Though the Minecraft formula has been iterated on to hell and back, Square Enix managed to offer up an interesting take on the sandbox classic with Dragon Quest Builders. All the blocky aesthetics and open-ended crafting were present and accounted for, but these things were all couched within a wider narrative arc that included plenty of RPG trappings from Square’s storied franchise. There were missteps, sure, but it was a solid blueprint for how a more focused gameplay experience could be hewn from the endlessness of a sandbox game, and now Square has decided to take another crack at the idea with Dragon Quest Builders 2. As many sequels should strive for, this release proves to be a more refined experience than its predecessor, fixing many of its flaws, adding in a wealth of quality of life improvements, and generally providing a stronger case for its own brand of sandbox style gameplay.
Once you’ve gotten through the character creator, your avatar wakes up on a spooky ghost ship patrolled by monsters and skeletons who collectively call themselves the “Children of Hargon”. Though you’re technically their prisoner, it doesn’t take very long until you’re let out of your cell and taught the basics of your innate building and creating capabilities which, by the way, are extremely illegal. Nonetheless, the fiends find plenty of use for you in patching up their ship, but things quickly go awry when a storm destroys said vessel and your character washes up on the shore of the Isle of Awakening. Here, you come across a dark-haired, amnesiac man with aggressive tendencies named Malroth, who is evidently the resurrected form of the God of Destruction. Malroth isn’t much good at building things, but he hits like a truck, and together you two set out on an island hopping adventure to find more survivors and maybe uncover more of Malroth’s mysterious past.
It’s clear from the get-go that the story (taking place after Dragon Quest II) is merely used as a vehicle for conveying information to the player and teaching them the ins and outs of the nuanced crafting systems, but we were rather taken aback by the charming nature of how it's presented. Each named character is memorable in their own way due to some stellar writing, and though you rarely feel invested in what happens next in the plot, you grow to care for the various people living in your villages by virtue of how human they feel, a bit similar to how one grows attached to their neighbours in an Animal Crossing game. For example, if a new character asks to join a base you’re setting up, literally the entire village will drop what they’re doing and walk over to greet the newcomer and offer to show them around. It’s moments like this, or when you mobilize your villagers to fend off an impending monster threat, that do a lot of work in giving the impression that your friends are real people fighting to make themselves a home in a hostile environment.
The standard gameplay flow follows you hopping between islands, meeting local residents, setting up a base with them, and doing side quests to strengthen morale and gain new upgrades. For example, on the first island of Furrowfield, you start a farm with a woman named Rosie, and the first order of business is setting out to find a legendary worm who can turn the rotten soil into something that can be tilled. One thing leads to another, and you soon have over a dozen people living at and running your base, each of which has their own wants that ultimately will further the goal of building the farm and growing the mysterious magical “Deltree” that rests at its centre.
This feedback loop proves to be strongly compelling, if only because it offers up the perfect blend of light humour and diverse gameplay objectives. Sure, most quests ultimately boil down to going somewhere new and retrieving something that can then be used back at the base, but the Dragon Quest Builders 2 is constantly finding new ways to iterate on this simple idea and, more importantly, to show you the direct benefits of your actions. If someone asks you to go pick up tomato seeds in the bog, for example, you’re eventually rewarded with seeing your villagers enjoying the literal fruits of your labour over a laughter-filled breakfast table.
The AI of your villagers in the previous game was passable, but they often felt like extra parts of the world that scarcely contributed to your progress. Here, Square Enix has bypassed that completely by stepping up their responsibilities, making each member of your community an active and helpful contributor. As you level up your base through completing quests and collecting “Gratitude” from the recipients, your villagers will learn increasingly more useful techniques and abilities for maintaining the base while you’re out in the overworld. For example, you can lay out a blueprint and – provided you’ve deposited the materials in a nearby chest – your villagers will put most of it together for you. Another example is how they’ll till, plant, water, harvest, and cook food, effectively automating the farming portion of gameplay. This degree of self-sufficiency comes as a huge relief, as you can now focus your attention and efforts on bigger things than managing your villagers.
Combat was one of the weaker aspects of Dragon Quest Builders, so Square Enix decided to remedy that by bringing in the team from Omega Force – best known for developing the Dynasty Warriors games – and charged them with overseeing the combat elements. The team’s expertise immediately shows, and though the combat system is still obviously not the focus, plenty of balancing and visual flair has gone a long way in making it more enjoyable. Every now and then, there comes a contingent of monsters (or even an enormous boss) which threatens to destroy everything you’ve built, so you and your villagers take up arms against them to defend. Much like their expanded use in domestic activities, your villagers feel like much more active participants in these battles now, and we found ourselves actually looking forward in places to kitting out the locals in new gear and seeing how they hold up against a few waves of fiends.
