90%PlayStation 4

Quick note, though the story was impeccable, and the game has a superb amount of replay value. The point is that once the story is finished, the fact their are still objectives to add more to the already expansive work they give you in your own island, is truly proof this may be one of the best sandblocks I've ever played. Only downside was pacing from some parts had it drag a bit. But otherwise, every solid.

90%PC

I love this game so much. I really wish I was creative, as I want to create an awesome island, but at the end of the day it will look like it was made by a child.

80%Nintendo Switch

Very nice take on the minecraft formula. Has some quirks, but is overal very good

100%PC

整体游玩体验非常舒适的建造类RPG，没有过多的材料收集，也没有超级大的地图，处处设立目标让你去完成，而且正反馈非常强，虽然剧情弱了点但是游戏自由度非常高，非常推荐。

70%PlayStation 4

This is a very fun and creative building game set in the Dragon Quest universe. When I first played this game I could not get over how triangle was the attack button, still makes no sense but once you get used to it, it's fine. There are a ton of quality of life improvements over the first game that make doing things a lot easier and less clunky. However, one thing that doesn't change is the uneven progression. No matter where you are in the game you will end up hitting a wall in terms of power. As long as you are pushing forward with the story you are always getting hit way too hard and not doing enough damage. This was something I hated about the first game because it always feels balanced against you. Some scenarios make sense, like Moonbrooke but others it's just an oversight. You do get a strong sword and armor in the final chapter but after beating the game you get access to two locations one with a better sword and one with the best in the game. No idea why this is after the game is essential over. Some of the room specific build requirements are confusing and need to be just right in some instance to set it to the correct room type. Other than that, this has been a great game to play while listening to podcasts. It is also a much deeper and sadder story than I was expecting. While I didn't pay super close attention to the minor story bits, the overall premise and the loses everyone suffers and has to either overcome or deal with just was not something I thought a game like this would tackle.

90%PlayStation 4

I wish the game had a true co-op for the campaign.

95%PC

9.5/10
Pro:
È dragon quest
La storia mi è piaciuta tantissimo e ne volevo sempre di più
Ogni mappa principale è top
I personaggi tutti ben scritti
Bellissimo il modo in cui si costruisce
Il design dei mostri non delude mai
Contro:
Le isole secondarie dove bisogna cliccare su ogni materiale

80%Xbox One

8/10

fun, tedious, the games blueprints kinda suck and mess up my ideas for buildings

100%PlayStation 4

Best minecraft-like game out there. Strong gameplay, beautiful worlds, awesome characters & story. Must play for everyone who likes building things!

80%PC

Better than Minecraft once again.

90%Nintendo Switch

Addictive at the best of times, slow and clunky at the worst. Probably too high of a rating looking at it retroactively but oh well haha. I'm a big fan of DQ and Minecraft so enjoyed myself in this game. I probably spent way too long at each island making the coolest rooms I could - hence why my playtime was so long haha. Good game though - super chill.

90%Nintendo Switch

Finally finished the storyline after 83 hours with on and off play for 2 years. Building and managing your town is so damn fun, I could play this game for another 100 hours if I didn’t have other games to play.

The story is fine, but often slows the pace to a fucking halt. I did get a bit emotional and ended up really liking Malroth as a character though. He ended up being more charming than I expected.

90%PlayStation 4

I was so hooked. Now I just need to do the post game building stuff lol

70%PC

This is the DQ game with the best sense of adventure. The traversal is great. Moonbrooke and Furrowfield chapters were real amazing but everything else just drags on for too long. Khrumbul-Dun, and Skelkatraz especially had me wishing they ended way sooner. The pacing is a serious issue. It doesn't help that the characters are talking to the point of tedium and it doesn't let you skip through the dialogue. The best thing may be the relationship with Malroth, it gets really great by the end. Overall it's a good game, with some high highs and low lows.

90%Nintendo Switch

Hidden gem and was a pleasant surprise. I was expecting a Minecraft clone but what I found was a Dragon Quest RPG / Survival / Builder. Has all the charm and fun story that you'd expect from a Dragon Quest game with plenty of nods to older Dragon Quest games. Had me smiling throughout it's entirety.

