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 aims… 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, when 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 change into nice treasure hunters. Alongside the best way they free a duo of wierd winged critters and come upon the Dragon Daggers, enchanted weapons that whisk them away to the realm of Draconia, the place treasure looking is a lifestyle. Someplace 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.
In contrast to the mainline Dragon Quest sequence, which is turn-based and menu-driven, Dragon Quest Treasures is an action-RPG. Enjoying as both Erik or Mia (who’re functionally an identical), you discover certainly one of a number of massive 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 reworked 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. Whilst you can discover the sport freely at your individual tempo, some elements are progress-locked primarily based on how a lot loot you have gathered.
Draconia is not a tiny territory, both. The areas you’ll be able to go to are surprisingly massive and full of distinct geographical features–and include 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 completely probe a whole area. The dimensions of those areas is spectacular, and the sport runs at a stable 30fps more often than not, nevertheless it comes at a value: The geometry of the environments tends to look extraordinarily simplistic, and the textures are visibly pixelated and muddy.
Erik and Mia are at an obstacle, as they do not have the sixth sense for finding treasure that the native Draconians do. Luckily, they’ll enlist the locals for assist. As their upstart treasure-hunting gang positive factors steam, the monsters they encounter apply for membership and will be recruited as NPC celebration members. Your monster recruits are crucial: They struggle alongside you in fight, enable you navigate the atmosphere 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 if you’re actually near the prize, the monsters can provide you “Treasure Visions” of the precise location. (Monster sight is not fairly the identical as people’, nevertheless, so issues should still look reasonably odd–for instance, a muddy hand monster’s imaginative and prescient appears to be like prefer it has goopy movie sprayed on it, whereas dwelling armor can solely see by means of the vents of its helmet.) They’ll additionally discover precise 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. Additional alongside within the recreation, you may additionally need to fend off rival gangs that assault mid-exploration to steal your hard-earned items.
The gradual exploration of massive, various environments and your ever-growing vault of valuables makes for a really pleasant gameplay loop. It is satisfying to observe your headquarters develop and increase whereas your monster ranks swell with high-level recruits and your show case fills with a few of the most legendary objects from throughout the Dragon Quest sequence. The allure 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.
Sadly, one ingredient of the sport does its greatest to wreck the temper. Fight is well 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 fundamental assault combo string. Whereas they’ve a pool of MP, their magic is barely used for therapeutic themselves. As a substitute, particular assaults come within the type of a long-range slingshot, which you’ll load ammo (within the type of pellets) into and hearth. Pellets are the one approach you are capable of entry completely different types of elemental injury, and making an attempt to fumble your approach by means of the pellet menu to seek out that one rock that can hit a foe’s weak point is a problem. Making it worse is that you just additionally heal and put buffs in your monsters by means of particular pellets. Making an attempt to purpose a bunch of rocks at your consistently transferring monsters mid-battle to heal them or improve their protection will make you lengthy for a extra conventional motion/RPG ability system.
Your monsters act of their very own volition, with you solely capable of problem fundamental “assault” and “fall again” instructions, which do not all the time appear to be heeded. Their AI is mostly first rate, although when it does fail, it turns into fairly frustrating–one massive flaw is the shortage of a lock-on system to get everybody to focus on a selected drawback enemy. The large problem, nevertheless, is that watching your monsters roll, smash, wobble, and spellcast makes it hit house simply how restricted and boring your individual fight talents are. It consistently appears like your CPU buddies are having much more enjoyable than you might be throughout fights, and that sense of weak point by no means fairly goes away. Even with the particular “Wild Aspect” ability that ups your pace, 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 is a testomony to how robust the opposite parts of Dragon Quest Treasures are that, regardless of fight continuously 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 fantastic job of constructing you’re feeling like a bandit king.
