Overall, Dragon Quest Builders 2 is a good game but not a great one. Personally, I preferred the Switch version but if you want a smoother playthrough then the PlayStation 4 is probably for you. The PlayStation 4 version is far smoother in this regard but is less convenient to play, as the Switch is obviously portable. In terms of performance between the two versions, the Switch release has been optimized over the Japanese original but still has framerate issues. Not due to the difficulty of the game, as it is quite straightforward, but more down to the sheer slog and the enormity of the game, followed by its slow pacing.
If you liked the first Dragon Quest Builders then you will enjoy this sequel up to a point but if you are coming in cold, I think you will likely struggle. I still had fun playing through the English version of the game again but while I could happily recommend the first Dragon Quest Builders to pretty much everyone, I am not so sure I can do that with the sequel.
Yet for all what makes Dragon Quest Builders 2 bigger it is not necessarily better because of it. The whole Malroth angle is also a nice narrative twist and is very heavily telegraphed from the outset, so this is by no means a spoiler. The localization into English is also done very well and retains much of the character from the Japanese version, which makes each area and its inhabitants rather endearing. Though the cooking and forging setup is far less direct now and has a strange time penalty added. There’s also a new glide function that allows you to fly over large areas quite quickly and a more streamlined approach to crafting items. You also have new items in addition to your hammer, such as the smoothing tool that allows you to change blocks en-masse (rather than the crazy exploit from the first game) and a flute that can tell you where certain ore deposits reside. 'Dragon Quest Builders 2' now has a very solid online setup for co-operative multiplayer. Moreover, you have various large monsters on each island and vanquishing them gives large amounts of experience points and rarer weapon and armor recipes. This increases your health and access to new recipes for weapons and armor. The health setup is more contiguous now, with experience points upgrading the player’s level. This is a smart choice and allows you to focus more on mining for resources and fighting enemies. While the scope and other changes are an issue, there have also been a lot of improvements to the game.įor starters, your armor and weapons no longer wear out. This all may sound pretty damning but there is a decent game under all this. What would have been regular upgrades to your armor and weapons, are now spread out over whole island quests, which is a bit demoralizing. The sequel is almost excessively big and the pacing suffers as a result. The first Dragon Quest Builders was a big game but focused. This is the other issue really the game is just too big and drawn out. So instead of having these gigantic buildings you have to make, it would have been better to scale things down a bit and let the player actually build things more. My issue is that it again reduces the player’s agency with building. Doing them on your own would take ages, so the villagers help out now. In some ways, it was a necessary choice as these structures are both enormous and complicated. It’s these large building projects that are also somewhat of an issue, as the other non-playable characters tend to do the bulk of the building of these structures. You then sail off to other islands only to return to the Isle of Awakening to undertake large building projects. While that had distinct islands that you progressed across, Dragon Quest Builders 2 starts with the hub island called the Isle of Awakening. The structure of the sequel is also a bit different over the first game. The presence of Malroth (left) does limit the player's potency in combat.