Dragon Quest Treasures
MSRP $59.99
“Though its core treasure-hunting loop is tedious, there’s a lot of charm worth digging up in Dragon Quest Treasures.”
Pros
Fun treasure-hunting hook
Lots to gather
Detailed methods
Diverse world design
Cons
Repetitive circulate
Low high quality of life
Core fight is flat
Past, current, and future all come collectively in Dragon Quest Treasures. The treasure-collecting RPG is without delay an old-school dungeon crawler that pays tribute to the franchise’s lengthy historical past and a contemporary open-world sport that acts as a complement to this yr’s Pokémon Legends: Arceus. The intersection of these two concepts is at occasions messy, however there’s gold in these hills in case you have the endurance to pan for it.
The Switch unique is a by-product of the extra conventional RPG sequence, buying and selling in turn-based fight for real-time motion. Battles are solely a small a part of the journey although, as its predominant loop revolves round monitoring down and appraising invaluable collectibles with the assistance of some monster friends. It’s a low-stakes expertise that’s well-suited for moveable play, although one which doesn’t skimp on complexity — a choice that creates some rigidity in an in any other case laid-back idea.
Dragon Quest Treasures sports activities an addictive central hook that’s made tedious on account of overcomplicated design selections that go away it feeling antiquated amongst its friends. While that makes it a tough sport to broadly advocate, I nonetheless discovered myself charmed by this enjoyable all-ages journey that places a number of effort into every thing it units out to do.
Buried treasure
Dragon Quest Treasures is positioned as a prequel to Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age, nevertheless it’s extra of its personal bottle story. It stars youthful variations of Mia and Erik from that title, siblings with a ardour for treasure searching. After an encounter with a pair of magical daggers, they’re whisked away to the land of Draconia, a sequence of islands crammed with riches. That contains seven Dragonstones that they’re tasked with accumulating earlier than the fearsome Long John Silverbones can do the identical.
While it seems like a mushy youngsters sport, Treasures may be surprisingly overwhelming at first. It’s loaded with methods like crafting, cooking, vault administration, and monster accumulating on high of your traditional RPG hooks. Its core loop turns into simple after just a few hours, although. Players load into considered one of 5 mini open biomes and scour for buried treasure utilizing a compass. When a treasure is shut, the compass will present just a few images hinting at the place precisely it’s, permitting them to dig it up. It’s primarily a light-weight scavenger-hunting RPG that performs like a dungeon crawler with a decreased emphasis on fight.
Once I settled into that circulate, I discovered it simple to get misplaced in its chill exploration groove. I received just a little dopamine hit each time I found a glowing treasure spot. I’d excitedly dig up as many chests as I might maintain at one time, making an attempt to take advantage of an tour earlier than returning to my dwelling base to get my findings appraised. For those that cherished Pokémon Legends: Arceus, Dragon Quest Treasures captures that very same sense of open-ended journey, in addition to its attractive assortment facet.
That core thought is made rather more rewarding on account of the truth that every treasure is a reference to Dragon Quest’s historical past. The extra treasure gamers discover, the extra they’re constructing a museum celebrating the sequence. Even as somebody who isn’t as versed within the RPG franchise’s deep historical past, I at all times received just a little kick out of seeing its eclectic worlds reworked into trophies I might show in my dwelling base.
Dragon Quest Treasures makes me really feel like just a little child digging for cool rocks within the woods and taking them again to my tree fort.
All of that feeds right into a vault administration system, which nearly seems like a pleasant Nintendo 3DS StreetPass minigame. The extra treasure gamers gather and show on plinths, the extra the worth of their vault will increase. That, in flip, ranges their assortment rank, which will increase passive buffs just like the variety of stat-boosting medals gamers can equip. Bases will even get raided by NPC gangs once in a while, tasking them with combating again invaders to guard their stash and improve its worth within the course of. Each system loops into each other, placing me in a pure rhythm as I change between merchandise searching and base administration.
In its finest moments, Dragon Quest Treasures makes me really feel like just a little child digging for cool rocks within the woods and taking them again to my tree fort. It’s the fitting spirit for a good-natured sport like this that I count on youthful gamers particularly will click on with.
Quality of life
Though I respect how intricately constructed Treasures is, its core hook does get tedious. While there are distinctive quests and story beats alongside the best way, many of the journey revolves round making sufficient treasure runs to grind out your rank, which gates story development. Item searching can get monotonous after some time, as gamers primarily simply wander round till they discover a glowing spot after which maintain the A button for just a few seconds to unearth one thing.
Even the littlest methods have a little bit of tedium sprinkled in.
That already repetitive circulate is compounded by a slew of irritating design selections that construct on one another. For occasion, gamers solely financial institution their treasures by returning to 1 of some prepare stations scattered all through every world — the vast majority of which must be unlocked with assets whose areas are unmarked and random. There’s no quick journey out there from the map, leaving gamers to typically make an extended trek again to a prepare station to get dwelling (or burn a restricted merchandise that teleports them again dwelling safely). If a strong monster occurs to wipe out a participant’s get together on the best way again, they’ll be booted to their final save, probably shedding every thing. It’s all probably supposed as a risk-reward system, nevertheless it winds up feeling archaic for the style.
