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'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.