80%Nintendo Switch

If you like Minecraft for it's freedom and creativity, but feel that it's a little too free and you'd prefer some structure/guidance, DQB2 is the game for you. it perfectly balances design and creativity with guided quests, so you are never left pondering what to do next. It being a spin off of a Dragon Quest game, if you're a fan of the franchise, you are bound to find DQB2 very familiar in its monsters, music, sound effects, and little things like mini medals and the bunny costumes! All of these things certainly bring a smile to my face as the nostalgia begins. Also, it being a DQ game (albeit spin off), the great thing that DQ is well known for is its story. The writing is excellent, and the story and characters really come together. You unlock things as you go, and you'll find that along with creativity, you can actually achieve something concrete. For example, building a building will turn something into an actual building depending on the types of items you put in it. There's a great amount of variety in the game- little puzzles to solve, design and creativity, putting things together as per a blueprint (think LEGO!), treasure hunts with checklists, and the list goes on.

I do wish that during the main game that there were more blueprint builds that were feasible and had to be done by yourself rather than the fast tracked way of letting the NPCs help though. I also wanted to do the epilogue, but that was a bit of a slog to get through all the tablet targets with little pay off in the end but a slight wrap up to everyone's storylines. Towards the end of the game, I also frequently encountered issues with text not showing up. So NPC speech bubbles were blank, the hover over for items in your bag were blank, and in speech dialogue, only the 1st page or even only the 1st line would show up. This actually meant that despite all the work to trigger the epilogue, I couldn't even read it all!

90%PlayStation 4

I absolutely love the continuation of the older Dragon Quest games in this, and the redemption of an older villain who otherwise hadn't received characterization.

90%Nintendo Switch

Stopped right before final boss

90%Nintendo Switch

Surprisingly good. Good tie between story progression and freedom to build. Not boring to build, pretty guided, solid mechanics, and very polished.

80%PC

Not just Minecraft with DQ skin, its more RPG then Builder at times. This was my first DQ Game.

70%Xbox One

Tiene algunos problemas de diseño que frenan el ritmo del propio juego en determinados puntos, aún así, juegazo

80%PlayStation 4

I already enjoyed the first Dragon Quest Builders, and this game just added so much and did so many things right, that I even got the platinum trophy

60%PlayStation 4

The enhanced narrative and mechanical depth diverge in a way that detracts from the overall experience compared to DQB1.

90%Nintendo Switch

I didn't think I would like it as much as I do. The HD rumble feels too agressive when the character takes hit, which might be a nitpick but as I play mostly on handheld I can't help but to keep feeling uncomfortable when that happens, aswell as it might caught me off guard and give me a little "scare".
But overall I'm looking forward to keep playing it for a loooong time.

90%Nintendo Switch

The game is fun and addictive, just using Nintendo Switch to play is lagging.

70%Nintendo Switch

I’d like to do 75% here. It’s a fun game. The first one is better, though.

90%PC

my god, some of the text is on the screen forever, and better camera controls are desperately needed

70%PC

It was pretty fun. I liked the building and creativity aspect. The game's just long enough to be entertaining, without overstaying it's welcome. And it's pretty addictive too. I spent too many nights trying to make my island pretty and my people happy.
The most annoying aspect though was the VERY vague idea of what the game considers "fancy" or a "stool". Apparently a candlestick is fancier than a candelabra...which would make sense if it wasn't the EXACT same item, just one needs to be put on a wall, and another needs to be put on a table! And it HAS TO be on a table, or, again, it won't register. Restrictions like that are weird in a game that so heavily concentrates on being creative.
Other than that, the game only had some small issues, like a lack of search function (it's hard to find a specific item you want to craft), the overly long and unskippable "X joined your party!" jingle, and a small personal one: all the accents made my head hurt, so I ended up skipping some dialogue.

90%PlayStation 4

This game is a worthy successor to an already great title. I dropped quite some hours into DQB2 and to me this game is not perfect but so much fun. I would rate it 8.5 so far but gave a 9 because the fun factor is to me more relevant than the minor flaws. Read on for more.

DQB2 adapts all the basic that DQB1 already delivered in a solid and fun way but changed the game and story play in some interesting ways.

Game world and story mode:
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In DQB1 the story mode was somewhat depressing because the final boss often destroyed your town and even worse, it did not matter because each chapter was completely independent and you started new every single chapter. DQB2 does things vastly different with a centralized hub island and a ship that leads you to side-islands or main-islands.