Although much of the gameplay is focused on this loop of building things, getting new crafting recipes, and fighting enemies, we were rather surprised at how robust the exploration of the world itself tends to be. Each island is packed full of secret caves and interesting locales that practically beg you to come and loot them, and there’s even a series of discoverable mini-puzzles which call to mind the Korok Seed puzzles from Breath of the Wild. With these, you’re usually tasked with an altar that needs to be ‘completed’ in some way, whether that be unblocking a sluice gate, arranging flowers in symmetrical order, or destroying blocks that don’t seem to fit. These puzzles seldom are difficult enough to warrant more than a minute of your time, but they provide a nice break in the gameplay loop, and offer up medals that can later be redeemed for more unlockables.
Something that we feel bears mentioning is just how much effort Square Enix has put into making the various quality of life changes that address previous grievances some fans had. For example, there were plenty who weren’t a fan of how each island functionally had you start over from scratch, so now fast-travel – both on and between islands – has been implemented to make everything into part of a much more cohesive world. There are smaller things that have been addressed in the interest of streamlining, too, such as how weapons and tools no longer break after extensive use or how your sword is given a dedicated button independent of your other tools. These things all help to make Dragon Quest Builders 2 come off as a much more intentional and thought out game, and that’s not even including the wealth of cool extra tools and items that have been added, with our favourite being a special glider you can use.
New to this sequel, too, is the inclusion of multiplayer – both locally and online – and it’s gradually introduced to the player as you progress the campaign. Early on, you’re given access to the social features, where you can take snapshots of builds and share them online with others, and if you like something you see, you can even go to visit it. We’re constantly amazed by the things that people come up with, of course, and we particularly appreciated how this aspect is smartly integrated into the few loading screens, where you can view and ‘like’ others’ builds while you wait.
Once you’ve progressed a bit further, you can then play with up to three other friends, but there are some caveats attached. For one thing, the campaign is limited to single player – meaning you can only play with friends on the Isle of Awakening – and for another, there’s no local split-screen multiplayer. You can play online, or you can play local wireless, where everyone has their own Switch. It’s rather disappointing that split screen isn’t featured, but the multiplayer is otherwise solid.
Along with this, there are some other issues that serve to drag down this otherwise excellent sandbox adventure. The most notable thing is the rather awkward camera, which frequently wrests control away from the player and obscures parts of the environment. For example, if you step into a cave, the camera will pull in close to your character, but if you then leave the cave and enter a field, it doesn’t always zoom back out to the normal distance. Another notable negative, albeit to a slightly lesser degree, is the relative awkwardness of the controls. You can toggle between a third-person or first-person perspective, and there’s always a helpful block outline to show where you’re placing an object, but there’s something about the controls that just feels off in a way that’s a bit jarring compared to how smooth the rest of the experience is. We’d like to reiterate that the controls are not awful by any stretch of the word, it’s just that you will always be aware of them; an effective control scheme is one that you barely notice you’re using, but that, unfortunately, isn’t true here.
From a presentation perspective, Dragon Quest Builders 2 doesn’t iterate all that much on its predecessor, but it doesn’t really need to when that art style was so effective to begin with. The voxel-based environments have a simplistic charm to them that works well with the distinctive character design of the Dragon Quest characters, and we were particularly impressed by the range of expressions that the villagers can display. There aren’t strictly any ‘wow’ moments to be found when exploring the different biomes and vistas each island offers, but the way in which these environments are woven together to feel like cohesive ecosystems is impressive, to say the least. Also, perhaps most importantly, you can pet the dogs in this game.
Unfortunately, the enjoyable visuals are hamstrung by the subpar performance, which perhaps explains the lack of local co-op. For much of the time, Dragon Quest Builders 2 sticks to a solid 30 FPS, but if you run too fast in the overworld or there are too many moving parts on screen at once, that number drops noticeably. It never affects the gameplay experience too much, but you’re always aware when a drop occurs and you can practically hear the chugging going on behind the scenes. Those of you that are bothered by this sort of thing may want to wait for an optimization patch or two to go out, but the lacklustre performance only proves to be a minor annoyance in an otherwise fun game.
Conclusion
It takes a surprising amount of effort to beat Minecraft at its own game, but we’d argue that Dragon Quest Builders 2 in many ways surpasses its inspiration in fun factor and replayability. The melding of JRPG conventions with the open-ended and creatively focused sentiments of sandbox gameplay proves to go over much smoother than you’d expect, especially now that Square Enix seems to know what it’s doing with this sub-series. Dragon Quest Builders 2 is a much more confident game than its predecessor, boldly expanding on its concepts, fixing many of its flaws, and providing an overall more robust adventure experience that fans won’t want to miss out on. Charming characters, a well-tuned gameplay loop, and near endless replayability ensure that you’ll be coming back to this one for quite some time, and though the performance issues are disappointing, we’d still highly recommend you pick up Dragon Quest Builders 2.
Comments 71
I enjoyed the first one a lot, finished it a couple months ago, and if this is better I couldn't be happier.
