Some titles for Nintendo's popular white box flabbergast players with the innovative and intuitive ways in which they allow us to interact with the game and immerse ourselves in the experience.

Others, not so much.

Sadly, Dragon Blade: Wrath of Fire, a cliché-ridden fantasy action game in which players step into the boots of an average villager turned reluctant world savior, falls into the latter category.

Using the Wii remote to swing a fiery sword that occasionally morphs into other things -- like a giant flaming fist -- sounds promising. All the more so since, unlike most Wii fencing titles to date, Dragon Blade actually maps weapon movements to player movements rather than just registering shaking actions to perform quasi-random attacks. Indeed, on paper, the interface mechanic was probably meant to provide an experience in which the hero's sword arm would almost perfectly mimic the player's Wii-remote wielding arm.

In reality, however, swinging the game's titular blade is an act of frustration. First issue: Players have to be extremely disciplined in their movements. The Wii-mote, after all, has a tendency of catching casual movements -- like, say, shifting the remote to set up for your next attack -- and registering them as swings you didn't intend. And that leads to the second problem: Once you've started an attack, there's no way to stop it. If you've accidentally put together a combo you didn't plan on, or if you'd rather stop and alter your attack to meet a new threat, you're out of luck.

Making matters worse, the action is framed in a bland and forgettable narrative that's presented via white text in black boxes -- even during many of the game's most dramatic sequences, which has the effect of making the characters feel paper-thin. The lackluster graphics don't help to flesh them out, either. While not ugly (at least not by Wii standards), the character models are the opposite of stylized; they're as plain and unmemorable as the story. Ditto for the world they inhabit.

Still, things never get bad enough to qualify Dragon Blade as a complete disaster. It's unexceptional and occasionally aggravating, but still playable.

That said, Dragon Blade: Wrath of Fire does beg the question: Why bother? With the extraordinary roster of extraordinary games available for the Wii just now -- the likes of Super Mario Galaxy, Zack & Wiki, Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn, and Guitar Hero III --, most players will be hard pressed to just get through the extraordinarily essential games, much less the disposable titles like Dragon Blade: Wrath of Fire.