I won’t lie, I’m not a fan of Minecraft. I think it’s LEGOs for this generation, except with painful music to the ears and really no point. I fully understand that I’m clearly in the minority when it comes to this opinion, so you can bash me and I will fully understand. I’m telling you my feelings towards Minecraft because I want you to firmly understand that if Minecraft played like Dragon Quest Builders, I’m not sure that I would ever let my kids play the PlayStation 4 again because I would be hogging it so much.
Dragon Quest Builders gameplay is split down the middle, where you’re playing an honest-to-God Dragon Quest action/role-playing game with a good story, and which also contains a heavy amount of crafting and building in Minecraft-esque style. DQB’s ability to balance between the two halves is the reason it works out so well. I never felt like I was crafting/building too much, nor did I feel like it was being forced through the main story. It literally felt like I was getting the best of both worlds.
Let’s start first with the adventure.
The story of Dragon Quest Builders surrounds a builder that is awoken by a land’s goddess to help rebuild her fallen land and people. What has caused the destruction isn’t immediately clear, nor is it clear to the residents, but a potential villain named the Dragonlord probably had something to do with it. Regardless, your character is tasked with repairing the land, stopping the Dragonlord and bringing the land’s residents back to a normal life. You know, simple stuff.
Dragon Quest Builders’ story is progressed through its residents. As you begin to rebuild the city you’re residing in, you’ll slowly start gaining tenants that request things from you. Sometimes it’s as easy as going to search out material to build items, maybe something as simple as a furnace or maybe large steel doors. Other times you’re sent on a quest related to the main story to defeat giant bosses that produce nice things you can collect and use. Whatever the quest might be, the items involved in it are methodically put together to push the story along in one way or another. The tasks usually take between 10-30 minutes a piece, depending on the difficulty, but the outcomes are dragged on throughout the adventure. Square Enix did a great job of making the quests the right size and to reward the player with the right amount of goodies. The game is incredibly rewarding to the player’s efforts.
Speaking of efforts, the crafting portion of the gameplay design is amazingly rich and addictive. The tools the good folks at Square Enix gave you to use makes the collection of the elements quick and easy. For example, somewhere at the beginning you craft together a large hammer to bash pretty much every portion of the environment. You can bash trees, rock, statues and whatever you can find (including enemies). Early on, as you progress with quests, you’ll acquire a spin swing, which allows you to charge up your hammer and then spin powerfully in a circle knocking down tons of enemies and elements at once. This tool and this technique can get you elements quick, which takes away from any monotony that games in the same vein as a Minecraft create. It’s so freaking easy to acquire things and to collect, hold and distribute them that there is barely any effort put into the process. I never felt like collecting elements to create items was a chore, which was my fear going into this game. It felt quick, rewarding and the quests made me want to keep pushing to find new things. It was a rush going to search for new things because the game is built for you to find them easily, which means you can pound out quest after quest.
That’s what you want from a game like this.
Now, if you’re going to craft things in this game, you’re going to need a recipe of items to do it. Part of the collection of the game, which feeds the exploration of the title is finding and gaining access to new recipes, which equal out to new items. Each item you gain has a recipe attached to it, which allows you to replicate the item when needed. For example, if you need to build a steel broadsword, a recipe is needed, which details finding iron ingot, which is located in mountainous areas, then converting it over to steel using a mixture of iron and coal. Mixing those elements together equals out to steel, which can equal out to new armor, swords or hammers. The more recipes you find, the more items you acquire and the better the experience is going to be with Dragon Quest Builders. It’s a circular process that is, much like crafting in general in DQB, richly rewarding.
Okay, so what about the building portion of the game? The building is easy, though my only gripe with this game can be the camera angle when you’re doing the actual building.
The good first, though.
Once you find elements, craft them and produce whatever item you’re set to produce, take for example the steel door that I installed early in the game, then it’s easy to install. You can take that door, build a wall around it and then choose it from the options menu and place it nicely in the front of your structure. You can begin using it immediately, move it or scrap it. It’s just that simple to create and use your items. Individual creation and implementation of crafted items is a breeze.
Having said that, buildings have certain itemized requirements when it comes to being identified as a structure. For example, early in the game you’ll be asked to build a bedroom, which requires a light source (torch), a bed (a bed) and at least a door with two-block tall walls surrounding it all. If you don’t meet these requirements, then you don’t get credit for the build. There is a certain point scale allotted for certain builds with certain items in them. As you go beyond the bare minimum requirements, you will get more points. More importantly, you’ll get a cooler looking place — regardless of what it is to end up. It can be incredibly frustrating, though, if you miss an item and can’t recall what should be in the structure to legitimize it.