I'm not interested in Minecraft at all, but having a story (as the first entry) makes it worth the buy for me, especially based on the franchise it's based on, my favorite among RPGs.
Apples to oranges. Personally I think both are good games. But no, I don't agree that this beats Minecraft at it's own game. It beats Minecraft where it does things that Minecraft doesn't, but Minecraft is still the best pure sandbox game around.
And if you consider the PC version with its incredible modding community, and enormous community in general... naw.
Apples to oranges. The games are close enough to compare but still quite different fruit.
I really like the new games demo and graphics. I also liked the original game but the originals games graphics where kind ugly IMO.
I was hoping the multiplayer would allow for a co-op campaign, when they first announced multiplayer. It would feel a bit like Fantasy Life which is, IMO, the most fun co-op experience I've ever had. That's pretty disappointing.
That said, this is still a pre-ordered day1 physical buy for me. I was tempted to do a voucher and go digital, but this is a game that I have the first physically and adored it. Absolutely need to pair it with it's sequel. Such a charming and memorable game. The highlight of 2018 for me, so I'm excited for the sequel.
And this is from someone that loathes Minecraft....
I love most anything Dragon Quest and have been waiting impatiently for this one. I never got into Minecraft but adored the demo. Getting my copy tomorrow morning. I've only had my Switch a couple months and this game was one of the reasons I got it.
I'm planning on selling a kidney come september...
I really really really HYPED with Dragon Quest Builders 2 both Switch and PS4 version !! 😍😍😍
My Hype meter for DQB2 is already 96 from 100.
It will be my HIGHEST hype and the BEST game for me ever after Dance Dance Revolution (100 from 100), The Sims 4 PS4 (94 from 100), Portal Knights PS4 (91 from 100).
I was looking forward to this for a while but began to lose interest as time went on and eventually cancelled my pre-order. Might grab it eventually if I find it cheap enough. First one was fun for a while at first but I was burnt out by the end of chapter two and never finished it. Was looking forward to seeing the improvements they made in the sequel but there are just so many other games I want to play more at this point.
Do you need to play the first DQBuilders to enjoy more or understand anything in this one? I'm considering skipping it
I played the demo of the first one and found it charming enough, but when I read that every new island meant starting from scratch, I wasn't feeling that idea. This seems to solve that problem and a host of others. I'm thinking it might be worth looking into.
I'm pretty new to Minecraft (lol I know) but I'd love to hear more about how DQB2 tops it in terms of replayability. That was surprising to read. Is the quest portion endless? Is there a way to randomly generate new worlds or do you have this one dedicated sandbox world to craft and explore? Or are we talking about replayability in a different sense?
@Heavyarms55 in hindsight the reference to Animal Crossing in this review might have stumbled on what do make the DQB formula so enjoyable.
That is, those NPCs in the villages you build that give them a charm you'd have to look for in something like Animal Crossing considering how rare NPCs are in sandbox games, let alone NPCs with both written personalities/narratives and function. Especially functions that so directly ties into the gameplay mechanics of a crafting game here(directly helping you build and farm/etc rather than just being glorified merchants like Terraria for example).
Minecraft have villagers NPCs for example but only in pre generated village and without much writing to their names so to speak.
I love building in Minecraft and other games but I think that's one of the factors that always bugged me in many sandbox games is how "empty" players build can feels unless you're already playing on a massive multiplayer server or such, since unless players do something like hijack a NPC villagers' town, players mansions and so on will generally be devoid of life that isn't farm animals and pets.
@Bobb
Nope. I played the DQB demo, thought it was ok but didn't buy as I knew this was coming. No need to have played it to enjoy this one.
and are there multiple tile sets that can be loaded between? I really like that feature of reskinning in Minecraft.
and, I think finally, are the villagers all autogenerated and do that grow in random ways? Are your villagers all different and semi-unique from mine? Can they die?
Really like DQB, but haven't gotten that far into it yet. As appears to be the norm for DQ games, the writing provides numerous little chuckles. The biggest negative in the first game is unfortunately the aspect that SE don't seem to have addressed - the controls. They're not bad enough to stop me getting DQB2, but as they don't appear to be improved I will continue to take my time with DQB before getting this one.
@Bobb honestly you can pick up this one without needing to play the original.
It's story refers to Dragon Quest 2, but can still be played on its own and it's also otherwise largely disconnected from Dragon Quest Builders 1 even if that later comparatively referred to DQ1 a lot.
I enjoyed Builders 1 a lot but the quality of life improvement(like the npcs allowing you to automate farming and so on mentioned in this review) this sequel bring might actually make it very hard for me to ever boot up the original game again at this rate.
In fact the presence of so much quality of life to the building process thanks to NPCs might be also why I'd also have a hard time to go back even to Minecraft.
@mister_magnus I think villagers are a mix of fixed and generated.
Story gives you groups of fixed villagers, but special islands allow you to find more in the form of generated villagers which further helps villages(especially the Island of Awakening that function like a continuous central hub in the story) being even more different from players to other players.
