Review: Dragon Quest Builders 2 By Omega Force

Written by Edwin Francisco

Dragon Quest Builders 2, published by Square Enix was just released for the Xbox One in May 2021. I have not played the original Dragon Quest Builders which came out on the PlayStation 3 (2016), PlayStation 4 (2016), PlayStation Vita (2016), and Nintendo Switch (2018). So I won’t be able to compare it and discuss any differences. The original Dragon Quest Builders seems to be heavily inspired by Minecraft. The new game was developed by Omega Force with Square Enix and game was released in July 2019 on the PlayStation 4 and the Nintendo Switch, December 2019 on PC Steam, and May 2021 on Xbox One.

I’ve been playing a lot of Minecraft for many years. My wife and I even started during the beta days before the official release. Although lately, even though I still play Minecraft, it doesn’t have that same appeal to me as I initially started.

I originally played the demo on the Nintendo Switch. I was surprised with the demo alone because it offered a lot of things and it will keep you engaged for quite a while. It will even let you go through the first chapter, but it won’t let you finish it. But still, it’s a pretty long demo.

I was only able to play the full game on the Xbox Series X because it was just released on the Xbox platform which supports Xbox One and the Series X/S. It just got released on the Windows Store too. The game was previously released on the PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, and the PC.

It’s all about the looks

Once you see the game, it’s like a weird marriage of Dragonball and Minecraft. In terms of the characters, you know it’s Akira Toriyama all the way. You can’t mistake his art. If you are familiar with DragonBall Z, Dragon Quest, or even Chrono Trigger; you know his art. It stays true here. The enemy types are pretty much the same as Dragon Quest. Characters and creatures are not blocky like in Minecraft, they look great with that chibi look, with nice detail.

In terms of the environment, most things you’ll see are blocky as you can expect from a game inspired by Minecraft, although not all of the things are made of blocks. Most trees, plants, rocks look as they should be. Only large things that you can see like the land, large giant trees, mountains, houses, water are made of blocks. But it has a smooth look to them, although, the PC version somehow doesn’t smoothen this out. You won’t notice how bad the PC version is unless you look closely at the blocks. While the Xbox version of the blocks is pretty smooth to look at even up-close.

Items that you can pick up are displayed in a flat 2D illustrated version. So, you won’t mistake the background from items you can destroy or items you can load in your bag.

The Journey

The game is not as story-heavy as the usual Dragon Quest games, even though it has the same name. The story only happens between chapters with some major quests that will progress it. It focuses on your character “a builder” which is somehow a rare trait in the game. For the main reason, that “builders” are banned, condemning the act of building in the game is almost like a religion in the story. It seems that monsters believe that the end must happen and building would only lead to terrible things. Monsters control most of the land and people have forgotten to make anything for themselves. So, it’s your job as the “builder” to build things and make people believe that building can only be good for the world. If you are into playing this game for the story, I don’t think this is the game for you. Don’t get me wrong, the story is good. A tad predictable, poised as a children’s story, however it’s not bad. I enjoyed the story for what it is. But the game focuses more on creating things. The story helps with the main journey of the character but mostly it just teaches you how to create things in the game. Each end of the chapter though will put you at the center of the story, but it is fun. The game only has four chapters, so the story elements won’t eat up your time. It’s not too heavy that I can recommend this for kids who would like some story in their games since it will not be overwhelming. There is no speech though, so if you are thinking about letting your kids play this, they must enjoy a bit of reading.

As I mentioned before, the game is like Minecraft with a story. The main difference is that discovery is not the main feature here. In Minecraft, it never tells you what to do, and you just have to figure out everything yourself by experimenting. In Dragon Quest Builders 2, it will teach you what you can do, so for people who like a bit of hand-holding at the start, this is great. It will be slow and limited at first, but once you get to the first chapter, the game gets interesting because it now lets you build houses, farms, and develop some skills too like cooking. But each chapter will increase the level of things that you can do, at some point, you’ll be able to cook with several ingredients, and create items with the use of processed items like glass or gold.

Playing Around

Like in Minecraft, you are allowed to make anything to your heart’s content as long as you have enough materials to make them. There are room blueprints that you need to follow exactly so that the game will recognize that what you are building is a room. For the story, the game will provide you the important room size and items needed. But even after you finish the game, there are still tons for you to discover.

Mining items won’t be easy, it will take the proper tool. Although this is not like Minecraft where you have to have different tools for specific jobs. You only need a hammer. But depending on what hammer you are using; it will determine the materials that you can mine. So, the first hammer that you will get, won’t be able to mine specific types of stones. You have to get farther into the story for you to get that hammer that you need.