As you start building more and more structures, though, you have to make sure that each structure is well guarded. Enemies will randomly ransack your structures, try to break in and cause incredible amounts of destruction, which also causes you to lose room statuses. For example, there was a moment early on where I built most of my structure out of dirt. The dirt didn’t hold during the first wave of enemy attacks. The attacks are both optional (meaning, you can decide when to participate) and random (those butts attack during the day). Regardless of when or why the attacks happen, building the right structures with the best material will keep such things from occurring, while also adding another element of crafting decision-making to the game when you’re building these things. Overall, it’s another thing to make the experience deeper.
Now, the gripe I had earlier is directly related to building and can really bite the game in the butt at times. Most of the time it’s fine and manageable, but other times it’s a pain. This would be the camera angle.
The camera system in Dragon Quest Builders is free-floating, meaning that you have complete control over it. You can pan it, tilt it and sometimes, depending on the space, zoom into a first-person view or third-person over the shoulder look (generally that happens in tight spaces). The reason I bring this up when talking about building is because I had misplaced a bunch of building blocks during construction of structures thanks to a misaligned camera angle. I can’t tell you how many times I misplaced a block on a wall, had to destroy it and then place it again. It happened a lot. It drove me crazy at the beginning of the game, but I rolled over halfway through and exposed my belly (metaphorically) with it.
In addition, there are times where I can’t find a missing space because of the camera, where the view isn’t readily obvious because the camera is positioned wrong. This can prevent a room from becoming a room. It can also allow for enemies to find their way into a structure. The camera, bless it, can be just as harmful as it is helpful. It’s not completely frustrating, but it does guarantee a curse word or two during the construction process. With that said, I understand with this type of open world exploration and building that it needs to be off the rails and in the user control. It still doesn’t mean that it’s a perfect decision. Anyway, expect some frustration out of this part of the game, but nothing that will hinder the overall experience.
Outside of building, the exploration part of the game is quite good. Dragon Quest Builders gives some good freedom to the player to go off the tracks a bit and explore the land, sometimes finding hidden treasures along the way. I think I spent a good majority of my time exploring the land in between quests. I did happen upon some goodies, especially a couple that were hidden underneath a pair of very angry dragons. The land in DQB is really huge and it opens up very much as the storyline progresses. To help that a bit, you can acquire teleports in the game that send you to other lands, each featuring different elements to snatch up and a different set of enemies to come face-to-face with during your time. The multiple lands keep the story fresh and the gameplay design even fresher, so expect some real exploration and fun.
Speaking of enemies, the enemies are incredibly creative in the game. Scorpions, unicorn rats, blobs and other things like golems plague most of the landscape. When the day changes to night, you’ll find more powerful enemies and annoying ghosts with hats that follow you in hopes of eliminating you. The mini-bosses and bosses are surprisingly neat, though what I have run into thus far have not been too difficult. This game is made for a younger audience, so I would imagine that is a good thing. Anyway, you’ll find a bevy of baddies waiting for you around every corner. Eliminating most of them usually means good stuff to acquire, so taking them out will keep you motivated to keep going through the grind of enemy repetition.
Overall, the gameplay design for Dragon Quest Builders is a stunning balance of build and adventure. I was incredibly skeptical that the two genres would ever evenly mix, but somehow Square Enix found the right spots and put together one helluva package for Dragon Quest and Minecraft fans to enjoy. It’s really quite good and addictive.
As for the visuals, you’re going to be right at home with Akira Toriyama’s beautiful animation that you’ve come to know and love in the Dragon Quest series. The characters, even the enemies, are colorful, bright and visually intriguing. The world built for them is the same, and ever-expansive, meaning it doesn’t feel small to the eye at all. Everything visually built for this world encourages the gamer to go out and explore, so it’s right on par with the gameplay design.
On the music side of things, it’s equally as audibly fulfilling as the visuals are eye candy. It brings a good package of dramatic effect to the presentation, while not overdoing it. It works and kicks on all cylinders.
So, is the game worth it? Is it fun? God, yes to both. If this doesn’t get serious consideration for game of the year, I will truly be ashamed of the industry and its fans. It’s a gem. It’s a game that has come out of left field and it is more than just a simple cash-in to the Minecraft concept. It’s a masterpiece on multiple levels.
Anyway, onto the summary.