And with up to 60 villagers on the Island of Awakening that means a lot more of potential differences.
I hope this game doesn’t have a confusing map objective problem again. I finally went back to the first game, and the game loves to tell you to go in a direction that ends up bringing your character to the water.
If MUA3 and fire emblem werent coming this month I would totally get this game.
I've been hyped for this since they announced it like last year. Had some fun with the demo and am highly looking forward to the game itself.
I am really disappointed to hear that the local co-op is just local wireless and not actually on one console. My son and I both enjoy playing the first game independently, but when the trailers advertised co-op we were definitely looking forward to this one. Less so now.
@k8sMum @Ludovsky Thank you very much. I guess that is it.
QoL improv is very important to me as I can't invest too many hours in games as I used to
@BenAV Honestly I think one of the bigger issues with the original game was the world.
Thematically the "cursed world shrouded in darkness" was interested, but it made it such that story chapters were all the more dreary and the world would only get interesting visually only after you'd cleared the Chapter.
And Chapter 2's poison and disease ridden swamps might have made for a great thematic set in term of it's narrative, but it also made the chapter even that more dreary to play through. Chapter 3 was a much needed dose of slapdash humor afterward with it's village of muscles-goons but then Chapter 4 take it to an extreme that made Chapter 2 look rosy while being almost disappointingly short in the building department.
Honestly it's why I'm looking forward to the sequel so much. No "sky shrouded in clouds for most of the story", the presence of an actual post-game to keep you building once the story is over* and much more quality of life thanks to it's updated NPCs allowing you to automate a lot of the stuff in the game(heck, the starting companion will even automatically harvest a lot of the land's resources alongside you as soon as you start farming even just a few items) like an actually accessible version of Dwarf Fortress lite melded into the narrative.
*Honestly, the fact Terra Incognita was seregrated away from the story yet had so much of the crafting stuff gated away by story progression is perhaps the no.1 thing that kept me away from creative building in the game.
The sequel directly fixes that by integrating the Island of Awakening, it's equivalent, as a literal central hub to the story narrative ontop of even more directly upgrading just how much you can do on the islands... starting with it's support for up to 60 villagers compared to the measly 13 that could inhabit Terra Incognita... only 7 of which could even be humans able to do anything like using crafting stations you placed in the world.
With how upgraded the functions of NPCs are to automate a lot of the farming/etc process(even DQB2's very first starting companion can help you auto-collect some of the world's resources as soon as he see you gathering some materials in the world) in the game, it makes me hard to go back even to the likes of Minecraft for the like of creative/survival-lite play.
@FiveDigitLP Honestly hearing the game has framerate issues in some occasional areas even on PS4 in Japan(which make me suspect it relates to the coding of how the world is generated rather than necessarily underpowered hardwares), I immediately suspected same-console multiplayer would be very unlikely.
Double moreso when multiplayer was mentionned to be exclusive the Island of Awakening, which felt like multiplayer was mostly meant to be an upgraded version of DQB1's online sharing feature; i.e.: a mean to share your builds with your friend, but by being able to invite them to your entire hub island(and cooperatively build more with them) this time around rather than just sharing extremely limited "for eyes only" plots of lands behind special cordoned areas.
I'm kinda disapointed myself but with the structure they were going for I can understand.
However, a form of "single-screen coop" where a second player could have cooperatively controlled the story companion called Malroth that follows you throughout the entire story could have been an interesting option at least. Even if Malroth is coded to be unable to build(for story reasons) and thus can only help in fighting and gathering it could still have been interesting... though it could have led to some issues with the camera controls however(who controls the camera? How far can Malroth move from the hero at all? How do you handle buildings if one player enter the building but the other don't?).
At this point, I wouldn't be expecting any optimization patches. The game has been out since December in Japan. They are probably not going to update the game any further.
@Bobb It's a pleasure! Honestly I loved the first game but it had it's flaws in a sense it was clearly a prototype from a studio dipping it's toes in the genre for the first time.
The sequel by all accounts seems to be and apparently is the very perfected version of this.
I find interesting this review mentionned Animal Crossing for example because I'd always struggled to figure how to word what made the experience so interesting to me even in the original game and honestly I think that's the biggest things: these NPCs in the villages you craft that have their own personalities and functions both, which add a layer of charm I still struggle to find in any other crafting games.
Most likely because it was something that, until now, you wouldn't find in crafting games of the Minecraft lineage(where players monuments would lay empty of non-farm life unless they hijacked pre-generated villages of the world) but instead in the likes of Animal Crossing with it's villages and towns of NPCs written with personalities and traits of their own.
The genius move that Dragon Quest Builders 2 perfect over it's predecessor DQB1, is in the added "function" to these NPCs that allow it to even inject a more accessible version of Dwarf Fortress DNA where you can relegate a variety of tasks to your villager allowing you to automate a lot of processes(farming/etc as said before) and thus letting you focus even more on the creative aspect of building with the increased zoning for "Villages" in the game allowing them to build bigger than the extremely restricted zoning of DQB1 outside of it's creative mode.
