The idea of an RPG collectathon is pretty neat and I liked how you used your monsters to traverse the world, but the game just falls flat in so many places. Combat is dull since most of the damage is done by AI controlled monsters, there are only like 15 different varieties of monster to recruit in a game about exploring with a custom party of monsters (there are like 70 total monsters but most of them are just recolors), and some of the super important legendary story treasures you need to beat the game are just laying around in the overworld with no plot attached to them. It kind of feels like the game was rushed out to meet some kind of deadline, which is really weird since Square Enix released a bunch of other low-budget JRPGs (Valkyrie Elysium, Star Ocean 6, Harvestella, DioField Chronicle, etc) within a few months of this game. It hurts to rate a DQ game this low since it still oozes charm and I enjoyed playing it, but it's by far the weakest DQ game I've played, spin-off or otherwise. It's not a bad game and I'd still say it's worth checking out if you like the idea of it, but don't go in expecting too much.

I went from Snack World to this game and hell, the jump makes the other one look worse. This game feels going on adventures, gathering treasures and building a reputation.

Is simple, but with an great game loop, with a really well designed semi-open world(s) for you to lose on it and do all quest when you need. Hell, I think that you can find some of the main treasures before the game tells you where they are.

It doesn't have the level of a main Dragon Quest, but I went to this game already knowing that, is a smaller and experimental spin-off like the ones done during the GBC-DS era and I love it.

super fun game, sorta wish they went more all out.

the midi music is such an annoying cop out, the selection of monsters feels a little basic (especially with the really cool and extensive swathes of treasures), the story ends right when it feels like its getting in gear.

fully recommend though, basically a big dragon quest sandbox. as usual fun gameplay, fantastic voice acting, cool visuals.

a sequel could be truly killer, maybe taking place after xi? i'm sure a sylvando cameo alone would push ten dragonqeustillion units sold

The best compliment I have for this game is that I have this hope that this is going to be the start of a whole new side-series for the Dragon Quest franchise and that we eventually get a sequel that irons out all the rough spots. This game is oozing with charm and they found the ultimate chill formula where you boot it up for a while like "hmm perhaps I will dig in the dirt in the volcano region this time", but unfortunately the actual game mechanics feel a bit undercooked.

I'll start with the story, since it really is the thing that tricks your brain for the first couple of hours that you're in for something amazing. Erik and Mia from Dragon Quest XI, through the use of a magic talking pig (named Porcus), a magic talking cat (named Purrsula), a stolen boat from a band of vikings, and a pair of crystal daggers, are transported into a Sorta Treasure Island Sorta Peter Pan-type world called Draconia that's built on the corpses of two colossal dragons Xenoblade Chronicles style and populated by friendly monsters. After going through literally the only dungeon in the game that isn't a series of small rooms, Erik and Mia end up helping a magic railroad run by several living suits of armor (one of the suits of armor is purple with flowers painted on her left pauldron to show that she's a girl armor) while they collect the Seven Colorful Dragon Stones and find Literally Treasure Island before a cool-as-hell pirate skeleton named Long John Silverbones does the same.

And they collect treasure along the way. Lots and lots of treasure.

The plot never gets more complex than this, but I embrace the simplicity. Captain Long John Silverbones is the main enemy of the game, remains the main enemy of the game, and never has a motivation more complex than "I want treasure". He doesn't even have a second form in his final boss battle AND he lives so you can interact with him in the post-game! For a Square-Enix JRPG, that almost feels illegal.

This game also wins points for falling into my favorite specific type of Dragon Quest spin-off; the playful monster-collecting game that adds some painful dramatic irony to the events that occur in the numbered titles. I love that I can run around as Mia, focusing only on treasure, surrounded by dragon magic, and traipsing around on giant piles of gold in my hideout full of monsters while all the adults around her tell her that she must collect ALL the riches in the world. I'm sure this won't awaken anything sinister in her, much like I'm sure that Terry DQ6 had a perfectly happy life after Terry's Wonderland.

Okay, I'm done praising the game. It's Unfortunate Flaws Time. Notice how pretty much every review of this game mentions how bad the combat is? I cannot understate this - the combat is pretty damn awful and probably one of the most barebones thing I've seen in this genre for a while, especially from an action RPG made by Square-Enix. About five hours in, it really began to dawn on me that Erik/Mia do not change equipment at all in this game where I'm supposed to be hitting things in real time and that's when The Horrors set in.

