and the designs match up corresponding to each character.
  • Nomeg and Salta aren't just neat references to past games, it also references how both their respective games have a final boss who is heavily associated with darkness, which also applies to Edahs Sophix, a black Palette Swap of Xipho's true form whose attacks are also darkness themed.
• Fridge Horror:
  • In each of the Mirror Boss fights (aside from Edahs Sohpix), you fight each of them in an alternate version of Avalonia. Considering how no NPCs of any kind are seen and how powerful each boss is, it does beg the question: Was this an alternate universe where Xiphos somehow won and conquered all of Avalonia?
  • Just how powerful is Edahs Sohpix anyway? His attacks hit like a truck and his Figure of Hate would enough to kill The Hero several times over. The Deathbringer's Sword and it's upgraded form make even the Sword of Kings, the Metal King Sword, the Dragovian King Sword, the Zenithian Sword, the Dragon Warrior's Sword and even the Rednusadner you're given to combat Xiphos himself look insignificant in comparison. Hopefully this Hero won't allow himself to be consumed by the darkness in his heart.
• Nightmare Fuel:
  • Xiphos' Figure of Hate attack, first off, Xiphos becomes dark red and grey, which makes him looks like he's covered in blood, slashing at him causes dark energy to come off him which makes it look like he's bleeding. That's in addition the the imagery and Scare Chord after the attack is finished.
  • Getting Swallowed Whole by Valgirt or his stronger variant Valgirt Nedlog, which is an instant kill, if you aren't fast enough.
• Older Than They Think: Dragon Quest Swords isn't the first time the series has done this kind of motion control-based adventure; that honor instead goes to "Kenshin Dragon Quest: Yomigaerishi Densetsu no Ken", a Japan-only plug-and-play TV game published by Square Enix in 2003, three years before the Nintendo Wii made motion controls commonplace. It was a retelling of the original Dragon Quest that involved using a toy sword as the motion controller, a toy shield as the console, and a toy book as the memory card.

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