The fact that DQB2's own creative mode was directly integrated into the story as a massive central hub just make the whole process even more interesting to me(especially considering it upgrade supported population from DQB1's Terra Incognita's measly 13 villagers with no written dialogue to a whopping 60 in DQBuilders 2 where it sounded like even "generated" NPCs might be able to give you mini-quests and so on). The fact even "story chapters" islands seem to be updated in the scope of how much you can build is just a bonus at this rate ontop of featuring an actual post-game actually encouraging you to continue building even after the story is over.
@Ludovsky Personally, I liked the way the atmosphere was handled in DQB1. It made me feel the weight of how the world had suffered because of the hero's choice. The chapters start out grim and sometimes difficult to survive. I felt really accomplished and happy at the end of each chapter, but also sad to leave the villagers because I had to move on. The legendary builder was a tragic character who brings peace and happiness back to the world, but never gets to enjoy it himself.
Just my opinion, of course.
In a less jam packed year I might have given this one a go. I found the first one to be a little “white bread” for my taste. The characters and situations were a little too bland and samey for the length.
Aw, shucks... I may have to re-think my preorder cancellation. I never didn’t want the game, it’s just September, and all. Ouch. I should’ve started saving a year ago.
@BenAV chapter 3 was even worse. I feel like they took a lackluster approach. 3 gang members with the same gear. No food since it was a desert. Painful and dull. Fourth was well worth it.
I posted some videos of DQB2 Japan version gameplay to understand how awesome that game.
@mister_magnus Honestly I would say it's an interesting mix in the sequel.
I'll mention the original game first just to further highlight the contrast with it's sequel(which improve a lot in my opinion).
DQB1 was purely linear in pregenerated/fixed layout maps, but actually was giving everyone of it's chapters their own savegames menus as if to encourage you to replay them multiple times just to see how differently you could build the themed town of each chapters in different runs.
It also had a creative mode in the form of a separate "Terra Incognita" land which was itself pregenerated(I'll return to this bit in the sequel in regard to it's post-game) by removed limits to how far and how large you could build on the large island you were given, and for which unique recipes and objects would be unlocked as you progressed through the main story.
Though I would say it suffered from being "gated away" from the main story, especially with villagers that lacked any form of dialogues compared to the charming NPCs of the story chapters that were giving the whole thing a dose of Animal Crossing-like charm at times as stated in this very review.
Meanwhile, while story chapters encouraged a form of replayability with their separate save menus... also suffered from it because you couldn't return to a previous chapter with recipes discovered in later chapters since saves were separate.
So on to Builders 2 now.
In all these regards, I'd call the sequel an improvement. Both in the fixed maps layouts of the story.... and a more prevalent presence of generated stuff on the side.
This time there is a single savegame for the whole game per account which might be seen as a form of issues but... on the other hand the entire experience is entirely interconnected this time around.
For example, when you complete a story chapter you can actually return to that land with knowledges you amassed later in the story to spruce up what you built there with materials/etc you didn't have access to originally. It's purely optional, but it's a great incentive for creative players to keep on building up these places even after completing their story.
Second, the creative island this time is directly integrated in the story. It even function as a central hub you continually build, tweak and populate with fixed and generated NPC villagers both that you recruit through the course of playing(some special procedurally generated "material islands" specifically exists for the goal of recruiting villagers and gathering resources/unlocking "infinite" resources for some materials).
It's not even just larger, it can support a much larger population.
DBQ1's Terra Incognita supported a max of 13 villagers, only 7 of which could be humans capable of non-combat tasks at all(and none with any dialogue whatsoever).
DQB2's story-integrated Island of Awakening can support up to 60 villagers, which meant you can actually support up to three different custom settlements(of up to 20 townsfolk each) just in that hub island, all of which are a mix of story NPCs and generated NPCs, with even the later generated villagers still capable of generating forms of miniquests through the games for special rewards if I recall.
Like mentioned earlier, DQB2 even has special generated "material islands" you can visit that give you optional challenge of their own for special rewards(such as unlocking infinite amount of certain building materials).
Ontop of that it again features even more in the form of an actual post-game allowing you to unlock another creative hub to build on. Not only that, unlike the Island of Awakening, that post-game island is not fixed in design but literally generated to your specification.
You can thus generate the "Cultivation Island"(as named in the Japanese build iirc, might be different in english) so be of the size and biomes you want it to be.
As a result it can even support biomes you wouldn't traditionally see on the Island of Awakening without doing a massive amount of landscaping so to speak. It's literally procedurally generated to your own specification and if you don't like the outcome or are getting bored of your current cultivation island you can scrape it and generate anothers.
And like the Island of Awakening, it can support an additional 60 villagers of it's own if I recall well what was previewed.
