Dragon Quest Builders Review (The Cakegamer)
Absolutely Great Game
But only an alright port to PC...
First of all let me preface this, I already played this game through to its completion a few years back on the Nintendo Switch and had an absolute blast with it. I decided to pick this up on Steam again so I can play it again and also play it on my Steam Deck. With that being clear, I have experience in both the original release and this port of it and for everyone who doesn’t know, this is a port to PC from a mobile port so bear that in mind if you expect this to be an upgraded version from the first release (it is not).
What’s different from the original release?
So here’s my gripes with this port of the game. There’s a whole bunch of changes that I'm not particularly a big fan of in comparison to my experience with the game on the Nintendo Switch. I’ll still rate this game good as a whole but if you can choose between the Switch release and this one on PC, I’d personally recommend going for the one on the Switch instead. But if you can’t, absolutely go for this one, because the game is still great and worth being played. If you’re unsure about it, here’s the changes that stuck out to me while playing.
Too many Quality of Life changes
In the original release of Dragon Quest Builders there used to be much more limited space in your bag and no direct access to the big storage at the home base, so you had to plan out much more resource management while on expeditions. “Should I give up a slot in my bag for this resource to bring home or should I drop it to grab it later?” “I could take healing items with me, but they also take up a whole slot” “I should take more food with me in case this is a longer expedition, but can I afford giving up another slot for that”? This port of the game just dumps all that and gives you probably double the inventory space compared to the original and direct access to the practically infinite capacity storage placed in the home base from anywhere on the map, making separating the two inventories practically pointless. I get that DQB 2 did this as well, but there it was a necessity due to there being so many more different items than in DQB 1 that it would’ve maxed out your inventory within a few meters of your home base. But this wasn’t a problem in the first game and resource management was an important system to give more depth to the gameplay.
Additionally, Tool and Weapon Durability was removed as a whole. In the original release, tools and weapons were an important resource so you had to pick and choose when you should sacrifice some of your precious durability to gather resources or defend yourself against monsters. Having to replace broken weapons and tools was a constant resource sink that also needed consideration. Tools made with valuable materials are strong and durable, but they also need replacing someday so you’ll have to keep that in mind every time you use them. But this port just throws that whole system out of the window and you’ll only ever need to craft tools once and that’s it. It’s basically a permanent upgrade for that chapter of the game. If you dislike durability systems as a whole, then absolutely play this port instead, if you don’t, then the original release is definitely a more interesting experience.
The UI is made for the mobile port and is butt ugly compared to how it used to be
Due to this PC-port being a port of the mobile port, the UI is also unchanged from how it was made for mobile. I get that you need huge digital buttons on screen for a device with no physical buttons, but you could’ve just dumped those while porting to PC (I’m only glad they actually removed the digital D-Pad or we would’ve had a real big problem).
Just make sure to go into the settings and change the UI size to something more fitting for your screen size and turn off the mobile button prompts cluttering your screen and you’ll have a much nicer experience playing the game and actually seeing something past the UI. Though sadly there is no setting for changing the overall UI aesthetic back to the original release so you’ll just have to deal with the inferior visual design (but maybe that’s just my opinion).
But is the game good?
Oh, absolutely! I wouldn’t buy a game twice (and rate it positively) if it wasn’t good. If you get into this game with the mindset that this is “Minecraft but Dragon Quest” you’re in for a big surprise because it’s way more than that. While yes, it checks off all the boxes of being similar to “famous block game” with all the mining and crafting and building and so on, it feels like there’s a much bigger point to doing these things with the town/base building aspect having a bigger focus in Dragon Quest Builders. With there being a point to building outside of just aesthetics due to NPC requests for certain rooms and buildings, there’s a point to going out and gathering resources and exploring. And since the world in each chapter is handcrafted instead of just procedurally generated, you’re bound to find interesting landmarks with relevance to the story as well. And let me tell you, the story and writing is pretty darn good too. So it’s absolutely worth it to give it a shot for that alone, even if, like me, this is your first experience in the Dragon Quest series (even if it is a spin-off). While to me personally this port is inferior to the original release, I’m still having a blast replaying it.
TL;DR: Game is really good. Perhaps even better than “famous block game”. This port isn’t great but better than no PC port at all. If you can, play the original on Switch, if you can’t, play this.