Dragon Quest Builders

Build Build Build All Day Long!

I've never played Minecraft. I looked at it through PeanutButterGamers hardcore series and can see the appeal, but since I haven't had a decent computer or a stable internet it haven't been that appealing. And then SquareEnix releases a minecraft clone with Dragon Quest-skin and story mode? I've gotta play it. And play it I did. All four story chapters and a bit of the free all mode. And it was a nice little time. The story mode is about the Builder, the player avatar that is awakened by Rubiss, one of the main gods in Dragon Quest (I think, I haven't played the original 3 games). Rubiss tasks you to rebuild the lands in the wait for the hero to defeat the Dragon Lord. So you aren't technically the hero (like in Dragon Quest V), but you lay the foundation for the hero. And I get that the land is named after regions from the original three games or it might even be the original map. They reference Erdrick, the main hero from the trilogy and so on. Each special battle has the battle music and the spiraling graphics from the RPG at the start. And each enemy looks like the ones in the main series. And why I was probably more interested than in Minecraft, it looks nice.

The story mode continues in that you place a banner that crates a 30*30 square that you can build a small town in which level up with better materials or building certain rooms. A number of villagers appear (I think between 5-9 depending on the chapter) and you get quest like build them certain rooms, get certain materials or something else. That is really fun for someone like me that want a reason for what I do. Helping people works really great. In between there is some battles where you fight of the enemies that attacks your base. The first chapter is building up Caitlin (which I got is an important city in the main series). The second is a swamp where you try to fight of the Hades Condor that have poisoned the lands. The third one is beginning in a desert and learn special engineer things like cannons and a car. Which leads into the fourth chapter where you first need holy water to heal the land and then search for the banner of hope taken by the monsters to rebuild Tantegral Castle. And then gather the three sages in order to create the item that can take you to fight the Dragonlord. And of course getting the best armour and weapons so that you can take the beating. 

And that is the story mode. There is another mode, Terra Incognita, where the main thing is gathering the materials, build whatever you like and show it off for other people in some online mode. And that might be fun... for people with imagination. I played like 5 minutes and realised without the limitation to build a town within the 30*30 square and the villagers to do quest for, my interest dropped. But they have announced a sequel so I might look into that. And it apparently will have multiplayer. 

Now, I might play it again, but it was a bit lacking after the end of the story. But it was fun building the town... or more like fort and fight the boss. I think I got 3-4 levels at the most, but you really have to think to keep the wall secure and get everything in order within that. A problem though when you get exploding bombs in the fourth chapter that can completely destroy your inner rooms, even though the walls is made of obsidian, the toughest material in game (and they can take the blast, but the force goes right through it). Also irritating there isn't a fifth chapter that allows you to make everything you learned in all previous one. For example I can only build roofs in the second chapter and the engineer stuff in chapter 3. Basically chapter 1 and 4 are pretty similar. And the bosses are fun, although you really need to fail once to get how you are supposed to fight them. For example the Hades Condor needs to build ballistas. Well, since he only showed up at the front before the battles I built them there. Guess what, you were supposed to build them pointing backwards in the boss fight. A co-worker told me he actually build a ballista tower in the middle of the town over the flag. I had to destroy the roof of my hospital (which I was very proud of). Still, I had fun.