And that's just for a single savegame, and each Switch account can support their own save.
Plus, unlike the original game where you could only share specially cordonned-off builds with special codes , Builders 2 supports online functionality allowing you to directly visit other players' Island of Awakening and post-game Cultivation Island both to see the entire islands builds they made or even cooperatively builds on theirs(or yours).
You can even share blueprints online for structures you(or other players) designed that your villagers can then directly automatically build for you given you have the proper materials.
So there's a lot of potential there in the sequel I feel.
No mentioned of small font size in this review. Square did not optimized this game for Switch, the text is so hard to read. Imagine playing this with Switch Lite's smaller screen?
@Fake-E-Lee honestly though creative building is partly why I'm hyped for Builders 2 and it's all due to it's updated villagers.
Ontop of the post-game cultivation islands(allowing you to procedurally generate hub lands of your own, ontop of the original story hub you built throughout the story), one of the big features of the game is able to save blueprints items of builds you constructs(or download similar blueprints shared online by other players).
This is useful because then you can literally have villagers you recruited build an exact copy of these blueprints wherever you want given you have enough materials.
A clever player could thus build a portion of massive fortress walls as a blueprints, then place multiple copies of that blueprints that would be automatically build by their villagers, like a form of in-game 3D printer. Thus by placing them in line they could quickly lay out a lot of very impressive walls and so on, saving a lot of effort in the process.
And the fun things is that challenge exists even in the primary story mode of the game to unlock infinite quantities of many of the game's materials, making creative building even that much more of a cinch.
Ultimately it's a scale of gameplay I'd been looking for in a long while. Kind of like something in between Minecraft and Dwarf Fortress where you can do a lot yourself but call upon recruited villagers to delegate a lot of the more busyworks parts of the process.
So you can literally function akin to the role of an architect and villagers as your workforce helping speed along the whole process of building massive layouts.
@AlphaElite Oh, I did like it! Though honestly sometimes I felt it sometimes detracted from the cheer joy of enjoying the building, to the point I felt I had to clear chapters to truly enjoy their lands from a building viewpoint to it's fullest.
If anything, the charm of NPCs during the story is also why I had the hardest time getting into Terra Incognita and the empty slates void of dialogues that were villagers there.
I still loved the game enough to clear it entirely all the way to beating the Dragonlord in Chapter 4, and I wouldn't be looking forward to this sequel if I hadn't loved the original in the first place
@DJKeens Kinda, yeah! Though story islands are technically still separate(loading screen and all) from the "Mainland" that your hub on the Island of Awakening become.
However, travelling between story island and the Island of Awakening is done via a boat so it's still all seamlessly integrated in term of narratives. The land exists separate from each others... but you progression very much remains.
You can't bring a ton of materials to story islands, but retain knowledges of all the recipes you've unlocked before and can bring your equipped gear with you(double more notable now that gear doesn't break).
Not only that but during the story you can also unlock infinite amounts of select materials and that also apparently follow you when you reach story islands.
And since you have that boat, you can actually revisit the islands whose stories you've completed and bring along with you any of the additional recipes you've unlocked since you last visited, giving you a lot of incentive as a creative player to update and "refresh" whatever you built there even if you don't "need" to in the story as far as I know.
Which is okay with me because the segregated chapters of the original game always had me a little annoyed I couldn't return to my Cantlin build with the recipes for better beds than straw mattress for examples.
If I recall correctly, you can even get a form of population management mechanics as the Island of Awakening hub can even sport up to 60 villagers at the end of the story as previously said. Especially once you unlock that post-game generated island since it can also support just as much(so you'll literally want, iirc how it works, to "migrate" villagers from the Island of Awakening to your generated island, and still have the option to recruit more until the maximums are reach on both if I recall).
Forgot this was out tomorrow, until I got an email earlier today telling me it was being dispatched lol. Avoided the demo because when I played the first game's demo I was just getting into it when the demo ended and I hated that I had to wait a month or so at the time to get the game (was already out but I didn't have the money lol). So sod playing the demo this time around! I'll wait for the full game. And thankfully I don't have to wait long now .
I looooved the demo.
Got a preorder in physically and digitally. This game is super charming and looks gorgeous on Switch too. Way better than the first.
@JaxonH Honestly I'm getting this physically but I'll definitely admit I'm stupidly reaally tempted to double-dip for the digital edition just for thatdigital pre-order bonuses even if I know it's very minute at the end of the day XD
Edit: Apparently I'd have gotten some of the pre-orders even on physical if I'd just done it with EB Games but with them being a Gamestop subsidiary I'm always feeling ugh about going back there, especially as the closest one is not that close to my home.
Thanks for the review! I enjoyed it and found it accorded with what I've heard and played (via the demo).
