Preview: Dragon Quest Builders

I was lucky enough to be invited to a preview event for Dragon Quest Builders by Square Enix, hosted in their London offices. A number of stations had been set up, with PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita builds of the game on show. I chose to use a Vita for my session as I knew if I was going to play this game myself, that is the format I’d choose.

When I left the event, my mind was made up – this is a game that will truly thrive on Vita.

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For those that don’t know, Dragon Quest Builders is an alternate history story based on the first game in the series. Instead of defeating the Dragonlord as he was supposed to, the hero foolishly accepts an offer from him instead. This leads to a cataclysm that leaves the world in ruins.

What’s worse is that the survivors of the event no longer have a concept of creativity, meaning they cannot start to repair their lives and homes. Of course, this is where you come in. You are awoken by a spirit and imbued with the knowledge to create. You are then asked to go out into the world and rebuild it.

From here, the game becomes a mix of a number of other games. Obviously, Minecraft needs to be mentioned here but I also got a strong Dark Cloud influence as the rebuild tasks you are set have more structure than Mojang’s world-dominating title. While we were playing the game, another game was mentioned and it does surprisingly fit the mould too – Animal Crossing. As you progress in the game, the number of people you interact with grows. This leads to more and more tasks for you to complete for them, with the rewards feeding into other tasks too.

The core game-play loop is fun; and that is coming from someone who doesn’t enjoy Minecraft. You have the freedom to collect resources, craft items and build what you want but the added structure of quests and a levelling system that rewards you for achieving these makes the game more fun to play as you always have a goal. As you help out the townsfolk and collect blueprints to complete, you will quickly see your home grow into a city.

While you are encouraged to complete these quests and help the people, you are still free to explore the area to your heart’s content. There is a fine balance to structure and freedom that Dragon Quest Builders seems to manage with ease. For each blueprint you are asked to complete, you also can choose where you want to place it and how you fulfil its requirements.

As well as rebuilding the town, you are also asked to go on quests that lead you further away from your home. During my play through, I was asked to rescue a survivor who had been trapped by nearby monsters. While the combat system is basic at first, you also have armour you can build to make these trips more manageable and weapons to craft to take on bigger and more fierce enemies.

Once I brought the man back to the town, he of course immediately had things he wanted me to build. While I was eager to progress and improve my town, that ended my play session and I reluctantly had to leave the game there. I can see this taking up a lot of my time and dangerously, my commute time too – I will need to think up of some good excuses for continuously missing my train stop!

Tags: Dragon Quest Builders, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, square enix