Dragon Quest Treasures Assessment | TechRaptor

It’s been nearly 4 years for the reason that West has seen the discharge of a brand new Dragon Quest game. Whereas Dragon Quest XII and Dragon Quest III HD-2D are within the works, it’s seemingly going to be some time earlier than their launch. And so, the discharge of Dragon Quest Treasures is one which I anticipated eagerly ever because it was introduced throughout the sequence’ Thirty fifth-anniversary Livestream. 

This spin-off starring Dragon Quest XI’s finest boy (other than Sylvando, in fact), Erik, and his youthful sister Mia, is sort of loosely associated to the mainline game, so even a whole Dragon Quest newcomer would have the ability to decide it up and play. That being mentioned, the game performs nothing like the normal JRPG method that’s normally there, so if the turn-based fight’s been steering you away from the sequence, Dragon Quest Treasures serves as entry level.

The (Treasure) Hunt Is On

We begin our journey aboard a Viking ship, the place pint-sized Erik and Mia are planning their escape as a way to go on an journey to seek out treasure of their very own. To help them in fleeing are Purrsula and Porcus, a flying cat and flying pig who make them discover two mystical weapons referred to as the Dragon Daggers. The daggers teleport the quartet to the land Draconia, whose treasure-filled lands at the moment are for Erik and Mia to loot.

Quite a bit finally ends up occurring within the first couple of hours of Dragon Quest Treasures. You turn into rivals with a pirate gang, restore a practice station, and befriend two slimes, Oozabella and Goonther, who be part of your celebration. Sure, trademark of the Dragon Quest video games, the puns are bountiful. There’s quite a bit you’ll be launched to within the preliminary 5-10 hours of the game, so there’s a lot to take pleasure in, however as I progressed past that 10-hour mark, my pleasure started to wane.

I used to be fairly excited concerning the new fight system in Dragon Quest Treasures. It takes a web page from Dragon Quest Builders and goes the hack-and-slash fight route and provides a bit extra aptitude with the catapult, which is actually only a slingshot. I’m unsure why they referred to as it a catapult, however there are many pebbles, pellets, and projectiles which you’ll both discover by chests and pots, or you may craft some pellets of your individual. 

Most of them are watered-down variations of the standard Dragon Quest spells, such because the Zap or Sizz pellets which inflict elemental harm on enemies, however a few of them turn out to be useful elsewhere. For instance, the Buddy pellets assist increase your probabilities of having the ability to recruit a monster (extra on that later) after you defeat them. There are even therapeutic and mana pellets. Since long-range weapons are extra my model, and since I identical to the concept of throwing rocks at your enemies, I made superb use of the catapult. 

There are just a few different cool mechanics, corresponding to pinching, by which you’ll steal an merchandise off of an enemy supplied you get the timing proper. In case you don’t pull it off efficiently although, you may find yourself angering them. There’s additionally the Dagger Gauge, which fills up with each hit you land on an enemy. As soon as it’s full you should use it to land a particular assault with one of many monsters in your celebration, or unleash Erik or Mia’s “Wild Aspect,” a state the place your pace and energy are enhanced.

Issues to Dig and To not Dig

Proper now you is perhaps questioning, “Erik or Mia? Aren’t they purported to be adventuring side-by-side?” I, too, thought the identical factor, however no, you may solely management one sibling at a time, whereas the opposite stays again and does their very own factor. Whereas it’s good to have the ability to choose between the 2, there isn’t actually a novel side that they’ve that may lead you to wish to swap between characters. Even their degree of expertise is the very same as the opposite. It positively looks like a missed alternative to do one thing extra with the duo.

Talking of missed alternatives, whereas the departure from turn-based fight is a welcome change, the hack-and-slash fight is extraordinarily barebones. You may’t do something like sprint or soar assaults, and all you may actually do is mash the Y-button and sometimes dodge. Fortunately, and in addition unluckily, your different celebration members will go battle on their very own, however they may also go and battle each single enemy they arrive throughout, no matter their degree. In the event that they find yourself taking a serious hit, they could lose what treasure they have been carrying and also you’ll have to return and decide it up once more, and in the event that they die you’ll have to return and revive them or go to the closest campfire. 

And right here’s the place I discuss Fortes, particular talents that every one monsters should allow you to traverse the land. There’s gliding, sprinting, launching, and extra. Every monster solely has one forte although, and every of those has a stamina bar, however what’s worse is that in addition they have a cooldown timer. Even for those who don’t find yourself utilizing the Forte for the complete period of the stamina bar, the cooldown would be the identical quantity each time. 

