Sandbox games can be intimidating. You've likely stumbled across amazing palaces crafted by Sims 4 players, or recreations of entire fictional universes and real-world landmarks in Minecraft.
Who has the time, inspiration and skill to make this stuff? (Obviously
some people do, but I'm certainly not one of them.) The genre's endless
possibilities can often lead to endless dithering.
Thankfully, that's not the case with Dragon Quest Builders 2.
While there's quite a bit of hand-holding in the first hour or so, a
smooth progression of bite-size tasks allows you to get a handle on the
construction, crafting, exploration and combat mechanics quickly. Coming
to the game as someone who loved DQXI but hadn't played the first Builders,
I was suprised by the way in which story and exploration took center
stage, and pleased to find the RPG elements go beyond the series'
beloved Akira Toriyama aesthetics. While Builders 2's narrative
doesn't have the narrative depth or breadth of a mainline installment
in the series, its far more robust than I had expected, with a gaggle of
kooky allies and companions to befriend along the way.
Fans of the 'Dragon Quest' series, particularly
'DQXI,' will find the same appealing merger of Toriyama’s art style with
richly detailed, colorful 3D environments in 'Builders 2.'Square Enix
After designing your character (more on that later), you'll
begin aboard a pirate ship crewed by down-on-their-luck demons known as
the Children of Hargon. As is so often the case when you board a boat in
a Japanese role-playing game, a terrible disaster results in you waking
up on a deserted island. There, you meet the mysterious Malroth, who's
clearly got nefarious ambitions. (He was a character in Dragon Quest II,
but I won't spoil his story.) Together with your shady new buddy,
you'll explore a number of islands, each with their own "theme," like
mining or farming. You'll gather new materials and establish a base on
each island, which eventually attracts people you'll need to house, feed
and protect from the occasional monster horde. It's a big, diverse
world, but you'll unlock options to fast travel, glide and swim to make
navigating it a breeze. Straightforward hack-and-slash combat keeps
exploration lively and interesting, but you can also toss one of your
pals a sturdy blade and let them do all the work while you continue
scavening for materials.
Fans of the Dragon Quest series, particularly DQXI, will find the same appealing merger of Toriyama's art style with richly detailed, colorful 3D environments on offer in Builders 2. It's all a bit more chibi and blocky this time around, but it's still a sunshiny, colorful world you'll want to spend time in.
Your
customizable character features in a number of eye-grabbing cutscenes,
but sadly the character creator itself offers very few options to create
anything other than color variations on either the male or female
templates. For instance, if you choose a female MC, you must have
pigtails. This is the only hairstyle available, so girlish adorableness
is mandatory. Of the 24 selectable skintones, most are white or peachy,
the darkest being a rather orangey caramel. Sure, these aren't meant to
be approximations of actual human beings, but it would have been nice
to have more options to play around with, particularly when the core
gameplay mechanics are otherwise so freeform and freewheeling. At a
certain point in the game, you'll have the opportunity to change your
character's gender and appearance, but I didn't bother. (I was having
too much fun doing all the other stuff.)
Wrigley, a worm who can mulch through soil to make it
suitable for growing crops, is one of the oddball allies you'll make in
'Dragon Quest Builders 2.'Square Enix
The game doesn't include an English voiceover, though the
localization bursts with personality and over-the-top accents. That
said, there's no option for skipping or speeding up texts, which can
make some of the game's early explanation and exposition feel like a bit
of a slog. Builders 2 also seems to have borrowed liberally from the DQXI soundtrack, and shares that game's not-so-great tendency to make you listen to the same track far too many times.
That
brings us to the million-dollar question: is the building fun? The
answer to that is a resounding yes. There are loads of things you can
make: from mud huts to imposing temples, expansive Versailles-esque
gardens to humble cabbage plots. As you draw more villagers to your
bases on each island, their affection for you will grow, allowing you to
access more tools, crops, materials and decorative elements. It's the
kind of system that could easily feel tedious or grindy, but it never
does here. You'll gradually open up more of the world and expand your
construction arsenal just playing around.
Pacing and progression are among the key strengths of
'Dragon Quest Builders 2,' as the game gradually expands on what you're
capable of building and doing in a way that feels organic and relaxed,
rather than intimidating.Square Enix
That's not to say the construction element is without flaws
or niggling annoyances. While cursor placement was occasionally a bit
inaccurate (for instance, causing me to accidentally place a block
hovering in mid-air instead of on the ground), it's easy enough to undo
your mistakes with a good hammer whallop. That said, I played on PS4
with a rather large TV, so it's easy to see how more ambitious building
projects could become exasperating in handheld mode on Nintendo Switch. Builders 2
first drew me in with its role-playing pedigree, but it truly got under
my skin with its approachable and engaging sandbox mechanics. If you're
an RPG fan looking for a pleasant way to bide your time until Fire Emblem: Three Houses drops at the end of July, this chilled-out yet distinctive genre mash-up will certainly keep you entertained. Dragon Quest Builders 2 comes to PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch July 12.
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