Now for griping! It's so frustrating that they cut the frame rate in half for this game! I've been playing Dragon Quest Builders 1 on Switch and having a lot of fun with it. In docked mode it looks very, very nice running at 60 frames per second almost all the time. Handheld looks choppy at 30fps, so I avoid playing it that way. Dragon Quest Builders 2 looks like choppy garbage though! I can't believe Square Enid thought it would be okay to destroy the frame rate. Really sucks! Maybe someday in the future I'll play this on PS4 where I hear it maintains the frame rate the first game has on Switch! Developers please stop releasing choppy games on Switch! It makes the system look cheap and low quality, when it isn't at all! Hopefully Nintendo will release a Switch Pro that can play games like DQ Builders 2, Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle, Kirby, Luigi's Mansion 3, Astral Chain, Bloodstained, Octopath Traveler, Valkyria Chronicles, Child of Light, Katamari Damacy (come on Konami, release a 60fps title in this series of games!!!), Okami (same deal, please release a smooth version of this game. It would be astonishingly beautiful in handheld at 60fps!), Tiny Metal, Pool Panic, Pacman Champ Edition (pathetic Namco couldn't get this to stay at 60?! It mostly plays at 30fps and rarely hits 60! Amazing crappy programming, just look at PS3 and even Vita versions with similar gameplay at 60fps), Fire Emblem (looks set to run at pathetic 30 fps on Switch), Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3, and Human Fall Flat at 60 fps.
Can’t wait to dig into this tomorrow. The first one was super addictive, and one of my favorite games of last year.
@AlphaElite I felt the exact same way. It was an addictive fear/sadness->joy->guilt loop. I never wanted to leave the old town and would just stick around a little longer so as not to leave the characters yet just as it became happy. But then I'd get sucked into the dark dismal world of harsh survival in the next increasingly hostile land and love that moment when I'd get walls up around the town and start feeling like I had a secure base running. It was a great story telling dynamic.
I played both demos a few days ago, and while the tutorial and story quests were wonderfully unobtrusive in the first game, the second sort of killed my motivation to even finish the demo. The tutorial is a one time thing, but did following the guy up the mountain really need to be interrupted by several pointless "there he is" scenes? If the entire game is like that, I'm really on the fence despite loving the building gameplay.
Got my voucher redeemed this morning, so just waiting on the unlock. I'm hoping squeenix does a greatest hits in japan again so that I can get the japanese version later for cheap.
Just read the IGN review of this game & this review blows it out of the water. Thanks for writing such a great review. Looking forward to picking this game up!
What a good in debt review good job!
In getting this one for the wifey she loved the first one, me not so much.
Its good to hear they fixed the stuff dq1 whas lacking, too bad its not 60fps and splitscreen multiplayer though.
@Yorumi Thank you very much. I've got the chance to play DQ1 and DQ2 recently (a year ago or so) so I guess I'm set.
I would love to play DQBuilders 1, actually, but we know these kind of games require a lot of time investment. I really want to experience at least one of them from start to finish, and since 2 sounds like such an upgrade, I guess I'm better off with the sequel.
If, one day, I get the free time, I may look back to DQBuilders 1. Again, thanks everyone for the tips
@Bobb it was a pleasure!
@Fake-E-Lee oh, that's perfectly okay. As you said, different strokes.
Personally I just have a hard time with how minecraft builds can feel empty of life which can be okay for "monument"-style builds or recreation of structure/etc from works of fiction but can be a break of immersion for me when building a village/ city outside of a multiplayer server since without "living" denizens of it's own that city itself feels like a empty monument version of itself which break the illusion of the outcome in the original.
I kind of wishes Minecraft itself had some kind of seamless mechanic for players to populate their own build even with the game's current limited villagers. As it stands the only options are to build at a preexisting village or to go through a convoluted process using minecarts/etc to "kidnap" villagers and to bring them to "populate" the location you want to convert into a functional abode for villagers which has itself it's own limitations I assume(since though it's a known way of acquiring generic villagers to get a location converted into a village, getting actual specialists/merchants villagers to spawn outside of preexisting villages feels like it would be another matter entirely).
@Anti-Matter Did you know Dragon Quest Builders 2 was coming out? Jk jk
I'm with you. I'm psyched it's here! It's been posted on my phone calendar since the release date was announced.
@DenDen honestly the fps issue* is why I suspect splitscreen multiplayer won't be a thing.
Sadly with the existing battle support companion(especially as he cannot build which would have meant inventory sharing/interface issues would be moot) would have been a perfect excuse for a lighter single-screen coop though in that case camera control(who gets to control the camera?) and structures(especially roofed) would have been even more of an issue.
*(for which I assume coding issues play a part as I hear of FPS drops even in the 60FPS ps4 version, often in areas and context similar to the ones the Switch version experience them which was true in the first game too)
Can’t wait to get my copy in the post tomorrow! I wasn’t planning on getting this game at all, not being particularly into Minecraft or Dragon Quest (big RPG fan, but I never played a DQ game before for some reason), but then I tried out the demo while I was on holiday, and loved it - so I ended up preordering it, and have been eagerly waiting for it to release ever since.
