I’m a huge fan of the Dragon Quest series, though I have never dabbled in anything DQ outside of the gaming arena. I think most of the DQ games have consistently delivered a healthy amount of narrative while balancing themselves on good RPG-driven gameplay. In short, I have never walked away from a DQ experience feeling short-changed by it, and I was hoping to keep it that way with Dragon Quest: The Adventure of Dai, a game based on the anime series.
Dragon Quest: The Adventure of Dai delivers an intriguing storyline revolving around the stolen memories of Dai, our hero of the title, that was brought on by a final battle at the beginning of the game. Those stolen memories set the tone for exploring and journeying through several storylines from the anime series while trying to bring with it a gameplay structure that helps magnify the entire experience.
While reliving and exploring those storylines is fascinating, and fans of the anime series will love it, it seemed to leave little room for the gameplay design to settle, which means that the actual action RPG portion of the game isn’t quite as fulfilling. Because of this, the game feels imbalanced from the start and seems more determined to tell its story rather than deliver a fun and meaningful gameplay experience that complements the anime series. And that is a shame because the game had room for both.
On that note, let’s get this quest going.
What does the game want to be?
While the story is quite good, as is the ultimate setup with the loss of Dai’s memories and collecting and experiencing them, how that setup is executed is somewhat shallow and mid-tier at best. While there is no doubt that this is driven by an action-RPG backbone, the game wants to tell a story more than it does provide a good amount of action. The action comes in short stints in between many videos. For the hours I put into the game, I spent a good chunk of them watching videos to catch up on the next action-driven part. I don’t mind watching cutscenes and experiencing the story, but this seemed top-heavy in that respect. Imagine that you’ve ordered a meal and the waiter spends a good deal of time explaining how your meal was cooked, when you get the meal, it is in small portions that you finish within 10 minutes, and the next meal comes with another explanation ready to go with little content behind it. That’s pretty much how Dragon Quest: The Adventure of Dai feels when playing it. Of course, you get a lot of those tiny meals, but nothing particularly quenches your appetite along the way, at least not enough to make you want to return to it.
And those small portions are plain in design. While the levels seemed beefy and explorable, the gameplay leading them was linear and restrictive. You will run into small pockets of enemies during levels that lead up to one big mid-boss or boss encounter. As the scenery changes, and you progress in the game, the structure established stays pretty much the same. It really wants you to experience a heavy amount of action, but seems hesitant for that to last too long, and seems like it would rather tell you the tale of Dai instead. I’m completely pro-story when it comes to gameplay, but not when it sacrifices the gameplay excitement and depth to keep the gamer wanting more.
When the gameplay is available and running, it’s nothing particularly special, which can be a good thing, especially for today’s modern action RPG. The action is simple, where you’re running, dodging, blocking, and pulling off offensive moves that are executed by assigned singular buttons on the controller. It works like the attack system in Final Fantasy XVI, where it is a simple button push to keep the action moving. That’s a great concept to work with for an action RPG environment. This produces strategy, which is led by positioning, and defense/offense that is given enough time to work out on the fly. More importantly, having a simple action scheme ensures that buttons don’t get in the way, something that some developers tend to overthink and then over-execute. Anytime you can avoid an overly unnecessary attack system in an action RPG, it’s a big win. You want your player focused on the action and constantly feeling like they’re a part of the battle. Games like what you would find in the One Piece series have thrived on this for years. Beyond the basic button assignments and execution, you can gradually build up your power meter during these fights and pull off a special animated sequence move that causes a lot of damage. It’s a varying meter that has different tiers of attacks and it makes the action moments a lot more interesting, at least visually.
Now, the game does its best to make you feel like you’re playing a complicated RPG experience. You acquire Bond Memories as you progress that enhance your character’s abilities. Those buffs help with the action and prepare you for bigger battles waiting for you down the road. You will need that ‘extra’ for larger brutal battles and the fact that you can assign multiple bond memories to a single player as you level up helps to make the action part of the gameplay far more interesting. It also relates to the story, which is the focus of the title, and which helps push the narrative even further.
The game adds an extra element of intrigue by throwing in additional modes, such as a trials type of mode where you can go through a maze of several rooms packed with enemies and contains a boss at the end that is waiting for you. Regardless of that additional mode, nothing else sticks and makes the experience something that is solid and meaningful.
The problem with Dragon Quest: The Adventure of Dai is that it seemed confused about its purpose. Did it want to tell a story first and bring an anime series type of experience or did it want gameplay to drive it all? More importantly, why couldn’t it feature both sides evenly? The pieces are there to create this wonderful narrative that could share the space with a healthy and bigger action RPG, but it never gets to that middle ground. It never finds its footing completely and when it does the action underdelivers when compared to the story it is trying to push. The fact that there is more time spent on video cutscenes and beautiful storytelling rather than gameplay is telling about its intentions. Because of this and the somewhat pedestrian execution of content and action, Dragon Quest: The Adventure of Dai shows exactly where the game’s priority seems to lie, which is the wrong way to go when you’re trying to bring a meaningful interactive experience. Outside of visual novels, games are meant to be played, not watched.
Ultimately, it’s heavy on story and short on gameplay, which is where you don’t want to be when trying to push an action RPG out to the world.
Presentation
Gorgeous presentation, per usual for a Dragon Quest title. Driven by the artwork of Akira Toriyama, it’s no surprise that the characters delivered, such as Dai, have a fair amount of emotion and expression, even when it’s over-the-top. I love how this game looks and how it visually connects with other Dragon Quest titles out in the world. If the game was judged solely on visuals, then this title would be a 10 out of 10. The visuals are fun, dramatic, and a nice addition to a game that needs a strong positive.
On that note, let’s wrap this review up.
Conclusion
Dragon Quest: The Adventure of Dai contains some simple positives, especially when it comes to delivering a dramatic and fun anime series storyline. Sadly, the gameplay does not complement that storytelling and falls short in content size and portions. Even the inclusion of RPG elements, such as Bond Memories, can’t seem to lift the action and prop it up to a higher Dragon Quest level that most of us are used to seeing.
