Dragon Quest: Builders is a sandbox action and building game, with limited RPG elements. It is set in the fantasy kingdom of Alefgard, in which the original Dragon Quest game took place. As the player, you are given the reins of the saviour tasked with rebuilding this kingdom after it was plunged into darkness and destroyed by the evil Dragonlord.

Dragon Quest: Builders tasks you to save the kingdom across four different chapters with the goal being to follow a specific story arc for each chapter. This while gradually rebuilding the town to its former glory and beyond. At the beginning of each chapter, you will typically come across decrepit ruins where the town once stood, meeting characters that send you on a variety of quests to repair and expand the town. These quests act as the storyline for the chapter, adding to the key plot of the Dragonlord.



This works well because, while – at times – the actual chapter’s story may feel a bit on the dry side, there is a sense of accomplishment when finishing a quest and seeing the results reflected in your ever-growing town. Ultimately, this is what kept me interested in finishing these quests; I wanted to see what goodies I was going to get for my town after completing them.

When you complete a chapter, you are prompted to move on to the next at your leisure. Upon doing so, you lose all your items and equipment and essentially start fresh in another chapter and town; you retain only the recipes you have discovered and collected thus far. This is a refreshing mechanic despite the loss of tools due to the new settings; each chapter is saved in an individual save slot so you can revisit all your precious towns.

The non-playable characters (NPCs) themselves are well designed. They are largely memorable and each of them help, in their own small way, by giving you exposition on what has happened to the world since the calamity that plunged it into darkness. I rather like this mechanic, as it allows you to piece the story together for yourself and helps you to invest more into the sandbox you’ve been put in. I’m also a fan of this kind of exposition because it fills you with a sense of connection when it comes time to leave these NPCs behind and venture forth to the next destination on your hero’s journey.

Given this incredibly interesting premise, and relatively well-executed unfolding narrative, it’s a real shame that some of the technical and gameplay aspects behind Dragon Quest: Builders seem to shoot it in the foot.



For starters, Dragon Quest: Builders’ camera controls, while perfectly functional in open areas, don’t make for a good time when you enter a location that has anything resembling a ceiling. The developers seem to have realised this, as ceilings on your structures are completely optional; however, I couldn’t help but feel that this diminished my experience of the game. I wanted to build really cool structures with, you know, ceilings. Unfortunately, I ended up not doing so because of the camera issue. Early on in my game, when I got my first portal, I decided to build a portal chamber underground – and it was an absolute nightmare to do so as I essentially had to guess the position of certain blocks in the room. This is a real pity because the building mechanic is a lot of fun and the way the game encourages you to explore through building is great. It gets unceremoniously mauled by such a frustrating camera issue.

Given the explorative nature of the game, and its focus on having you fight monsters for new goodies, I was expecting the combat to be somewhat more entertaining than it turned out to be. I found the combat to be somewhat barebones. I mean, the game does have you learn new abilities every now and then, but they really feel uninspired and the combat largely consisted of me doing the same attack over and over again until the beast in my sights was no more. Adding to this repetitiveness, I often found the attacks were timed inconsistently; sometimes, when I pushed my attack button, the attack would simply not trigger. This is a relatively minor issue – it could just be because my controller has long been crying for a swift end – but it did make the combat somewhat frustrating.

Throughout the game, you will notice that the monsters develop a rather nasty habit of invading your current town. While I welcome this mechanic, because it keeps things interesting, I wish the game handled these invasions better. Aside from the monsters destroying parts of your town if left unchecked, your sword also has the ability to destroy building blocks. I hope you’re not planning on fighting anything indoors, or close to any of your handcrafted buildings, because the chances are you’re going to end up doing more damage than the beasties. Having said this, boss battles are handled well. It feels like something is at stake because the bosses can obliterate your base if not taken seriously. Thankfully, this is handled fairly, so you won’t have your town steamrolled by something you can’t fight.

While some technical and gameplay aspects turned out to be sub-par in terms of execution, the visuals backing them are quite on point, and make the aforementioned issues a lot more forgivable. The game treats you to a lovely voxel world, similar to what you’d find in Minecraft, and boy does it look smooth in motion. These lovely visuals are complimented by the game’s vibrant use of colour and it is a joy to explore the world because each biome has a unique look and feel. As a bonus, the vibrant colours combined with the voxel aesthetic can make your town look gorgeous if you’re of the creative variety.



As with previous entries in the Dragon Quest franchise, the monster and character design is rooted in the style of Akira Toriyama – the creator of Dragonball Z. Now, if you’re a fan of this art style, then you’re in for a treat. Gear design for your hero also looks well done and you see it manifest on your character whenever you change equipment. This is one of the small things I look out for in RPGs and I can respect the developer's attention to detail regarding the gear. From a more practical point of view, the HUD in-game has been handled well in that it does not unnecessarily clutter up the screen with useless information and tends to stay largely out of the way.

Unfortunately, the sound design of the game does not appear to have been given the same attention that the visuals were afforded. While the sound effects are done reasonably well, the actual music is mind-numbingly repetitive. Now this is a major issue because a lot of the time you spend in this game is going to be in your town, focussed on building. While hearing the music in the background is great, it becomes a lot less great when you’ve been listening to the same 3 odd minute loop for the last two hours.

Music is thankfully biome-dependant, so when you do switch biomes it changes. However, it seems to be limited to one track per biome. This makes exploring annoying, sadly, though you are able to disable the background music via the settings.

Despite the music loop being so stagnant, Dragon Quest: Builders does its best to keep you coming back for more – and I will admit that it does a good job as the game provides high levels of replayability. Each of the four chapters has a different save slot allowing you to go back to your old towns and improve on them further. When you finish a chapter, you are presented with a list of incomplete challenges which could include finishing the chapter in a certain timeframe or building certain structures. This encourages you to go back for more, a feature which provides enjoyable challenges especially when paying your ex-townsfolk a visit.



The main endgame draw takes the form of a free-play chapter entitled “Terra Incognita”. In this mode, the game essentially throw you into a world and say “go build”. This mode becomes available after you complete the first chapter. You can build towns from scratch and share your creations online, as well as view the creations of others. It’s a cool addition as it makes the star of the game (the building) stick out. The results are limited only by the recipes you and your fellow online builders have discovered so far in the story. Added to this, you still get a lovely world to explore with a new area becoming available for each chapter you complete.

At the end of the day, Dragon Quest: Builders is a likeable, charming game which I found myself having a ton of fun with. Based on the story, building mechanics, NPCs and visuals are really fantastic and I could have easily given this game a 9 out of 10 based on those elements alone. Sadly, the game is flawed on a technical and gameplay level further weakened by shoddy camera controls, mundane combat and a repetitive soundtrack. If you can overlook the flaws, Dragon Quest: Builders is a solid rendition of the worn-out voxel building genre.