First things first – if you didn’t sing the title of this article, I’m disappointed. Second, since Dragon Quest Builders 2 was released last month, I’m going to talk about the original instead because I refuse to follow the bandwagon and also I have basically no knowledge of the sequel, whilst I spent a ridiculous number of hours playing the original. So, if I was to describe the Dragon Quest Builder games, the most appropriate description would be where Minecraft, Dragon Quest, and Harvest Moon had a weird love child that nobody expected to be as good as it was. Although I’ve only actually played one Dragon Quest game from the main series, it’s a game that I frequently come back to and replay, so when I spotted this spinoff in the Nintendo Switch store, I was intrigued.
The game splits itself across several “chapters” that have you traveling across the realm, helping fight off monsters and rebuilding the society that has been consumed by darkness. The evil Dragon Lord has conquered the world and taken away the resident’s ability to build and create. This means that it is up to you, the hero, to rebuild their cities, dispel the darkness and eventually defeat the Dragon Lord once and for all. This mostly results in you doing various tasks for the villagers, painstakingly recreating blueprints and hoarding every resource that you can get your hands on. The characters you help are remarkably likable (except Rollo, screw that guy) so the tasks feel less like fetch quests and more as if you are actively improving these people’s lives.
The game has a good balance of resource gathering, construction, and combat. Alongside the main questline, each island has a series of optional objectives available to you. Some of them involve battling dragons, others have you helping a friendly mob build a garden. Although they are not revealed to you until you complete the chapter for the first time, it adds a nice layer of replayability to each set of islands, as well as ensuring you pay more attention to the next chapter, now that you know roughly what to look for. Some of the combat encounters are tougher than others but running away like a coward is always an option (except boss fights). One of the first things the game teaches you is how to craft health items and food, which ensures that you don’t die a horrible death in the wilderness.
Like any Dragon Quest game, you can equip armor, weapons, and tools to help you along your way, although in this case, you must craft them using gathered materials at specific stations. For example, you couldn’t smelt metal on a workbench, so you better get to building that furnace! The further into the game you get, the more complex the stations you’ll require to complete your tasks – don’t fret though, the game never gives you more than you can handle and you can always view exactly what you need for the recipe. Rarer resources can be crafted into stronger armor or different weapons that can be used to take down specific enemies, really nothing you haven’t seen before.
Dragon Quest Builders is a remarkably calming game, an experience that you can actively lose yourself in for hours at a time. I didn’t quite realize it until I looked up from my Switch once to realize that it was 2 am and I’d been playing for four hours straight. I am particularly fond of building up my little town in each chapter to perfection. Depending on what you build in the town, you gain “points” and your town can level up. It doesn’t have a major impact on your game but there is something very satisfactory about having well-constructed rooms and defenses to keep out the various critters that like to attack you in droves. Plus, it does make completing the main storyline easier as you can skip any “level up the town quests” and finding space to build a new room is a lot simpler.
Like many games in the “building” genre, it has a creative mode. This allows you to build and travel to the various islands you’ve visited during the story, as well as craft all the items and rooms you unlocked. The more of the story and the side quests you complete, the more is available to you to play around within the creative mode, which really encourages you to get the most out of each world. Now, I’m no master builder like those who build to-scale recreations of various world landmarks in Minecraft, but I do enjoy putting my own twist on more simplistic creations such as a house or a garden. This game allows me to do that, alongside stabbing the occasional monster and blowing up various bits of the landscapes with my homemade bombs. Although I’ve never fully completed the game itself, I have sunk a lot of time into it, and I’m genuinely excited to get my hands on the sequel.
Any game that brings that element of calmness to you is a good one in my opinion. Often sections in games can be stressful and tense, requiring you to step away for a while to calm yourself and fully appreciate what you just experienced. I love those moments but sometimes, I just want a game that I can throw myself into and just relax with, rather than stressing about the anxieties in the virtual world as well as my real one. I think Dragon Quest Builders fits that, with its cute art style and enjoyable gameplay mechanics making it a worthwhile experience, especially if you have a Switch. It’s the perfect game for on the go and doesn’t require much thought to be put into enjoying it, so you can play for a bit on the train and walk away without worrying about forgetting crucial clues or plot points.
Anyways, I hope you enjoyed this little piece on Dragon Quest Builders. Up next, the Five Nights at Freddy’s franchise and how the lore behind it brought together a community. Remember to follow the site, like the posts and comment below any suggestions – or tweet them to me @OurMindGames
Until next time,
CaitlinRC