Not the series specifically, but other series that incorporated the game’s style and aesthetic, converting it into something new. The industry does this all the time, but it seemed as if nobody could find a way to make the Minecraft style work in a way that is new. Well nobody could until Dragon Quest Builders.

For those who aren’t aware, Dragon Quest is a long running JRPG series that has seen many console generations, and many fans, but don’t let that discourage you. Even though I only played my first Dragon Quest game recently, about the only thing the game appeared to share is some world elements such as monsters and character design.

The game has you play as a protagonist who wakes up without any memory. Pointed to a town, you discover ruins, and nobody knows, or can even comprehend, building anymore. Though this plot element gets loose at times, the general gist is you enter the ruins of a town and show people how to build. You keep rebuilding the town and recruiting until the town gets a high enough level to advance the plot.

The minute to minute gameplay is identical to Minecraft, though in third person view.

You can hack out dirt, and stack it, build tools to get better minerals from rocks, make better tools and furniture. It differs though with nuances such as blueprints to help build specific structures, and the leveling system.

The building area levels up as you build new things, such as empty rooms or bedrooms. These can be done on the fly, for example you may build an empty room, then put the right objects in, and it becomes a basic bedroom. As this is done it will level your town up, via new rooms, more advanced rooms and structures, and placing fancy objects around the place.

As you level up the story continues, where eventually you move to a new chapter, where you basically start again but in a different location with different objects. To fill in time you will be able to do side quests which will reward you with things such as new recipes or new members of your town. These are entertaining until combat is involved.

Combat in the game is terrible. Running around and slashing, while trying to avoid enemies is boring. Fortunately, if you build enough defenses a lot of the attacking challenges will be done for you. Completing side quests, or even exploring means you need to get stuck into the bad hacking and slashing.

Another issue the game has is with its camera angles. Because it is in the third person, when you move into rooms, the camera can sit uncomfortably outside meaning you can’t see your character. You can then change the zoom, but then the camera can wind up stuck in wall. Generally, this isn’t too much of an issue, however small rooms with roofs can be painful.

A mechanic I would have been happy to see the creators not pull from Minecraft would have been the hunger mechanic. Where your hungriness is represented with pictures of bread beside your health. If it drops to zero, you start losing health. It’s an unnecessary thing to worry about during the game, but it’s not a big deal as cooking food is easy enough.

The most interesting thing the game does though is mix the Minecraft blocky aesthetic for the world, with the Dragon Quest / normal objects looking as you would expect in any other game.

Minecraft kept it all blocky, so to see blocky mixed with normal proportions is different, but awesome.

[rns_reactions]

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Ok, before we go any further let’s get one thing straight, despite what the visuals may initially imply, Dragon Quest Builders is not Minecraft in the Dragon Quest universe. While some elements have certainly been inspired by Minecraft, Dragon Quest Builders sets out to be something very different to the indie phenomenon.

It took me a while to fully appreciate this. My initial impressions of the game were luke-warm because my automatic reaction was to compare everything to Minecraft, seeing any departure in formula as a flaw. When I stopped comparing and started to see the game for what it really is, I started to fall in love with it.

Dragon Quest Builders revolves around two things, completing quests and building a town. Both aspects of the game are done exceptionally well, the latter of which can be particularly addicting and time consuming despite being largely optional.

The story is rather simple and has a fun light hearted tone to it. You play as Builder of legend who possess the ‘power to build new things from raw materials’. While there is unlikely to ever be a Marvel comic series around such powers, the power is rather advantageous and critical in a world where everyone has long forgotten how to do so.

The rather absent villain in the game is the Dragonlord who has brought darkness across the world. Despite being the main villain, the Dragonlord doesn’t get much screen time for a large portion of the game. Instead there are miniature villains along the way who make up for the absence.

The story is split up into four different chapters. Each chapter involves going to an island, building a town that the remnants of human race can call home and banishing the darkness that plagues the area. While you are unlikely to get engaged with story, I found myself getting somewhat attached to the towns including the characters that live there. Leaving a town once you clear out the darkness is every bit as heart wrenching as it should be.

The upside though is that it stops things from getting stale. Having to start completely fresh, lets you experience that awesome feeling of building up a town from nothing all over again. Each chapter also has a very distinct flavour to it, coming with its own set of environments, resources, craftable items, characters and problems. Exploring and experiencing all the different lands never ceased to be exciting.

Town building is fun and addicting although a bit restrictive. You create rooms. What you put in the rooms determines the function of the room. Put a crafting device and a treasure chest in a room and your townspeople will start crafting stuff. A few beds and it’s a bedroom that your people can sleep in.

The limits in which you can build something that contributes to the town is rather small. This means you must be selective about what rooms you build as well as how big you build them. The variety of rooms you can build in each chapter is also somewhat limited and there isn’t too much room for experimenting to try and find new room types.

What you will spend your time doing though is improving the rooms and creating an awesome layout. There are numerous types of decorations and other bits and pieces you can put into a room. Doing so can improve the room that are there, providing additional bonuses for the town or in some way improving the function.

Doing all this contributes to leveling up the town. There isn’t a reward for leveling up the town, outside of getting a quest to do so, which is rather disappointing. Also, the level maxes out very easily. Still, this didn’t stop me from spending way too much time improving my town even well after maxing out the level.  It is just way too addicting.

Crafting makes up a major component of the game. Completing quests and improving the town revolve heavily around it. They have taken a very user friendly approach when it comes to crafting. As you discover new items and progress in the story you unlock recipes. To use said recipe you go to the relevant crafting station and select the item you want to create, assuming you have the resources first.

If I had to fault it, I would say the crafting system is a little bit too heavily reliant on story progress. Even if you have the resources, your character may not think of what they can use it for until it is required in a quest. This comes down to the rather linear gameplay direction the game has taken which in fairness does make it very accessible.

Dragon Quest Builders is an extremely fun and addicting action-RPG that mixes fun building elements similar to that of Minecraft with some good old fashioned RPG questing. The game is very user friendly which plays out through the linearity of the game. This linearity, although perhaps not for everyone, actually is one of the games strengths, giving a sense of progression and allowing new things to constantly be thrown at you. While I expected to like Dragon Quest Builders, I didn’t expect to become as addicted to it as I did. Although it wasn’t really on my radar, it will go down as one of my surprise favourites of 2016.

The post Dragon Quest Builders (PlayStation 4) Review appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

Generations ago, the realm of Alefgard was plunged into darkness when the hero fated to slay the terrible and treacherous Dragonlord, the ruler of all monsters, was instead tricked into joining him. Through this vile villain’s magical machinations, mankind was scattered to the winds and robbed of the power to build. With even the idea of creativity relegated to mere legend, the people of Alefgard wander the ruins of their former home, scrounging and scavenging in the dust to survive.

But now, a legendary figure arises – a hero chosen by the Goddess herself – who sets out to return the power of creation to the people of Alefgard. Only when the wonder of imagination has been returned to the land will mankind be able to overthrow the evil Dragonlord once and for all!

In Dragon Quest Builders, players are tasked to construct a wide variety of structures as they receive ever-more extravagant requests from expectant citizens eager to find a new home. Explore with the freedom of sandbox gameplay, combined with an immersive and charming Dragon Quest story – battling with iconic Dragon Quest monsters and interacting with gorgeously designed 3D characters along the way.

With an intuitive control system, Dragon Quest Builders will have you building the towers and castles of your dreams in no time!

Dragon Quest Builders will release on PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita (digital only).

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