Dragon Quest XI was a great game with fantastic characters, and among those characters was none other than Erik, the sly but friendly thief. Now, he’s got his own game, alongside his sister Mia, and the two of them are set on finding as much treasure as possible. That game is Dragon Quest Treasures, a maybe-prequel and a definite twist on the usual Dragon Quest formula.
You might be familiar with the Dragon Quest Monster sub-series, and Treasures is kind of like that, but it’s also fairly different. The Monsters sub-series focuses less on the human characters in combat, and more on the monsters. They’re creature-collecting games, sort of like Pokémon, and for the most part collecting and battling these iconic Dragon Quest creatures is the main draw.
Treasures definitely still has a big focus on the monsters, and there seems to be dozens of adorable Dragon Quest monsters to collect and fight alongside. Mostly, though, Treasures is about – you guessed it – treasure. You’ll be sniffing out and collecting a lot of treasure, and the monsters you recruit along the way are more of a means to collect more treasure than the focus of the game itself.
The opening chapter of the game has the player taking control primarily of Mia, although Erik is certainly playable too, as they fall into a portal and find themselves in the world of Draconia. Draconia is a world filled with rare and valuable treasures, and surprisingly friendly monsters.
You’ll meet a couple of slimes, adorably named Oozabella and Goonther, have them join your crew, and set out to find spoils. The world is absolutely filled with treasure, and it feels like the gameplay loop is developing into a cycle of accepting quests, getting sidetracked by those quests because the game tells you there’s treasure nearby, then having to take that treasure home because your inventory is full. At least, that’s been my experience so far.
It’s a fun gameplay loop, though, and it means that you’ll spend a lot of time slowly creeping towards your goals rather than blasting through at full speed. I’m sure you probably could speed through it all if you were so inclined, and that’s probably a totally valid way to play it, but the part of the world I’ve seen so far feels a little bit small. Taking your time to go through it at a leisurely pace feels like the right path to take for the intended experience.
In terms of combat, Treasures strays quite far from Dragon Quest games of the past, even past Monsters games. Instead of the standard turn-based fare, Treasures employs a proper action combat system, much like you’d see in something like The Legend of Zelda but much worse.
That’s probably a touch harsh, it’s absolutely fine and it more than gets the job done. You’re just very limited in your options: you can hit, you can jump, and you can dodge. That’s about it. You do get a big super attack for each of your three party monsters, and that’s cool, but you need to do a fair amount of basic hitting to build up the meter to even use those, to begin with.
Another core element in your arsenal is the catapult, also known as a slingshot. There’s a bunch of different slingshot ammo you can collect, some of which applies certain elemental effects, or heals allies, or even makes enemy monsters more likely to join you.
That’s a pretty solid part of the gameplay loop, but one that I definitely can see getting a bit annoying with time. Monsters will randomly join you after battles, and you can’t seem to really do much to guarantee they’ll join, just increase the odds. Even worse, some monsters have special hats or accessories, and a lot of them are extremely cute, but if it decides not to join your party, too bad, you miss out.
Every monster also has some sort of movement ability that helps you get around the world, too. Slimes, for example, let you jump up really high, while a Dracky could let you glide around the world. Others let you dash quickly, or evade monsters. The inability to guarantee a monster joins you means that you may be locked out of these abilities for a while, which is likely to get frustrating too, but it does seem like you should be able to navigate most places simply using the slime jump, which you’ll always have access to if you want it.
In terms of visuals and performance, the Switch seems to be doing a very solid job of displaying and running Dragon Quest Treasures. It’s got a very classic Dragon Quest art style, leaning on simplistic design and cel-shading, and despite some other Unreal Engine games suffering a little bit on the Switch, this one seems to be rock solid. This may change in the later parts of the game, but so far it’s a very strong showing.
Dragon Quest Treasures is a very different kind of Dragon Quest game, and some who’ve come directly from Dragon Quest XI might feel a little bit alienated by just how big of a difference that is. That said, it’s got some well-loved characters front and center, the gameplay loop is enjoyable, and even at this early stage, it looks like it’s shaping up to be quite good.
Written by Oliver Brandt on behalf of GLHF.
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