so i just remembered that i pre-registered for that new dragon quest mobile game, Dragon Quest Smash/Grow, and it's just been sitting unplayed on my phone for a while so i figured I could maybe play and maybe review it.
last time i tried to do something like this was on blusky and the site ate my work so i'm doing it over here this time and maybe it won't do that maybe.
SO i've never played a dragon quest before. i don't do jrpgs but i enjoy things that akira toriyama worked on and his art style so idk i have no idea why a pre-registered for this. it was there i guess.
i've played it for a little bit, through the tutorial and into the second chapter of the story.
the things i wanna talk about 1) gacha it's a gacha. that's pretty lame. it's an equipment gacha, which i feel like is usually the less sexy (literally and figuratively) type when it comes to these mobile gacha games but paid gacha will always have an ick factor to it. gambling is gambling and gambling perpetuated by industry is inherently scummy blah blah blah, i'm sure you, the reader, know this. it's nothing stand out or interesting. i don't have anything much to say about it besides it's there and if you have gambling problems you should def stay away.
2) battle pass why? i feel like i've said this before somewhere but it's always annoying to me that these online games feel a need to spec into both yucky predatory monetization practices in every case these days. i can maybe stomach one or the other but both is often just a joykiller for me unless i really like the rest of the game. i am personally of the (probably controversial) opinion that a battle pass is equally as predatory as gambling mechanics. both incentivize spending money you probably wouldn't have spent by appealing to your Fear Of Missing Out. this game has like 6 of these for some reason. yuck.
3) energy system (we still do these???) i was kinda surprised to see an energy system because i feel like most games like stopped using these a while ago? maybe i'm just a bit disconnected from the mobile games space. i honestly don't play that much on my phone. idk my personal game design opinion is that forcing players not to play if they play too much has maybe never been a good idea and we shouldn't do it?
4) "action roguelike" (or whatever the vampire survivors genre is called these days) mechanics are these called "reverse bullet hell"? idk what it's called and i haven't really played that many of them but its got that thing where you pick upgrades and stuff as you play through a level except instead of an endless whatever, it's levels where you walk down a hallway to a boss. it's okay. i feel like on a touch screen it kinda isn't the most satisfying and there's also an auto mode so it can just play itself too if you prefer. it's a little uninspiring tbh. i have been playing ball x pit a lil recently and been having a pretty good time with it but i don't have much feelings about this dragon quest game. you eventually unlock it looks like up to 3 party members you can swap between in combat who can each have their own builds and also share some parts of that build with each other? i've never been the type that cares that deeply about the nitty gritty of buildcrafting in games like that so i don't really know much of it. (the following images are gameplay screenshots)
5) custom character the game has a custom player character, which is kinda neat. but any character creator that doesn't really have my eye color (dark brown), hair color (dark red brown), or hair style/type (literally any coily hair please) is always a disappointment. i will always make something work but it doesn't look like me lol. there are some decent skin tone options though. i can commend that (even if the darker ones need a little work). AND your equipped gear actually shows up on the character! (which like, it better that's literally your gacha items) and i just figured out you can also change the appearance (and names) of your unlocked party members too. so you get like 3 custom characters actually. (the following images are screenshots of the character creator and custom characters in various kinds of gear)
6) story it has one. i don't know anything and i'm not very far into it so i don't have much to say about it. i like the art? yeah, that's it.
7) ads we have them. idk.
conclusion: i don't hate it? but i also don't really care? maybe i'll keep it around for a bit? but also probably not for that long. unless i really feel like padding out my google play achievements list lol. it does have that problem most 3D games have with my phone tho where it's a pretty major battery drain so as i said probably won't keep it very long. but i do like how these characters have turned out looking...
but that is my take. it exists. visuals are nice. everything else is kinda eh to ew (also sorry for not giving alt text to all the images, i wasn't sure how to describe some of them individually)
