Developer: Square Enix
Publisher: Square Enix
Release Date: 9th December 2022
Platforms: Nintendo Switch
Reviewed on: Nintendo Switch
Dragon Quest Treasures launched on the Nintendo Switch in early December and is a spinoff from the main Dragon Quest Series. Developed by Tose, Published by Square Enix and instantly recognisable by Toriyama’s art design and Sugiyama’s musical scores. Making this new territory for the series feel instantly familiar to fans without alienating newcomers to the series. A great starting point to the series if you’ve never dabbled before or if you have a younger player you would like to introduce to the fine art of Monster Hunting.
Treasures includes recognisable figures from Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age. Erik and Mia, both characters you can intermittently swap between at any time. Both characters control in the exact same manner, so it just comes down to personal preference. Their adventures make this little spin-off a prequel of sorts. Speaking of personal preference, you can also toggle the language between English and Japanese. Everyone hates the English, so that immediately got swapped over to Japanese. There are a lot of repeatable lines in the game from your party of Monsters and I found the native tongue to be far less grating.
Erik and Mia are being worked to the bone by some Vikings when we begin our adventure, but they dream of breaking out on their own and becoming Treasure Hunters. This struck a personal chord as who doesn’t want to pack in work and become a Treasure Hunter when they grow up? On board the Viking vessel they rescue a pair of magic winged beings, Porcus the wonderful green pig and Purrsula the majestic pink cat. Events unfold and you will eventually come across a pair of magical daggers; which allow you to converse with your new allies. After this we are transported to a magical world of floating islands and a soaring Sky Train. These winged allies work as advisors, they don’t count as monsters on your team and don’t get involved in battle.
Upon boarding the aforementioned Sky Train, we embark upon a journey through the clouds; this is the precise moment where the title screen and series anthem kicks in. This dear reader is pixelated crack to the seasoned weeb. That’s how deep the series has hooked itself under the skin of many an RPG aficionado. The churlish writer of this undignified lump of text included. The game introduces Sky Pirates very early on; excitement levels spiked at this point. Could this be the Skies of Arcadia/Dragon Quest crossover that the world never knew it needed before? Sadly not; but it did add a bit of colour to the world meeting some of the fellow treasure hunters. Some of these characters will become allies and others your foes, you can swiftly tell the difference between the two. This game is not subtle.
We have stepped away from the traditional turn based combat. The focus lies in building a team consisting of three monsters, similar in style to Dragon Warrior Monsters if you’re a bad enough dude to recall that classic from the heady Game Boy Colour days. You can pitch in and help attack with your magical dagger or provide ranged support with your slingshot. The slingshot can fire a range of pellets that you can eventually craft for a full arsenal of projectiles with different effects. Your standard pebbles can be upgraded with nails or blades attached to do even more damage. Elemental magic can also be infused to your projectiles to take advantage of your opponents weaknesses. They can also heal your monsters and provide buffs to improve their performance in battles. Quickly found myself playing a support role in battles, making sure the monsters were in good shape and only attacking with a puny dagger when there was a clear opening. Like a coward.
You do not have direct control over your monsters, you can command them to charge or regroup by pressing respective directions on the d-pad. Although there is a bar that builds up as you battle, whenever it is full you can either ‘Go Wild’ which increases your strength and speed greatly for a short while or have one of your monsters perform their special move. Each Monster has their very own style of fighting and special move. Striking a good balance can take a while, but it is so rewarding when you see your team pick apart enemies with relative ease.
The monsters you defeat have a small chance of being recruited, you can improve these odds by using a certain “Buddy” pellet or improving your Treasure Hunter Rank. You can combine any three monsters that have been recruited to form your team to go forth and tackle the various floating landscapes. Each monster has different resistances and weaknesses to various elements. While not a massive hindrance, you can lose the edge in battle if you bring Monsters that hate fire to a location that has a volcano in its centre. Mixing and matching to find a combination that suits your play style is all part of the fun. Even if some of us gravitate to just having the biggest, toughest looking monsters possible as vanity is always a factor in Monster Hunting circles.
Another consideration when it comes to forming your team is their abilities outside of battle or ‘fortes.’ Slimes can be used as gormless, yet charming, trampolines to reach higher areas which are inaccessible without their assistance. Flying monsters will help you glide across landscapes, crossing chasms or getting to lower terrain without damage. Stealthy monsters can reduce you to a shadow to hide your presence or access areas too small for anything with a skeleton to fit through, for some well hidden treasure. You will want to find a Monster that you can ride like a turbocharged donkey as a priority. Running across masses of land using only Erik or Mia’s little legs can get tedious after adventuring for a few hours. You quickly get to grips with the fortes as they’re very forgiving in their recharge times. You can use the bounce ability on some pretty small ledges to Bethesda Hop your way to the top of a lot of larger landscapes and constructions.
