Dragon Quest Treasures Review – All About That Bling

Loot. Few phrases in gaming maintain such energy. The promise of sick loot is a siren track that has pushed many a participant to tackle daring challenges and rethink their targets… in addition to to make exceptionally poor judgments and even pry open their real-life wallets. Many video games, no matter period and platform, are basically in regards to the satisfaction of acquiring loot, however few will admit that. Dragon Quest Treasures is the uncommon recreation that states outright that accumulating a trove of legendary loot is the entire point–and, in the event you can endure a few of its gameplay and technical foibles, you can also expertise the satisfaction of getting a Scrooge McDuck-like vault of gold (however not the expertise of swimming in it).Dragon Quest Treasures tells the story of younger Erik and Mia, who had been first launched in Dragon Quest XI. Dissatisfied after having been adopted by the pillaging, hard-partying Vikings, the duo resolve to flee from the ship and exit on their very own to grow to be nice treasure hunters. Along the best way they free a duo of wierd winged critters and come across the Dragon Daggers, enchanted weapons that whisk them away to the realm of Draconia, the place treasure searching is a lifestyle. Somewhere on these floating islands lie the legendary Dragonstone artifacts, and Erik and Mia are going to get them all–along with an absurd quantity of legendary relics simply ready to be dug up.Gallery Unlike the mainline Dragon Quest sequence, which is turn-based and menu-driven, Dragon Quest Treasures is an action-RPG. Playing as both Erik or Mia (who’re functionally equivalent), you discover one in all a number of giant open-world islands, defeating enemies, finishing quests, gathering supplies, and–most importantly–discovering these candy, shiny silver and gold treasure chests. The extra treasure they discover, the extra notoriety they get–and the extra their base, initially a decrepit magical railroad station, turns into transformed right into a fabulously gaudy headquarters. This additionally opens up extra gameplay parts, in addition to revealing hints in regards to the location of the elusive Dragonstones. While you possibly can discover the sport freely at your personal tempo, some components are progress-locked primarily based on how a lot loot you have amassed.Draconia is not a tiny territory, both. The areas you possibly can go to are surprisingly giant and crammed with distinct geographical features–and comprise solely a valuable few unlockable fast-travel factors within the type of railroad stations. The treasures that spawn every time you go to an space are randomized, encouraging you to each revisit well-tread territory and enterprise into new locations. With each your restricted loot-carrying capability and high-level enemies limiting your capability to discover, it often takes a number of makes an attempt earlier than you handle to totally probe a whole area. The measurement of those areas is spectacular, and the sport runs at a strong 30fps more often than not, however it comes at a price: The geometry of the environments tends to look extraordinarily simplistic, and the textures are visibly pixelated and muddy.Erik and Mia are at a drawback, as they do not have the sixth sense for finding treasure that the native Draconians do. Fortunately, they will enlist the locals for assist. As their upstart treasure-hunting gang beneficial properties steam, the monsters they encounter apply for membership and might be recruited as NPC get together members. Your monster recruits are crucial: They struggle alongside you in fight, provide help to navigate the surroundings utilizing particular “forte” expertise (like gliding, bouncing excessive, and burrowing underground), and–most importantly–can provide you with a warning to the presence of treasure. Erik/Mia have restricted use of a compass to seek out an approximate location of high-level treasure, however once you’re actually near the prize, the monsters may give you “Treasure Visions” of the precise location. (Monster sight is not fairly the identical as people’, nonetheless, so issues should look somewhat odd–for instance, a muddy hand monster’s imaginative and prescient seems prefer it has goopy movie sprayed on it, whereas residing armor can solely see by way of the vents of its helmet.) They also can discover actual places of mid-tier treasure as you wander around–though, since treasure-carrying capability is restricted, you might decide to skip silver chests in favor of usually higher-value gold. Further alongside within the recreation, you will additionally must fend off rival gangs that assault mid-exploration to steal your hard-earned items.The gradual exploration of massive, different environments and your ever-growing vault of valuables makes for a really gratifying gameplay loop. It’s satisfying to observe your headquarters develop and develop whereas your monster ranks swell with high-level recruits and your show case fills with a number of the most legendary gadgets from throughout the Dragon Quest sequence. The attraction is additional bolstered by the nice and cozy, inviting ambiance that is pervasive throughout the entire of the Dragon Quest franchise, together with a localization that is filled with snappy dialogue and delightfully groan-worthy puns. Dragon Quest Treasures merely feels good to play.Gallery Unfortunately, one factor of the sport does its finest to spoil the temper. Combat is definitely the worst a part of Dragon Quest Treasures, and it is an unavoidable a part of exploration and development. You and your CPU-controlled monsters all participate in battles, which occur in actual time on the world map. Erik and Mia are armed with their Dragon Daggers, which supply solely a primary assault combo string. While they’ve a pool of MP, their magic is simply used for therapeutic themselves. Instead, particular assaults come within the type of a long-range slingshot, which you’ll be able to load ammo (within the type of pellets) into and fireplace. Pellets are the one means you are capable of entry totally different types of elemental injury, and making an attempt to fumble your means by way of the pellet menu to seek out that one rock that may hit a foe’s weak spot is a trouble. Making it worse is that you simply additionally heal and put buffs in your monsters by way of particular pellets. Trying to goal a bunch of rocks at your consistently shifting monsters mid-battle to heal them or improve their protection will make you lengthy for a extra conventional motion/RPG talent system.Your monsters act of their very own volition, with you solely capable of situation primary “attack” and “fall back” instructions, which do not at all times appear to be heeded. Their AI is usually first rate, although when it does fail, it turns into fairly frustrating–one huge flaw is the shortage of a lock-on system to get everybody to focus on a particular downside enemy. The huge situation, nonetheless, is that watching your monsters roll, smash, wobble, and spellcast makes it hit house simply how restricted and uninteresting your personal fight skills are. It consistently seems like your CPU buddies are having much more enjoyable than you might be throughout fights, and that sense of weak spot by no means fairly goes away. Even with the particular “Wild Side” talent that ups your velocity, injury, and significant charge is nowhere close to as cool and efficient to make use of as your monsters’ particular cinematic “Unleash the Dragon” assaults.It’s a testomony to how sturdy the opposite parts of Dragon Quest Treasures are that, despite fight regularly being unfulfilling, the sport nonetheless manages to maintain you eagerly coming again for extra exploration and treasure-scouting. Its bright-eyed, adventurous ambiance and rewarding core gameplay loop go a great distance in carrying the sport to its conclusion. It may not be the richest recreation on the market, however for the size of its runtime, Dragon Quest Treasures does a nice job of creating you’re feeling like a bandit king.