You see, Squeenix decided to be innovators and stick to a Slingshot-Based Gameplay style that just feels awful to use. Erik/Mia are stuck with a slingshot and a tiny little knife for the entire game's runtime and it's about as fun of a Game Feel™ as you would expect. You can't even really do anything cool with the slingshot beyond "get better rocks". Your healing and buffs? Also rocks! While your monsters move around in battle, you have to awkwardly aim your slingshot in real time and pelt their asses with Healing Bullets, which means that you're just SOL in case you want to apply any buffs to yourself.

Luckily, you do have your monsters. Once you get past the disappointment that you only have about 17 monster families and their recolors to choose from for a grand total of 74 buddies, the monsters are really fun to collect and battle with. For the most part. Since this game's command list is very limited (you just have "Attack!" and "Come to Me!" as commands), this means boss battles with more sophisticated strategies beyond "hit until enemy falls down" will often leave you with a wiped party because all of your dumb friends stood directly in the line of fire. This can and will be a problem in the later portions of the game.

I do like these little guys though. Sure, some of the monsters have really annoying voices (I'm looking directly at the Hades Condor line, the Killing Machines, and the Girl Slimes when saying this) and they all have a tendency to repeat their lines constantly but I like collecting monsters, hanging out with my monsters, recruiting monsters, and assembling a team of monsters that can best traverse the landscape. There's a lot of personality here.

They even added a DQ version of the Pokemon Shinies where occasionally, a monster will spawn in the overworld and it could be wearing a hat! Yes, this means that you can Shiny Hunt in this game with it's entirely RNG-style monster recruitment mechanic (you befriend monsters by hitting them with Buddy Bullets with your Slingshot and hoping they're charmed by your plucky kid charisma), and yes, you WILL watch that rare King Slime But With A Viking Helmet disappear without joining your party.

But then you'll find a Crystal Bikini and it lessens the sting a little.

In short, fun little game. Repetitive, yes. Needed more time in the oven, yes. But damnit, I get a thrill out of hearing the corpse of a long-dead king go "My kingdom...destroyed" while his teammate turns to look at him with his round Toriyama eyes before saying "I'm jelly happy indeed!" as a ten year old slams a dagger in the dirt and unearths a statue of a character from a game that never received an English localization. It's a bit lacking in substance, sure, but I'm also glad this game exists and I'll probably spend more time than I'm willing to admit just in the Shiny Hunting.

I've already found a Killing Machine in a white top hat.

Also, a quick side-note. While I know that Koichi Sugiyama died in 2021 and it was most likely during production of this game, the asset-recycling in the soundtrack is so insulting. Most of the music in this game is lifted directly from Dragon Quest Builders 1 and 2 or from Dragon Quest XI and I'm gonna be real, I'd rather have a new composer actually write new music than whatever they went for here.

I respect this game for knowing when to end on a proper final boss after the collection of all the dragon balls it outlines at the start, but the core concept of collecting treasures is simply not rewarding enough to keep you engaged.

To it's credit, it's called Dragon Quest Treasures not Monsters, so the lackluster enemy and by extension tamable monster variety can't be too responsible for its average quality. There are plenty of treasures to collect, beyond statues of series protagonists & weapons, there are gags that hardcore fans will chuckle at their inclusion. However reiterating my main point, you'll be watching the "digging up treasure animation" 200 times too many in a single playthrough, when what's inside the chest is just a numerical representation of your progress to the next story objective being easier to reach.

The story starts off charming enough, but in my opinion doesn't lean into its world and characters both original and returning to warrant any amount of emotional investment, if you're into that sort of thing. Maybe my sights are set a little too high for a series that spins the European Accent Roulette Wheel at every opportunity, but this game presented concepts that if properly explored, would've been welcomed to incite the player to keep progressing.

Combat once you understand it's shallow depth boils down to playing support for the toughest team of monsters you can muster, using your wellspring of wealth to purchase buffing bullets to assist your allies (see, I can write for these games). Then when the moment is right, burn special meter to bomb the entire arena, leaving you wondering exactly who thought the combat was a good idea.

This game is a fanservice title in everything but name and branding, but where the service lies is just not engaging enough even for hardcore fans to want to wade through to appreciate. I can't recommend this game to anyone but those inflicted with the most severely affected with Dragon Quest 11 brainrot. I enjoyed playing it, but was gradually worn down by the end that I was glad it was over.

