There is a good monster collecting game in here somewhere, but its mired by the games excessive faults.
This game just feels cheap, of course its a spinoff series, of which the spinoff series was always originally on handhelds so of course it would not stand toe to toe with the mainline Dragon Quest games. However the transition to the Switch was faulty at best, and a complete floundering at worst. The Switch is a weak console, and this game was not prepared for it, with frequent crashes that interrupted gametime (Only saved slightly due to the frequent auto-saving), environments on some later worlds being very drab, and endlessly reused music from other Dragon Quest games instead of relying on new tracks. This game feels like a disappointment.
The story is a semi-retelling of DQIV through the perspective of Psaro, a fan favorite villain of the series and the central villain of DQIV. Though, the telling of the story leaves a lot to be desired. Psaro only having a voice when capturing monsters and not having a voice in the story strips the player of being able to get into his mind since he can't speak, and the game tries to present multiple points where you choose what Psaro says, but every choice is an illusion since Psaro is a pre-established character and you cannot alter his story by doing things he wouldn't do. This can be confusing at many points as you have to get into a silent protagonist's head to figure out what the game wants you to do, but he never tells you and so you will say yes to a dialogue option, only to have characters berate you because Psaro actually meant the other option. This impacts the whole story as they then need to have an abundance of flashbacks that do nothing for the player but stand in for Psaro's background, because he can't just talk about it since he's silent. Most of the worlds have alright little self contained stories, but each world is disconnected and you only get the pay off way later in the game, as a result, you do 6 introductions, 6 midway points, and then 6 separate conclusions to each world. Culminating in finally the ending of the main story that is admittedly not bad with some homages to the DQIV party. But the rest of the game can just feel like a checklist of things to do.
Taking us into the gameplay, where it feels like the monster collecting section of the game is off. While the start of the game functions fine, leveling your monsters, fusing them to get higher power talents and getting more talent points from fusing, and then using your new powerful higher ranked monsters to tear up the competition, the end game ends up being miserable despite this. This is due to the fact that every time you fuse your monsters, they are reset to level 1, which would work well, but they all gain experience at roughly the same rate, with small adjustment changes like you'd see from Pokemon. This proves to be a problem, since later on, it feels very tiresome to fuse your A rank, S rank, and X rank monsters for what amounts to very little actual power difference compared to your B rank monsters, especially when you have to re-level them all the way up after fusing, when leveling at that point will take a lot of grinding to get back up to the levels required of you by that stage of the game since ranks don't impact their experience gain. The main concession then is metal slime hunting, which is based on luck, or using a guide to hunt them down which is using outside information to limit your grind. Similarly, some of the fusions requirements for A rank, S rank and X rank are very obtuse and lead to frustration in even getting some of your A rank, S rank and X rank monsters, requiring a lot of fusing and grinding for the hopes of getting some monsters that barely out-perform B rank monsters, and will be weaker at level 40 than your level 70 B rank monsters at that point. The game is then more enjoyable with using the fan created guides and I'd recommend that, but it seems the game would rather you do something else... Giving into paying for the DLC that helps your grind. It feels like the game is trying to push you toward it, beause unlike SMT you cannot resummon previously created monsters, BUT you can buy the DLC that lets you refight monsters you already have in your compendium to recruit. How kind to put this behind a paywall along with the gold and EXP farming zones. Not predatory at all.
All of these combined factors soured this game on me a lot. While the core monster raising, the strategy that comes from late game fights, and the idea behind the characters(Even if not executed well) kept me playing to the end, the game has too many flaws to rate it higher. 2.5/5.
This game just feels cheap, of course its a spinoff series, of which the spinoff series was always originally on handhelds so of course it would not stand toe to toe with the mainline Dragon Quest games. However the transition to the Switch was faulty at best, and a complete floundering at worst. The Switch is a weak console, and this game was not prepared for it, with frequent crashes that interrupted gametime (Only saved slightly due to the frequent auto-saving), environments on some later worlds being very drab, and endlessly reused music from other Dragon Quest games instead of relying on new tracks. This game feels like a disappointment.
The story is a semi-retelling of DQIV through the perspective of Psaro, a fan favorite villain of the series and the central villain of DQIV. Though, the telling of the story leaves a lot to be desired. Psaro only having a voice when capturing monsters and not having a voice in the story strips the player of being able to get into his mind since he can't speak, and the game tries to present multiple points where you choose what Psaro says, but every choice is an illusion since Psaro is a pre-established character and you cannot alter his story by doing things he wouldn't do. This can be confusing at many points as you have to get into a silent protagonist's head to figure out what the game wants you to do, but he never tells you and so you will say yes to a dialogue option, only to have characters berate you because Psaro actually meant the other option. This impacts the whole story as they then need to have an abundance of flashbacks that do nothing for the player but stand in for Psaro's background, because he can't just talk about it since he's silent. Most of the worlds have alright little self contained stories, but each world is disconnected and you only get the pay off way later in the game, as a result, you do 6 introductions, 6 midway points, and then 6 separate conclusions to each world. Culminating in finally the ending of the main story that is admittedly not bad with some homages to the DQIV party. But the rest of the game can just feel like a checklist of things to do.
Taking us into the gameplay, where it feels like the monster collecting section of the game is off. While the start of the game functions fine, leveling your monsters, fusing them to get higher power talents and getting more talent points from fusing, and then using your new powerful higher ranked monsters to tear up the competition, the end game ends up being miserable despite this. This is due to the fact that every time you fuse your monsters, they are reset to level 1, which would work well, but they all gain experience at roughly the same rate, with small adjustment changes like you'd see from Pokemon. This proves to be a problem, since later on, it feels very tiresome to fuse your A rank, S rank, and X rank monsters for what amounts to very little actual power difference compared to your B rank monsters, especially when you have to re-level them all the way up after fusing, when leveling at that point will take a lot of grinding to get back up to the levels required of you by that stage of the game since ranks don't impact their experience gain. The main concession then is metal slime hunting, which is based on luck, or using a guide to hunt them down which is using outside information to limit your grind. Similarly, some of the fusions requirements for A rank, S rank and X rank are very obtuse and lead to frustration in even getting some of your A rank, S rank and X rank monsters, requiring a lot of fusing and grinding for the hopes of getting some monsters that barely out-perform B rank monsters, and will be weaker at level 40 than your level 70 B rank monsters at that point. The game is then more enjoyable with using the fan created guides and I'd recommend that, but it seems the game would rather you do something else... Giving into paying for the DLC that helps your grind. It feels like the game is trying to push you toward it, beause unlike SMT you cannot resummon previously created monsters, BUT you can buy the DLC that lets you refight monsters you already have in your compendium to recruit. How kind to put this behind a paywall along with the gold and EXP farming zones. Not predatory at all.
All of these combined factors soured this game on me a lot. While the core monster raising, the strategy that comes from late game fights, and the idea behind the characters(Even if not executed well) kept me playing to the end, the game has too many flaws to rate it higher. 2.5/5.
FranKle
3 months ago