An interesting combination of the storied Dragon Quest IP with other gameplay influences that is a whole lot of fun to play despite some of the more glaring flaws.

Developer Square-Enix Publisher Square-Enix Franchise Dragon Quest Genre Builder; Role-playing PSTV No Physical English Yes – AS only

World-building & Story

Alefgard is overrun with evil monsters and its citizens are despondent and in need of help – you are the Builder sent to save the land and rebuild it into the glorious kingdom it once was. This is Dragon Quest Builders‘ pitch that frames what you’ll be doing throughout your 40 hour adventure, although the plot rarely evolves much beyond this.

The story actually follows on from one of the original Dragon Quest‘s endings – the hero of that game sided with the Dragonlord and each ruled half the land, only for the to be a trap and soon the land was overrun by evil. It’s an effective setting that’s well realised in the game world – the landscape feels dark and foreboding and texts are scattered around that you can read to get more perspective on the events that led up to this point.

Builders tells its story in chapters, each one focusing on a new town that has been destroyed and is required to be slowly rebuilt by the main character. This provides opportunity to introduce a new set of characters at each point and in general the side-cast are quite likable – little touches like them helping out when your village gets invaded helps endear you to them and they’ll offer various funny conversations along the way. Each chapter has a ‘main’ character too and these are the people you’ll form the biggest bond with – therefore you’ll want to help out just to ensure their safety.

At the same time, the chapter structure serves to cause a few annoyances too. Generally they all follow the same structure – there’s a threat to the land; you’ll undertake some tasks to help counter it; there’s some drama and then a boss is defeated. It becomes repetitive quickly – and the fact the over-arching plot is left so vague until the end too (you’ll be guided by a voice throughout who spouts important-sounding nonsense that adds little to the experience) left me wanting something a bit more meaty in the storytelling department.

With that said, Builders almost feels like you’re telling your own story – although the events are all pre-determined, the game does a good job of making you feel like you’re in control of shaping this land’s destiny. While the vagueness can be frustrating, it also leaves the focus on the gameplay – which is very much what Builders is about.

Presentation & Sound

Dragon Quest Builders is what I see as the very definition of ‘functional’ in the presentation department – nothing it does looks particularly impressive, but it’s all good enough to work in terms of what the game is going for. Some Vita-specific issues exist, that thankfully aren’t too major to negatively affect the overall experience.

You’ll spawn into the game world as a little chibi-esque character lacking in detail but cute enough. Things like animations are better – swinging your hammer to break rocks produces a satisfying crash while crafting items on the workbench sees your little builder go into a mini frenzy to create it. NPC’s are similar, looking fairly plain when you first encounter them but you’ll quickly grow accustomed to their mannerisms as they potter around town.

Enemies have a better attention to detail – it helps that a lot are based on now iconic Dragon Quest designs like Slimes or Hammerhoods. Many feel like a natural extension of the environment – trees come to life and attack by slamming the ground; rocky golems protrude out of cliff sides and fling projectiles as you walk past and each looks cartoon-y and colourful yet also intimidating and a danger to the player character.

Now obviously as a sandbox crafting game, Dragon Quest Builders had to have a certain amount of standard design to its environments – after all, you’re expected to smash it up and then rebuild it as you see fit. As such, the landscspes you’ll look out across are full of sharp edges; blurred shapes and a general low-poly feel. That’s by design – everything is made up of blocks that need to be easy to see so they can be effectively mined, but it does also leave areas feeling stilted and a bit dull, without the life that Dragon Quest maps usually have.

It doesn’t help that by a story-related design choice, each area is dark and gloomy feeling when you first enter it – something that improves as the game moves on but leaves a bad first impression. A few technical issues cause problems while exploring too – such as a questionable draw distance that has plenty of objects and textures pop-in far later than they should do, which was probably part of getting the game to run well on Vita (and generally it does maintain a steady framerate).

Yet in spite of these issues, there are moments when Builders shines. You might be running through a dimly-lit castle and get an immersed feeling like you’re actually there; or be exploring outdoors at night when a far-off watchtower catches your attention and cause you to detour to check what’s there. The game creates a convincing world full of little quirks and tiny details that makes it feel like more than just the sum of its parts.

Sound is a mixed package – there’s no voice acting which is practically a tradition for Dragon Quest at this point, but does feel like it could have enhanced the package. Effects are better with the wail of attacking enemies and the clatter of your items mining parts of the environment playing a large amount of the time. It’s the music that’s the most up and down though – at times it’s brilliant, like the Sims-esque main menu theme that’s perky and cheerful, but the rest of your time is spent with Zelda-esque adventuring themes that feel less exciting. It’s particularly troublesome that the same songs will loop endlessly when you’re in your village or exploring the world, which means monotony sets in too rapidly for comfort.

