A Minecraft Clone… Or Not? – Dragon Quest Builders

3

Dragon Quest is one of those games that I always loved but I never played or owned. How is this possible, you would ask? Well, I do love RPGs, especially JRPGs. I particularly love Akira Toriyama, Dragon Quest’s character designer, who is also a famous mangaka (Dragon Ball, Dr Slump & Arale), besides being responsible for the character design of other blockbusters like Chrono Trigger.

DRAGON QUEST BUILDERS DEMO_20160930154422

Sadly, like all of you know, RPGs are a very time-consuming type of game, and JRPG are even worse: you either spend most of your time levelling up or you are dead meat… Since I already had my RPG reference title (at that time it was nothing else than Final Fantasy VII) I ended up never playing a game from this saga.

DRAGON QUEST BUILDERS DEMO_20160930154541

Fate has weird ways to manifest itself, so a few weeks ago I had the chance to try out Dragon Quest Builders Free Demo. I knew from the start that I could not miss this opportunity, and the Builder suffix did intrigue me a lot. I needed to understand how a long time series like this could cope with the latest “build with bricks” fashions. Here is how it went.

DRAGON QUEST BUILDERS DEMO_20160930154232 DRAGON QUEST BUILDERS DEMO_20161001105507

Dragon Quest Builders sees your avatar returning to the land of Alefgard after an evil Dragonlord torn it apart. This simple initial statement is the key point of the entire game since if everything is broken “it is your mission to rebuild, restore and revive the ruined realm!” [quoting from gamefaqs.com].

That’s why you start your game in a desolated land and your first quests consist in organizing a base camp, attracting new citizens and defending your boundaries from the incoming creatures.

DRAGON QUEST BUILDERS DEMO_20161001111121 DRAGON QUEST BUILDERS DEMO_20161001110138
Unlike Minecraft, and despite its blocky appearance, it is clear from the start that this is an RPG and “reshaping the world in your own image” it’s not a way to clone a blockbuster, yet a new way to give a soul to a genre that was always about creating your character but without any chance to really interact with the world you were living in.

DRAGON QUEST BUILDERS DEMO_20161001115853

What I’m trying to say is that this is not a Minecraft clone with an enhanced story mode but, as far as I’ve seen by playing the demo, everything, including the block-building experience, is consistent with the entire game design. Despite the fact that you do have the possibility to freely build anything you like, the quests are designed in a way that you need to find “projects” in order to shape the basic forms of your village. Doing that will give you the chance to attract new people which will be able to help you in rebuilding the realm according to your needs.

DRAGON QUEST BUILDERS DEMO_20161001112118

DRAGON QUEST BUILDERS DEMO_20161001112141 DRAGON QUEST BUILDERS DEMO_20161001112604

Shaping and decorating your base camp will allow you to level it up, and the more your level increases, more people will come and more quests will become available.

DRAGON QUEST BUILDERS DEMO_20161001105925 DRAGON QUEST BUILDERS DEMO_20161001110448

Once you decorate a place with a workbench, NPCs will start working on it, crafting and storing useful items that you can either use or sell.

DRAGON QUEST BUILDERS DEMO_20161001105346

The demo ends when you reach level 2 with your base camp, meaning that NPCs will not present you new quests, but you will still be able to keep crafting and shaping the environment.

DRAGON QUEST BUILDERS DEMO_20161001105955 DRAGON QUEST BUILDERS DEMO_20161001120141

DRAGON QUEST BUILDERS DEMO_20161001122458 DRAGON QUEST BUILDERS DEMO_20161001120214

As said, I never played a game from this peculiar saga yet, from what I saw here, I might reconsider. Against all odds Dragon Quest Builders looks like a very good game and, although I will not give a score for a demo, the expectations about it are really high.

DRAGON QUEST BUILDERS DEMO_20161001111243

The bad dragon is out there for you to defeat, while your friends do need a guide to rebuild the realm and feed a new hope into Alefgard citizens. I suggest you give this game a chance. The demo should still be on the Store, while the full game came out on October 14th.

DRAGON QUEST BUILDERS DEMO_20160930151459

Follow Us... Inspire Us To Get Better... Keep The Flame Alive

About Post Author

3 thoughts on “A Minecraft Clone… Or Not? – Dragon Quest Builders

  1. I’ve still not beaten it but it is a very good game. I’ve spent countless hours in Minecraft. Really the only thing that is similar is that you can build.

    Sweet blog I wanted to check it out after seeing your post on twitter.

    1. Thank you for your feedback 🙂

      I must admit that i still haven’t bought this and now that Portal Knights are free on PS+… well , it is also a building game:)

Leave a Reply

Connect with

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

I Will Open The Door If You Can Tell Me The Following... * Time limit is exhausted. Please reload CAPTCHA.