Which leads me on to the main draw of the game, Treasure Hunting. As you make your way through the maps, your Monsters will alert you to the presence of Treasure. You’ll want to listen out or watch them for speech bubbles indicating you’re getting close to a chest. These come in two flavours, Red Chests which contain higher grade and Silver ‘Bric-a-Brac’ chests are easier to track down as their location is on your mini map, but contain lower value items. Whenever you are in the vicinity of treasure, your monsters will alert you to its presence. It then comes down to Erik or Mia to use their ‘Fortune Finder’ ability to triangulate its precise location with the help of your team. Your Monsters have to carry the excavated delights back to your base and each one has a different carrying capacity.
This kicks off very simply, you’ll be picking up treasure as you saunter around. Further into the game, you’ll start observing factors like the Treasure Forecast and realise the team of monsters can help or hinder the amount of treasure you can locate. The Treasure Forecast breaks down the areas into a percentage of how well your current Monster group will locate treasure. It is worth mixing up your team to ensure you’ve always got a good chance to find a full haul of plunder to bring home. You may also decide to just bring a team of strapping young Monsters to maximise the amount of Treasure you return to base with. That carries a certain danger as they are more likely to drop it during a battle. Eventually rival treasure hunter gangs will begin attacking you in hopes to lighten you of your hard earned plunder. The frequency of such attacks do seem to ramp up when you are weighed down with high quality goods. This can lead you to start considering whether it’s worth returning to your base or braving the wilds for even further riches.
Treasure Hunting makes exploring the maps a delight as you don’t know when you’ll stumble across hidden Chests. Naturally you find yourself scouring the map just in case you trip over a valuable collectible to drag home. The main story beats were put on the back burner. The loop of exploring each island until you meet Monsters which are too powerful to defeat prowling the area is intensely satisfying. Unlocking train stations, which basically act as your fast travel points, made the journey between stocking up on treasure and dropping it back off on your homebase much less of a chore. It took a bit of trial and error to get the knack for Treasure Hunting down completely. Your Monsters start to pipe up when you get close, then your Fortune Finder can get you closer in the right direction. Once you’re in the vicinity, a circular blue flash indicates you can use the fortune finder to look through the eyes of your monsters to pinpoint exactly where you need to dig up. It’s never far away from where you can use this ability. If the treasure is in an area with different altitudes or similar looking environments, it can be tricky to pinpoint the exact area. You can also blindly run around the area until you unlock a rainbow aura telling you to whip your dagger out and begin digging. So when all else fails, run around in circles.
The first destination on the Sky Train Express is Eggshell Island which houses Mr Euston, who entrusts the island to you in hopes to return the train service to its former glory. You can rename your island to whatever you so desire and the PDG team probably wouldn’t appreciate certain naming schemes being entered here. The island houses the monsters you recruit. One of the siblings will remain behind, whilst the other goes gallivanting on the sky train. You unlock the ability to despatch several teams of monsters which can find further treasures and resources. The materials can be used to recruit monsters and crafting purposes. Unlocking facilities on the base island also expands your crafting capabilities. Giving you further reasons to send out teams for resources to use and for you to unlock as many areas as possible.
The Treasure Forecast and Monster abilities come into play on the despatch missions too. Every time you return to unload your treasure, you organise your teams to head out on their own and stock up on materials you may need. The monsters also level up on their adventures, swapping your team members in and out for certain scenarios is less of a chore when your monsters don’t need to be levelled up to coincide with your main character. Which is a small touch but one that respects your time greatly. Not something Dragon Quest has been known for in the past. There is also ‘The Snarl’ located underneath the island, which contains several portals that lead to arenas. The higher your Treasure Hunter level, the deeper you progress and the more difficult the battles behind the portals become.
Again, the main objectives took a back seat to building up the base, fighting beasties and unlocking train stations. You can display certain treasures to visually boast about your abilities as a Treasure Hunter, but this runs the risk of pirates or fellow Treasure Hunters attacking your base to try a bit of the old Dracky based dacoity. Meaning you may have to fend off these attackers from your base or risk losing the valuable treasure. The displayed treasure will increase in value whilst displayed, after rival attacks or your rank increases. So there is a decent element of risk-reward in flaunting your wares.
There are alway new monsters joining up and it’s always enjoyable to mix and match new teams to see what works for you. You can get away with keeping your favourite monsters in the mix for a big majority of the adventure without worrying about stats. You also unlock medals that can give your team a slight edge in battle. Unlike the mainline Dragon Quest Games, as long as your level is high enough, you won’t have to stress about character skills or equipment set ups. While this is probably a plus for many players; it can leave the experience a bit hollow for the people that expect a bit more bite from their Dragon Quest. The experience is definitely streamlined and more accessible for the majority of players.