As a bonus, I’m working from home tomorrow, so I can take an extended lunch break to play this, and then pick it right back up the moment I clock off!
I loved the first game, partly because I love DQ1 and thought it was great how it was based on that.
I am disappointed to hear about performance and local co-op. Hasn’t this game been out for some time in jp? If so then wouldn’t this version already be patched with performance improvements?
The game is kinda cool but it is also really expensive especially compared to Minecraft.
I was hoping the multiplayer would be like Portal Knights where you could play through the game together. Disappointed.
Very cool! Also, great review! 🏆
Not really got into minecraft type games. but looks like a perfect game for the Switch. Hopefully will sell well!
@Pablo17
Did you play Portal Knights ?
I played Portal Knights PS4 & Switch version.
The PS4 version already got the newest update last 27 June 2019. (Elf, Rogue job and new world Faynore)
The Switch version will get Rainbow Island, Golden Throne DLC and other DLC like PS4 version this Summer 2019.
@Anti-Matter. Yes, I have Portal Knight on the Switch and really like it.
I love how you can share and rate pictures and explore other peoples creations, such a great unexpected new feature! Decided to get this on PS4 instead after trying the Switch demo...That Switch hardware upgrade cannot come soon enough!
@Ludovsky Yeah, I think even a simple "girlfriend" mode would have been nice such as allowing someone to play as Malroth and just help with combat. The screen could just follow the first player around kind of like on the Pokemon Let's Go games.
So many games score 8. 8 does seem to be saying it was almost a 9 but......
Or it could be 7 but......
Scores and reviews are subjective but a reviewer has to go that extra mile. 9 or 10 are OK as is anything 6 or below, give it a miss.
But 8 is an on the fence score. Letting the reviewer off the hook a bit. Since reviews nowadays seem to list a lot of negative points in the game as well as positive ones, a score of 8 says you the gamer decide I the reviewer will remain noncommittal.
I think the reviewer should be more positive and justify their salary. 😲 How? By having a score system out of 5.
So this game will have to have a score of 4 or 3 (no half). My guess would be a 3.
Just picked it up a few hours ago. Looking foward to diving in this weekind.
@Bobb thank you for asking the question I was wondering myself. Based on the answers you got I’m gonna skip the first one and just get this one.
@PuppyToucher NintendoLife is my favorite Go to Nintendo News site because of the community around here. Most of them are very helpful and very polite
The FPS on docked is a problem. I'm not an FPS obsessed person but it's clearly dipping below 30 quite often (it's the inconsistency that is so noticeable, it's very jumpy in many places). Handheld seems to be fine. We know that the docked performance bump it receives is not equal to doubling so why in the world did they go with 1080p on docked? It would have been just fine to give us 900p or even remove anti-aliasing. Or the option to just stay at 720p as the first one did? Or better than any change the resolution dynamically as seems to be the rage these days.
Regardless, I'm baffled that they have allowed this game to have these performance issues when docked. A couple of sensible choices would likely have addressed this just fine.
@Nehalem Agreed! I'm so interested in playing this after watching a great let's play that Kotaku created. They noted the frame rate dips (they were playing the PS4 version), but they weren't that frequent or terrible. Although seeing something on a TV is very different from on a cell phone. Anyways, my point is that the PS4 version looks nice and playable at 60fps. I might download the demo again, but I was NOT impressed with the Switch version. I would love to be able to choose a lower resolution, no anti-aliasing, and being able to have fog (pop in) in order to get a locked 60fps mode. Actually there are numerous games I would instantly but if they had a 60fps mode that was choosable in the menus. Yes, Dragon Quest Builders 2 should definitely have a 720p or even 600p mode for docked play with smooth graphics.
I'm so intrigued by this game!
It's an amazing game. Although didn't play much of DQB1, I have found myself spending insane amounts of time playing with DQB2.
Of course, my imagination is the limit as to what can be done in the game!
Finally finished the story mode and onto post-game. The quality of life changes to DQB2 has certainly made it a more polished game as compared to the 1st one.
Highly recommended!
@woodentiger86 I kinda totally respect the fact that you came back with an update after more than a year! My wife & I each got a copy for our Switches at launch and since have put in 700 hours between the both of us. It's an exceptional "wind-down" game.
@KonkeyDong64 Thanks for the kind words. Actually just realised posts #68 and #69 were both mine and me replying to myself after almost a year. Haha. Back then I got sidetracked after few months cos of FE3H, then Pokemon Shield... I finally managed to finish the story during the last few months.
Kinda empty though cos I'm not a very creative person and all I do on my Isle of Awakening is taking my golem along to smash everything to pieces and trying to build some sort of 'highway' to connect the port to the farm, then castle.
I do go back from time to time though [asides from the lengthy loading times upon inserting the cartridge]. Haha,
@Bobb No you do not need to play the first one.
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