Soundtrack highlight – Menu Theme

Gameplay & Content

While it obviously takes its core idea from Mojang’s block-building phenomenon Minecraft, Dragon Quest Builders takes inspiration from a variety of places to create an interesting melting pot of ideas. They don’t all work and the end product can feel a bit disjointed at times, but it’s nearly always a lot of fun.

The game’s tutorial introduces you to its mechanics slowly – you’re the legendary builder capable of reconstructing the world’s civilization, but you first need to master the basics. Your character can run, jump and swing his weapon in the 3D environment – the latter of which serves two purposes. Of course, you’ll need to defeat the foes that litter the landscape (more on that later) but with your trusty hammer, you’re capable of breaking nearly any surface you see into component parts that can be collected and placed elsewhere to build things.

You’ll quickly put this to good use – after placing a banner in the ground at a designated site, you’ll be tasked with rebuilding a destroyed town into a prosperous settlement and attract new people in. This means you’ll need basic amenities – shelter from the monsters that attack at night; rooms where you can craft weapons and items and various other structures as required. By using the materials you’ve collected – earth; rock and bits of wood, you’ll be able to fashion a makeshift house that will soon get the attention of nearby people.

At the start of each chapter, Builders very much feels like a fight for survival. You’ll be surrounded by enemies and have nothing but your trusty tools to help fend for yourself – which creates a struggle to manage your time well enough to keep going. You’ll rarely venture out much beyond your little settlement but progression follows in a natural sequence – you’ll slowly craft better items which makes exploration easier, which can get you further afield to collect new materials to craft even better items – rinse and repeat.

A large amount of your in-game time will be spent undertaking quests for NPC’s, ranging from crafting a specific item to defeating a certain foe – or quite often, you’re merely tasked with gathering some of their belongings or rescuing a friend. In this way, the world feels dynamic and real – you’re always discovering new elements while still being reminded of the tragedy that took place here. The tasks themselves may become monotonous, but they’re kept interesting thanks to their context.

The focus on rebuilding a town works extremely well for Builders, giving it a cosy feeling not dissimilar to the one I experienced when first playing New Little King’s Story. You’ll quickly grow attached to your little village and the residents in it and the game plays on this – you’ll often have to defend it from attacks that happen both randomly and at various plot related points; and I always felt driven to try my best for fear of damage to the place I’d grown attached to. The end-of-chapter gigantic bosses add to this feeling even more, despite the slightly clunky mechanics involved.

Unfortunately, this is a great jumping-off point to the game’s first weakness – combat. While never bad, the battles in Builders never evolve beyond being simplistic attack-mashing and occasionally running away – while you do learn a couple of new abilities, they do little to alter the flow of combat. It doesn’t help that enemy hit-boxes are variable often making it difficult to judge where to stand while AI can be incredibly erratic too. It’s functional, but given it affects a decent chunk of the game it’s a bit disappointing.

Aside from doing quests and fighting, the majority of your time will be spent mining and crafting. The collection works great – you hit things with a weapon and collect the bits like you’d expect. The building is a bit more tricky, held back by some issues that make it less intuitive than it should be. You select items from your toolbar which you can then see in blueprint form in the world and can place with triangle, lowering or raising their elevation as you see fit.

Sadly, in practice this is imprecise at best and clunky at worst. There were plenty of times things moved at the last second so I had to demolish and replace them – the game’s focus on building on two tiers at a time also caused many un-necessary layers I didn’t want. It also didn’t help that you’re given blueprints to build that require spot-on implementation but are difficult to fathom at times; nor was it fully explained that there are limits to where your settlement can be built which I only figured out due to the music changing.

Still, for all that I moan about its flaws in this department – when it all comes together and you’ve got a flourishing town that’s truly your own, it’s a lovely feeling and one that kept me coming back to Builders. The mix of objective-based gameplay with more free-form elements works extremely well despite the rough edges, making it an addictive package.

There’s plenty more ideas throw in for good measure – in line with the crafting theme you can both fish (which plays out as a fairly standard reaction-based activity) and cook using the materials you collect, both of which play into a hunger meter which you’ll need to keep topped up. There’s also a ‘Terra Incognita’ mode that plays as a pure sandbox allowing you to build to your heart’s content – providing plenty more content beyond the 40 hours (split around 10 hours per chapter) found in the campaign.

Some more niggles I haven’t yet touched on exist – some quests bugged for me and having menu and select on the same button is a minor annoyance, but overall Dragon Quest Builders is a very solid and enjoyable sandbox adventure game – it’s just a few of the more glaring flaws could do with being ironed out to make the title an even better experience.

Conclusion

Taking the Minecraft collect-and-create template and applying it to the cosy village-building of New Little King’s Story, Dragon Quest Builders manages to feel familiar yet wholly unique in the same stride. While the story is a little sparse and the presentation could use some work, the core gameplay loop is incredibly addictive and fun making for a fantastic experience – just some quality-of-life issues with certain elements keep it from being a true classic.

8.0/10