Building a Better World in Dragon Quest Builders - Preview
by VGChartz Staff , posted on 28 September 2015 / 6,037 Views
Dragon Quest Builders is Square Enix’s attempt to fuse the exploration and construction based gameplay of worldwide phenomenon Minecraft with its own insanely popular Dragon Quest series. Seeing as I have never played Minecraft or a Dragon Quest game before, me getting my hands on an early build of Dragon Quest Builders on the Tokyo Game Show floor is akin to someone who has never tried chocolate or peanut butter biting into a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup.
I took control of a hero character while a booth attendant guided me through the demo build. I started out by opening a chest and removing the vast contents within. From the item menu I selected the plans for the construction of a hut. I laid the floor plan down then began to build walls around it using the basic block materials in my inventory. In order to place a second layer of blocks upon the first layer I had to press the L1 button to raise the target reticule. Once that was done I placed a desk, a campfire, and a door in the hut before it was completed. World building elements such as these reminded me of those found in the original Dark Cloud game on PS2, which is my closest point of reference for this type of experience.
The game also features combat of course. After equipping a weapon such as sword or a staff, pressing the Square button executes a basic melee attack. Such attacks can break down objects in the world around you into raw materials that you can harvest. I found one of the game’s trademark slime creatures and collected its residue, which when combined with a certain plant creates medicine that can heal your character. You can play the game from a behind-the-back third person perspective or switch to a top down grid by view holding down on the right analog stick.
Wandering around some more I encountered new monsters to battle. My guide led me to a small dungeon area embedded within a mountain where I found another chest with loot. Pressing X causes you to jump but in order to aide in reaching otherwise unreachable platforms I placed new blocks in the environment. I made it all the way to the top of a mountain, using the view from the summit to survey the entire play area before jumping from the high peak. This unexpectedly but understandably led to my death and so I decided to end my time with the demo there.
Dragon Quest Builders takes Akira Toriyama’s iconic art direction and shrinks it down to chibi-like proportions. If the game can capture even a sliver of the Minecraft or Dragon Quest fan base it should become a solid hit for publisher Square Enix. From what I played, the game seemed both charming and accessible. It remains to be seen if there is enough depth of freedom to create on a scale seen in Minecraft, but its bright and colorful veneer certainly gives it an instantaneous level of appeal.
Dragon Quest Builders will release on PlayStation 3, PlayStation Vita, and PlayStation 4 in 2016.
