Dragon Quest Builders
- Genres : Adventure, Simulation, Action, Role-Playing
- Publishers : Nintendo
- Developers : Square Enix
- Players : 1
- Consoles : Nintendo Switch
- Languages : Spanish, French, English
- Release date : February 09, 2018
This game is just my discovery from last year. It was given to me for my birthday while I was looking for a Minecraft like. And I have to admit that I fell in love with this game: Dragon Quest Builders.
But… what is that game?
The first thing that comes to my mind when answering this question is: “It’s so good, you have to buy it! It’s a gem, I loved it so much!”
As you may have understood, I will be absolutely not objective concerning the game. To answer truly to this first question, I would say that Dragon Quest Builders is a game that cleverly combines the positive points of multiple games.
It’s a completely free in a Minecraft sandbox style building game. But it’s also an action/RPG Zelda like game and it has also small hints of games like Age of Empire in the way that you have to defend your buildings from attacks of the monsters.
All what I love in a single game.
In short, the concept of the game is to rebuild a city from scratch and freely. As you go along the storyline, you will unlock new zones and new building elements.
The monsters that inhabit the region will also become more and more stronger and daring! So think about the fortification of your city.
It’s a really complete game on which I spent a lot of time… I am always happy to pick it back up from time to time.
The story in Dragon Quest Builders
It takes place in four stages: three chapter and a final chapter.
Each chapter takes place in the same way, you start from scratch to build a city and help the inhabitants. Each city possesses completely different inhabitants and stories. As such, we don’t get bored from one chapter to another. The crafting possibilities are also different from one chapter to another and I really loved to learn new plans and recipes.
Your cities will often be under attack from hordes of monsters. Those attacks will represent an achievement in the story that will allow you to improve your buildings for example.
As such, the research for material phases will be intermittently cut by building phases, combat phases or small cinematic sequences. This principle makes the game very dynamic. The chapters will be concluded by a boss fight.
When you finish the first chapter, you unlock a new completely safe zone monster wise that will allow you to build without risking any attacks.
The gameplay
It is well thought out and quite intuitive. The game is really thought for playing on the console be it on your TV or in the portable mode on Switch, the game stays fluid.
Getting started is super quick be it for the building or combat phases.
The inventory is a little small, but the issue is quickly solved by crafting the colossal chest that will give you access to all of your resources the entire time.
The items allowing you to teleport yourself to your last saving point are also a huge benefit… Especially when you get easily lost, like me…
The graphics, the music and the game’s ambiance
Yes, yes, all of that in the same place.
So in a first time I would like to say that I never played a single game of the Dragon Quest series. I know, I know, it’s an error, but I didn’t have the budget for it and I am going to catch up with the number XIV on Switch. I already pre ordered it.
Let’s go back to Dragon Quest Builders. The game recovers the graphics, the music and the bestiary of the dragon quests. And that is normal, because it is a spinoff of the main series. But that also signifies that it is nice work. Let me explain.
The graphics and the characters are designed by Akira Toriyama, the designer of DBZ. I loved the series when I was a child and today, I still love the series as much. So I enjoyed finding similar designs in Dragon Quest Builder.
The sound ambiance and the music comes from the main saga. They are nice and well adapted to the game.
The bestiary, also coming from the series of the Dragon Quests, offers a large inventory of monsters to fight and contributes to the depth of the game.
It really is a whole that makes the adventure particularly enjoyable.
In conclusion
Dragon Quest Builders is a very well thought out game that offers in my opinion a similar experience to the one in Minecraft, but with more fun. Careful, I love Minecraft, but always having to look at how to craft an object end up by annoying me.
In Dragon Quest Builders, the creative process is simplified and I appreciated that aspect of the game. One can, thanks to the recipes, easily craft a lot of things, as easy or hard as they can be.
The adventure mode pushes you to discover an open world full of secondary quests that will come and enrich your adventure.
I really fell under the charm of the game. The only negative aspect is the absence of an online or local coop mode. So I give it the grade of 19/20. But Dragon Quest Builders 2 will be released in July 2019 on Switch and has an online coop mode.
Of course I pre-ordered it.
And you, do you know Dragon Quest Builders?