None of this could be a lot of an issue if traversal was enjoyable and fluid, however that’s the realm the place Treasures struggles most. Along the journey, gamers recruit creatures like slimes, which every have one of some fortes. Some are primary skills that allow them to run, glide, or bounce to achieve excessive surfaces. Others are extra context-specific, like a digging software that offers quick access to some hidden areas. Since a celebration can solely comprise three monsters at a time, meaning gamers can’t entry all their traversal instruments without delay. Party members can solely be swapped on the base, so when you come throughout a dig web site. however don’t have that monster available, you’ll have to trek again to a prepare station, equip one thing with that forte, and head again out.
A variety of additional decision-making is positioned on get together selection, although. Each has its personal particular assaults in battles, can carry a specific amount of treasure, and even improve the percentages of treasures exhibiting up all over the world. When I set out on an expedition, I’m pressured to weigh which of these vital utilities are most necessary. I finally wound up spending many of the sport simply equipping my highest-level buddies with glide, dash, and bounce that felt too elementary to surrender. It brings me again to the times of Pokémon Red and Blue, the place I’d have to hold monsters with sure HMs in my get together even when I didn’t actually need to use them in battle — one thing that sequence has lengthy outgrown.
Even the littlest methods have a little bit of tedium sprinkled in. The dash forte, as an illustration, can solely be used for a restricted period of time. When its use bar runs out, it has to undergo an irksome cooldown earlier than it may be used once more. The time a forte can be utilized typically will increase with treasure rank, however by no means to the purpose the place I might freely roam the worlds at a faster tempo. Item gathering will get outdated quick too, as a scarcity of auto pickup means gamers have to take a seat via a bending animation with every merchandise they decide up — and this world is densely populated with assets. And don’t get me began on overused monster voice traces (prepare to listen to the identical few “slime” puns a whole lot of occasions) that play time and again whereas exploring, giving the Xenoblade Chronicles 3 crew a run for his or her cash.
Much of this may sound like nitpicking, however each small annoyance provides up once you’re doing the identical issues time and again. There’s a powerful core thought right here, however Dragon Quest Treasures is a sport that’ll profit from a tightened sequel that takes the fitting classes from friends like Pokémon Legends: Arceus.
Still a charmer
Even with all my gripes — ones that will have me recommending this to others with a number of warning — I nonetheless discovered myself charmed by Dragon Quest Treasures general. Part of that comes from its mushy aesthetic, stuffed with clean shapes and shiny colours. It’s no tech powerhouse, however I respect how a lot work has gone into creating every of its various islands. While even among the Switch’s finest open-world video games have a tendency to supply flat areas that reuse some muddy earth tones and textures, there’s a lot additional element right here that makes areas really feel particular. A desert space has me crossing floating islands with my glide forte earlier than descending some skeletal steps right into a decrease space. Another swampy location has me scaling an enormous spiral tower as I hunt for riches.
It goals to ship a low-stakes exploration with a childlike creativeness, which shines via in a typically soiled sifting pan.
Dragon Quest Treasures places that degree of effort into every thing it does, even its in any other case simplistic concepts. The streamlined method to fight is a powerful instance of that in motion. Players are always flanked by their workforce of three monsters (slimes, golem, and extra Dragon Quest staples), which auto assault any enemy in sight. Mia and Erik can’t actually command them outdoors of spending dagger factors to unleash a particular assault. Instead, they’ve a single slash assault that may be spammed. Like the treasure-hunting hook, it wears skinny after the hundredth time doing it, however additional touches assist a few of its extra concerned boss battles keep participating.
For occasion, Mia and Erik can use a slingshot that comes with dozens of ammo sorts, from elemental assaults to therapeutic pellets. That little addition brings only a contact of battlefield administration that grants gamers extra choices in what in any other case performs out like a senseless auto-battler.
Several methods like that had me shocked by the methods the journey layers in depth with out overcomplicating itself. Simple every day quests present a cause to go online on daily basis, medals enable gamers to customise their workforce’s stats, the house base may be expanded with outlets, and monsters may be despatched out on expeditions to collect assets on their very own. Even after beating it, I’m nonetheless left with loads to do if I ever resolve to revisit Draconia.
Dragon Quest Treasures fumbles some key particulars, creating an at occasions frustratingly tedious RPG, however its coronary heart is at all times in the fitting place. It goals to ship a low-stakes exploration with a childlike creativeness, which shines via in a typically soiled sifting pan. For youthful gamers and even older ones who fondly keep in mind pretending to be a pirate as a child and don’t thoughts the tedium, Erik and Mia’s journey is a comforting return to the sandbox.
Dragon Quest Treasures was examined on a Nintendo Switch OLED in handheld mode and on a TCL 6-Series R635 when docked.
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