About your bag, it can hold a lot of items. This is not like Minecraft where you are limited to what you can hold. A storage box is not even useful except for the story and organizing your items. If there is a way to hold everything you could, but the story doesn’t allow you to hold everything depending on what chapter you are in. Each time you start a new chapter, you have to leave all the things you have collected. Don’t worry though, since you can get it all back once you are on the main island again. I’ll be talking about islands a little later.

I also like the idea that some tasks can be automated by a non-playable character (NPC). It’s not like you need to teach the NPC, it’s more like leave specific items, if they know what to do with them, they will start doing the tasks themselves. This is where the storage box gets a little handy. Place certain items in a room like a bonfire and use a storage box to put in some food ingredients, the game will recognize it as a kitchen. An NPC nearby will try to cook inside that room. Use a plate and store food there, and later on NPCs will eat there. Make a farm, and NPCs will farm there. It reminds me of the sims a bit, but not much of the management side since you won’t deal with hunger or them getting too tired. The NPCs can survive without your help. But it’s nice to see your town making supplies for you.

In the game, there is a blueprint list of things that you can make. Just like most of the game, you will be provided these while playing the story. When you are introduced to this, you have to make things on your own and follow the blueprint. In general, this was a little tedious because sometimes there are just a lot of things to gather and things you need to create to make them. But at some point in the story, you can make a story-made blueprint and just place it on the land you want to build it on. The NPCs near the area will now build it for you. I like this idea. I enjoyed it so much that it was a disappointment to see that it won’t work outside the story mode.

Review: Dragon Quest Builders 2 by Omega Force

For a Dragon Quest game, the fighting mechanic is disappointing. It removes a lot of the things that you are familiar with in Dragon Quest and made it completely an action game instead. The only RPG element here is the upgrading of your equipment with higher-level armor, shields, and sword. In general, you’ll just be attacking with the basic action, but you do have another attack in which you hold the attack button longer and it will do a spin attack. It’s basically like the Legend of Zelda spin attack. It’s supposed to have stronger damage, but since a lot of the enemies are attacking in all directions, holding the attack button long didn’t make any sense to me. I rarely used this action. Most of the time if I have to protect myself, I just run to the most vulnerable spot of the opponent and attack there instead. Once in a while, you will have to use your hammer since some enemies are made out of stone.

In general, the game is played in the third-person view which is great for the action. So most of the time, you’ll be playing it like this. But when you want to focus on working on details on your building creation, then you shift to the first-person view. The controls slightly change too in order to fit the perspective. Although, you are not required to use the first-person mode. You can play and finish the entire game without using it.

Traveling Around

There is a point that you travel to different islands pretty early in the game. The main island that you first land on is pretty big on its own. But you really can’t do anything on it at this time since you have not learned or you can say locked out of the things that you need to do to take advantage of the land. You’ll need to get to play a chapter to access another island in which you will be transported using a boat. After finishing a chapter, you will get access to other smaller islands and another island that will continue the story. The smaller islands are usually there for accessing materials. You can just mine for materials if you want, or try to hunt for food, or you can even try getting some NPC’s to stay on your island. There is also an option to find all the required items and log them, this will unlock one material for you for unlimited use. This can be helpful early in the game since it can provide you unlimited materials even if the land you went to doesn’t provide it.

I like the idea that even when you finish the story, there are still islands for you to discover and explore and there is still a little bit of story to do in the game. Not to mention that you still have tons of recipes to find to complete the things that you can make. You’ll realize this quickly because each time you go to an island that is focused on hunting or materials, you get to see a sample work of another player. It can surprise you with what materials they used to make it, and you won’t have immediate access to that material even when you are finished with the main game. For some people, this will be a driving factor for them to keep on playing, trying to find that perfect-looking window or furniture. I’m done with the game but I still have two items in my equipment slots that I haven’t used yet, meaning I haven’t found these special pieces of equipment yet.

In Conclusion

I was also able to play it on the PC and Xbox Series X. I enjoyed using the PlayAnywhere functionality since I can just switch from one version to another and the game syncs the save files flawlessly. Although because of this, I saw a few differences between the versions. It was also fascinating that the PlayStation Dual Shock 4 controller just worked without any issue on the PC.

Overall, I enjoyed my time in the game. To the point that I was excited to see what I can do the next day. It’s rare for me to get that feeling of excitement. I enjoyed the story regardless of it being light. I recommend it to kids and parents since it’s like Minecraft that encourages creativity and it does have a nice story to tell. And there is so much to do right after you play the game. If you enjoy creating things, then this can be a slightly refreshing take on the genre Minecraft has popularized. I highly recommend the game.

Rating of 4.5 out of 5

The game was released in July 2019 on the PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch. December 2019 on PC Steam. May 2021 on Xbox One.

Developed by Square Enix, Omega Force

Published by Square Enix

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