A common complaint about Minecraft is that it offers no structure, which can leave a lot of players with no clue about how they should proceed. The original Dragon Quest Builders felt like a reaction to Minecraft, as it offered the same kind of building & creative gameplay, except that it was wrapped around a quest with goals and NPCs to interact with. Dragon Quest Builders 2 improves upon the original in almost every way and it's only a few minor design and technical issues that prevent it from being a must-have title.

Dragon Quest Builders 2 is set in the same world as Dragon Quest II. A cult known as the Children of Hargon (named after one of the villains from Dragon Quest II) has done its best to outlaw building, which has led to the main character being kidnapped and taken aboard a ship. The player is a Builder, which means that they possess an uncanny affinity for designing and forging items. A storm causes the ship to crash on the mysterious Isle of Awakening, where the player meets an amnesiac boy named Malroth, who fights with the strength of a monster.

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Build Your Way To Glory

Dragon Quest Builders 2 is an action RPG mixed with Minecraft. The player is tasked with building everything from homes to suits of armors. The world of Dragon Quest Builders 2 is filled with the iconic monsters from the Dragon Quest series, which the player must often battle in order to defend their home or to farm for materials. The lackluster combat from the original game is bolstered by the presence of NPCs who fight alongside you throughout most of the story, with characters like Malroth feeling like the true muscle of the party.

The player must travel to different islands and aid the inhabitants with their woes, which take on the form of numerous quests and sidequests that the player needs to complete. All of the quests add something new to the player's repertoire and one of the most satisfying aspects of the game is watching each dilapidated base growing more elaborate and impressive looking with each new completed mission. The original Dragon Quest Builders forced the player to continually move to different towns in each chapter, which meant that you were always starting over from scratch. Dragon Quest Builders 2 avoids this issue by giving you the central hub of the Isle of Awakening, which you can return to and fill with new buildings over the course of the game.

One of the best new additions to Dragon Quest Builders 2 is the Builder Puzzles. There are puzzles hidden on each island that require the player to use their building skills in order to work out the solution. These puzzles offer the iconic Mini medals from the series, which can be traded for rare items, so it's always worth hunting the Building Puzzles down.

Building With Friends

In the original Dragon Quest Builders, the player was the only Builder left, which meant that the bulk of the wohttps://www.thegamer.com/tag/the-legend-of-zelda-breath-of-the-wild/rk was left to them. The NPCs in Dragon Quest Builders 2 aren't quite as dumb, as the game now allows them to help with the creation of buildings (with the aid of blueprints) and they can be set to finish simple tasks, such as cooking and farming. This means that a lot of the busywork from the original game can be avoided if the player wants to take a more hands-off approach to the maintenance of their town and go exploring.

Dragon Quest Builders 2 took a leaf from the pages of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and added a hang glider that the player can use to slowly descend while falling. This is one of the best new additions to the game and it makes exploring the game world all the more satisfying, as the player can appreciate the scope of the landscape as they float above it.

Dragon Quest Builders 2 also added a multiplayer component, which allows up to three players to join you in your game in both local and wireless modes. The other players are limited to the main island and they can't help you progress in the story mode, but there is still a lot of fun to be had in building with your friends and strangers online. The multiplayer mode can feel limited in comparison to the one in Minecraft, but it's still a great addition to the game.

The main problems with Dragon Quest Builders 2 that bring the experience down are related to design flaws and technical issues. The Nintendo Switch version of the game takes an incredibly long time to boot up and the game slows down whenever there is a lot going on. The in-game text is also tiny and is especially difficult to read in handheld mode, with no way of making it bigger for the visually-impaired. One major issue with the game is that the quests-givers can be unclear about their objectives and some of the missions involve waiting for resources to fill up, which can leave the player lost or with nothing to do. The Builder Puzzles, while a highlight, can also be obtuse and hard to solve, especially when considering how many options that players have when it comes to working out a solution. These issues are not game-breaking on their own, but the fact that there are so many of them means that they add up and can leave Dragon Quest Builders 2 feeling not as polished as it could have been.

A Build Well-Worth Your Time

Dragon Quest Builders 2 improves upon the original game in almost every way and it offers a lengthy experience for fans who want to satisfy both their creative needs and their dungeon-exploring desires. The game has some minor flaws, but it's still easy to recommend for those who love to combine building, creativity, exploration, and monster-slaying into one experience.

4.5 Out Of 5 Stars

A copy of Dragon Quest Builders 2 was purchased by The Gamer for this review. Dragon Quest Builders 2 is available now for Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4.