There are a whole lot of these kinds of inconveniences within the game which may not seem to be a lot, however find yourself actually testing your endurance. One other instance is the journey system in Dragon Quest Treasures. You’re meant to assist restore the varied practice stations all through Draconia, and that’s how one can journey from one space to a different rapidly. You should utilize a Chimaera wing that will help you get again to base with all of your treasure in tow, however there’s no different manner of quick touring. There’s additionally a restricted quantity of treasure that you may carry at a time, so this implies it’s important to journey again, drop all of your treasure, after which set out once more. After some time, it will get fairly repetitive and grindy, and also you’ll actually start to want for some quality-of-life options.

For a game about treasure monitoring, it appears fairly important to have the ability to put down markers in your, whether or not that is to mark a chest to come back again to later or keep away from a sure space due to the high-level enemies. Oddly sufficient, there isn’t any such factor, and there are solely markers on the map for quests that you have come throughout.

Coming again to the monsters, in Dragon Quest Treasures your celebration is made up fully of monsters, and you’ll select who you wish to recruit. Every monster has various stats, spells they’ll use, and pursuits in treasure. It’s a sturdy system that encourages you to mix-and-match, as your celebration line-up can have an effect on what sort of treasure you’ll discover in accordance with the treasure forecast. Ultimately, you may even ship out groups of monsters to go treasure searching on their very own. 

X (Virtually) Marks the Spot

In fact, I haven’t actually talked concerning the precise “Treasures” a part of Dragon Quest Treasures in-depth but. Draconia is a land crammed with huge riches, together with the seven legendary Dragonstones. So, other than looking for tons of treasure, you’re serving to Purrsula and Porcus discover these stones. There are a number of various kinds of chests yow will discover, and your celebration of monsters can assist you discover most of them with their ‘treasure imaginative and prescient.’ When you get shut sufficient to a bit of treasure, you’ll have the ability to use their treasure imaginative and prescient to find the place it’s. 

Now, Dragon Quest Treasures isn’t the prettiest-looking game on the market. While you examine it to the final Dragon Quest game on the Swap, Dragon Quest Builders 2, it appears to be like like a PS3 game. The textures are low-res and the environments are fairly sparse. So, if you take a look at the visions that your monsters are having, they aren’t precisely serving to you out a ton. Particularly if it’s a Dracky that’s colorblind, or a Hatwitch whose imaginative and prescient is obscured by their cap. More often than not I simply ended up utilizing the dagger’s compass for treasure or simply ended up winging it and conserving an ear out for the sound of treasure.

Not like the sound of treasure although, the soundtrack isn’t precisely essentially the most nice factor to take heed to. There’s an absence of authentic music on this game, and for the reason that Dragon Quest video games have a repertoire for reusing music I might be happy with it if it have been a minimum of the orchestral model, however the MIDI model can actually get grating at instances. 

That being mentioned, there’s nonetheless quite a bit to stay up for on this game. Getting my treasure appraised was all the time thrilling, and I may really feel my dopamine ranges rise the upper the worth would go. It’s additionally a pleasant contact to have a whole lot of them be objects and statues of characters from older Dragon Quest video games. There are six totally different areas to discover with every of them being their very own form of open-world, very similar to Pokemon Legends Arceus. I loved amassing elements and recipes to create new dishes to feed to my monster buddies, and discovering all of the hidden nooks and crannies for treasure was fairly satisfying. 

There’s additionally on-line play the place you may arrange treasure hunts for different gamers and go on hunts made by them. You aren’t utilizing the precise treasure that’s in your vault for on-line play, however a reproduction as an alternative. Dragon Quest Treasures can also be now one of many handful of video games that don’t require a Nintendo Swap On-line subscription to entry its on-line options.

Dragon Quest Treasures | Remaining Ideas

Dragon Quest Treasures is way from an ideal game, but it surely’s nice for scratching that itch for Dragon Quest. There’s no dearth of content material on this game, and also you’ll simply get 30-40 hours or so out of the game. It’s a cute game with some enjoyable mechanics however not one of the best execution. If laidback treasure-collecting and monster-recruiting are what you’re searching for, then Dragon Quest Treasures is your finest guess.

TechRaptor reviewed Dragon Quest Treasures on Nintendo Swap with a replica supplied by the writer.