Main islands are where the story is being told and you will leave them this time also but you can come back at any time and the story islands are way more intensified. The first story island will keep you busy for 6 to 10hrs depending on your playstyle alone. Side-islands provide quick adventures on a pretty thin basis to be fair where the hub island appears as a free-to-build island with some story driven attachments.

The new concept is more motivating to me although I see some missed opportunities. Sometimes interruptions due to quests-givers are pretty high. The quests itself are mostly very simple or just guidelines through the main missions. Hopefully in a future title they will enhance this a little bit more because the benefit for the game atmosphere is pretty good.

Graphics // Sounds // Engine:
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What can I say. It pretty much looks like DQB1 to me. Maybe a little bit polished. Loading times on my PS4 Pro with SSD are okay-ish but feel too long to be honest. On the bright side the islands are loaded once and other loadings screens do not happen often or are very short. So I would not even rate this down. Graphics are of course cartoon-ish for this title but very solid. I personally like it way more then Minecraft even modded but that might be very subjective.

The sound and "voice acting" is still a clear downside for me. Most or even all of the dialogue passages are text-only. To me thats a missed opportunity still and not state of the art anymore. I d prefer them to take a step forward and present the nice story in a way it deserves. On the other side the character are cool and I like the writing a lot. As a non-native english speaker I still dislike that most of the characters "talk" with accents. Without a proper voice acting this is giving me some hazzle and honestly... makes me skip dialogue sometimes. Sad! The soundtrack in general falls flat to me and could be a little bit more entertaining but is still okay-ish.

Controls:
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DQB1 and 2 share a similar basis. For people who did not play either: the controls feel really decent for a console title in my opinion and not frustrating at all in comparison to other titles that seem to be perfectly made for mouse and keyboard. I was surprised with DQB1 and still like them. Some mappings are strange though. There are times where you want to change your tool but talk to your buddy etc. I see room for improvement here although there are some controller layouts you can choose from.

Gameplay:
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DQB2 is in my opinion clearly optimized for solo play. There is a multiplayer-like mode but it is not perfectly integrated which is a little bit sad and definetely a missed opportunity. In your solo story you are accompanied by an NPC buddy which is really fun and helps a lot in terms of collecting stuff and having a more dynamic feeling. Main focus is again getting materials, buildings, new stuff, but this time things are enhanced as you have more intense layered buildings, you have farming options and also your buddies will work more intensely for you. I like these changes a lot because they add convenience and atmosphere by a great margin as you try to develop your town, achieve quests for the people around and gain new recipes or blueprints to build.

Final thoughts:
*******************
I loved DQB1 and bought it just due to being bored at a weekend. Turned to be a lucky grab for me as I was really waiting for DQB2 and having a lot fun with it. I did not encounter any bugs or performance problems so far letting aside the loading times at the beginning. The gameplay is solid but got well enhanced with added atmosphere and a more quest related storymode. The characters are lovely so are the graphics. As stated in the beginning I would give DQB2 a solid 8.5 because it feels repetitive at times and misses some opportunities. It gives me so much fun though that I took the 9 with a tendency to 10. The game will provide a good amount of playtime (around 50hrs+) and is to me a solid buy for the initial price

80%Nintendo Switch

I am a big fan of games like Terraria, Minecraft etc and I really enjoyed the first Dragon Quest Builders. Overall I think this game was great.

+ NPCs are useful (killing mobs, building stuff etc)
+ Lots of missions, you always know what to do next.
+ Huge amount of items to make

- Too much dialog
- Soundtrack feels very repetetive

90%Nintendo Switch

Amazing game with amazing soundtrack
For a linear gameplay, it is really fun with funny characters.
story is fine for a family friendly game.
Building aspect of the game is the really fun part with so many possibilities.

Combat is eh, still okay though

80%Nintendo Switch

Great Gameplay, slow and boring dialogues.

90%No Platform Specified

Dragon Quest Builders 2 is an admirable RPG and an admirable building game which seems in most cases to have gotten the best bits of both of its parent genres. Clunky, overly straightforward combat and unintuitive controls drag it down a little bit, but it still manages to soar above all of the less ambitious Minecraft clones we’ve seen over the years. Even with the main story behind me, I’m still itching to spend time exploring its excellent environments and make them my own.