The treasures themselves are a mainline injection of nostalgia. Characters, Monsters, Weapons or various references from previous games. Something similar to the trophies from Super Smash Brothers. These may seem strange to newcomers to the series, without any context. For fans of previous titles, they’re a delicious little historical nod and dose of dopamine. The treasures themselves get returned to the vault on your hideout to be appraised. The volume of goodies you bring back reflects your worth as a Treasure Hunter. Breaking certain value thresholds increases your rank and with the higher rank comes various perks. Extra Despatch teams. Extra room for recruited monsters and ups the number of medals you can have equipped at the same time. There are just enough pats on the head to keep your interest as you amass your riches. Eventually your island starts visually overflowing with riches and resembles Scrooge McDuck’s vaults; which was incredibly endearing and rewarding in equal measures.
This has been disgustingly positive so far. We should move on to the negatives, the elephant in the room is that this game is ugly. It is blurry, it chugs whenever things get busy, bland textures and the level of pop-in is comical in some areas. Whereas the art direction is fantastic as always, if you were to judge it by the screenshots alone you would think that ugly was a gross overstatement. The game loses its shine in motion and it does cause pain to type that out. All Dragon Quest games are beautiful in their own way, but this will test the faith of even the most staunch of diehard fans.
The cutscenes are such a stark contrast from how the game performs and noticeably a majority of promotional snaps and trailers are ripped directly from the cutscenes. It feels that this game belongs on superior hardware. The shortcomings are harder to spot in handheld mode, but are still present. The docked mode really shows how much the game is struggling. In an attempt to capture footage as an example of rougher moments as they appeared in the game. But Video Capturing has been disabled for this title. Which is an incredible coincidence. Your Monster team also has a habit of obscuring your field of vision. You could be forgiven for thinking this was intentional as to reduce the pressure on the system. It’s a strange paradox as the game’s cutscenes look like the HD Remaster of its own gameplay.
Dragon Quest Builders and its sequel, the Minecraft spin-offs, are available to play across multiple platforms. While they were playable on the Switch, the PC or Home Console versions were preferable in both cases. Fingers crossed that Dragon Quest Treasures will follow suit and find a home on hardware that can make the experience truly shine. Chalk this one up as another Switch title that has outgrown the platform and suffers on a technical level because of it. Would seriously consider buying another copy of this game just to see it live up to its full potential on another console.
The design is gorgeous, ever since Dragon Quest 8, the series has employed a semi cel shaded aesthetic that really toes the line of almost controlling a cartoon. Many of the series’ favourite Monsters return and bring their timeless charm with them, yet the more you play, the more you begrudge the restrictions and performance problems. Going to certain areas would treat the player to an overly long loading screen before you returned to looting the lands. Possibly a hangover to every other device on the market having an SSD. Monster Hunter Rise accomplished far more on the same system with less loading screens or technical hitches.
Something that personally dragged the experience down was realising how few of the Franchises’ Monsters are actually present in the game. Palette swaps with different pun names have long been a staple of the franchise from the beginning. Treasures has strained that tradition to the very limits. There are only a handful of different Monster designs here and a plethora of colour variations. Perhaps due to the forte system it wasn’t feasible to include more of the varied designs. For whatever reason, it is a shame we don’t have more choices for our teams. The sheer amount of different Slimes you could include from previous titles could fill this game’s roster easily.
The story is also a letdown, while serving its purpose and setting the player up with a reason to build their base and go treasure hunting. There just isn’t enough to get fully invested. Especially with characters from another title; which should have helped players get immersed into the world. Who knew prequel spin-offs could be such a bland affair? There was an overarching story of a ‘Special Treasure’ split into several pieces and hidden in various points of each of the separate floating islands. The story never became enough of a hurdle to delay enjoyment from the gameplay loop, but it came close.
Without wishing to bottom load the review with negatives; this game was a joy. You quickly find a rhythm as you hop from island to island with a squad of Mad Lad Monsters on a tricked out Sky Train with unbridled glee. If you’re a Dragon Quest or Virtual Monster Catcher fan in general; you can take recommendations for this game without an issue.
If you’re not a fan of the series or the genre; there is a fun gaming loop here and there is enjoyment to be found within if given the chance. The performance issues and tedious core story does weigh it down. Nostalgia goggles will definitely improve the experience and help patch over the flaws. If your enjoyment hinges on such a thing as performance, waiting until a possible port to some beefier hardware might be recommended.
The foundations of Dragon Quest Treasures are something that could be fine-tuned, polished and improved for a truly great title in the future.
-DeadbeatpunK