My initial thoughts of this game were that if was poorly designed (graphically it is vastly worse than what 11 looks like) and had unfun combat. After getting past the tutorial I did actually start enjoying it a lot since finding thousands of small references to past games was fun, I was able to really start exploring, and I realized combat wasn't actually important outside of boss fights since most similar level enemies are easy to beat in a few seconds. Treasure hunting is the main attraction and it is fun when it comes to that but there were still flaws like needing to backtrack often. The repetitiveness and the way it was designed to be played just a little bit daily hold it back. It made it hard for me to actually want to reach the end. Overall it is a fairly nice spin off that is fun for a while but not something that can really hook most people.

I don't think I have it in me to finish this game.

As far as presentation goes, it has that nice whimsical charm that dragon quest tends to have. The colorful landscapes, Toriyama's pleasant designs, the slimes making gooey puns.

But from what I played, you're given the gameplay loop fairly early on and while it is simple, I feel like it could've worked well if only controlling the characters felt better.

The options you're given for traveling are as frustrating as they are convenient. These options are tied to the three monsters you go on adventure with. For example the drackies can be used for gliding for a short time, slimes can be bounced on for higher jumps and sabrecats are for a speedier riding option. The problem is that these abilities are on cooldowns and stamina. You can only ride the sabrecat for a couple minutes before its stamina says you can't, then you have to wait a few minutes to ride it again. There also isn't really a fast travel outside of running to an active train station to move to another, and a consumable resource to even get to your base without losing the treasures you've collected.

As for combat, it's a quickly tiring loop of either hitting monsters with a simple slash combo or shooting pellets at them while your monster friends just attack them automatically. It stops feeling engaging very quickly.

Overall there was potential for the game to be a pleasant easygoing time-killer, but the game has a few underwhelming aspects that just make it not fun for me to play.

Dragon Quest Treasures is... all right but nothing special. It has the charm of Dragon Quest, it has the cool monster designs, it has some fun moments, but most of the time I found myself either bored with it or when there was a lot of combat actively disliking it. The core gameplay loop of going to a map collecting treasures and managing your team and then going back to base to get rewards works kind of but the bad menu navigation and the bad combat hold it back for me. I also didn't enjoy the game getting a bit grindy towards the end. For me, it was just a mediocre experience overall.

This is a fun, cute game that will appeal to fans of the DQ and especially the DQM games. It feels a bit like a mobile game in a good way, like it's a great game to relax with after work or on the train. Not too deep, but lots of fun things to do. And unlike mobile games, no microtransactions. That said, it's not a $60 game. Grab it when it goes on sale. I've seen physical copies for around $30 which is what it's worth IMHO.

The monsters are gorgeous, especially the new jewel ones. I just wish the new DQM Dark Prince game looked as good (the demo is out and it looks worse than the 3DS games).

Dragon Quest Treasures is a nice, chill comfort RPG with an addicting gameplay loop and decent fanservice through historical references to previous Dragon Quest games, but the combat half of the game is underwhelming.

Playing as child Erik or Mia from DQ11, you run around large, if barren maps filled with secret chests and enemies to battle and recruit, following your compass to dig up treasure. You have a ton of mobility freedom, letting you explore without risk of hitting invisible walls, using the various movement powers your party of monsters to climb cliffs or explore hard to reach caves.

So far, the game sounds good, but the combat is a real bust. Its very much hands-off for the majority of the game. Erik can shoot rocks at enemies for minor damage or slash away with a weak dagger, but your automatically controlled monsters do all the work. It's just waiting for them to kill the enemies, until late game bosses continuously one tap them. But in the late game, expensive sling ammo that does tons of damage is available, making that the new strategy.

So you spend all game training up a team of monsters to do all the work, only for them to be mostly useless at the end of the game. That's a flaw that cuts deep into the game, because that's really the only customization you get.

If you want a chill, relatively easy RPG that's easy to pick up and play for 30 minutes before bed, this is it. You're always accomplishing something, and you can save anywhere. Just play it for the comfy Dragon Quest atmosphere, not for rock solid gameplay or graphics above 3DS level. Worth 40 bucks at the most, and it's annoying Square keeps pricing games made on shoestring budgets like this, Valkyrie Elysium and Harvestella at 60 bucks.