Once again, thanks to the one-two punch of Nintendo offering a demo and Amazon offering a discounted pre-order, Dragon Quest Builders has made it's way to my Switch. Usually, when I do these first looks it's only an hour because it's the amount of time I have on an average weekday to game. The problem with this title is the first hour is basically the demo and I didn't want to rehash what I have already talked about. So this time I set my watch for two hours and started playing Dragon Quest Builder by Square Enix.
The Experience:
The story goes that the world of man has been plunged into darkness by an evil sorcerer. The spell somehow caused everyone to forget how to create and in turn build things. Luckily a hero is woken up from their sleep and they can build crap from other crap and make more crap. The story isn't that strong so far but I am not sure Dragon Quest Builders is reliant on it anyways.
After a quick run through of the basic commands, you are allowed to leave the cave where your hero has been resting and claim the city that you will begin to start rebuilding. The game is very much a sandbox game like Minecraft but with much better graphics, enemies, and basically everything else. It is very objective based but how you complete those objectives is up to you. Think of Dark Cloud in that you need to make something but it looks the way you want. The only thing it doesn't have is a multiplayer mode but who needs friends?
At the very start you can only build a few things but every time you find something new you learn to build more. Completing the basic criteria for a room will cause the game to register that room and give experience to your city. There are NPCs who provide quests as well as build items while you are away using the forge or firepits you create.
From what I have read this game had some major slow down issues when it was first released. I have not run into this issue at all. The game has run fine and there is really nothing to report as far as bugs and glitches yet. The controls are solid and now that I have some practice I am not having an issue with dropping blocks. The music is nice and helps set the mood of the different areas. The combat is basic but responsive.
There is an issue with demos that I have not considered till I started playing Dragon Quest Builders. When the demo consists of something like the tutorial when you get the actual game you have to play through that part again. This made this particular section of the game drag on a bit and I was starting to feel some buyers remorse till I hit the first portal and actually got to go through. Another complaint I have is there is a lot of reading in this game. Some voice acting would have been nice. It's hard to focus the day after a celebration parade for your team winning the Super Bowl.
The game has got me locked in now. After a bit, you get a much larger inventory and the number of items really starts to open up. I feel like the game has caught a stride since this new area and I want to see where it goes. The story doesn't feel like its going to be the driving force of the game but the sandbox world will be. The constant drive to go further to build ever better stuff is the gameplay that sold me. I am two hours in and see myself doing quite a bit more before I turn off the lights tonight.
TL;DR:
So far so good. Dragon Quest Builders is a cleaned up version of itself that takes the core mechanic of Minecraft's sandbox world and expands upon it. With two hours on the record, I am feeling like I am going to enjoy this experience.
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