Silver and Gold! Dragon Quest Builders coming to Switch in February
Square Enix seems to be all in on the Nintendo Switch. In addition to offering I am Setsuna as an early Switch title, they have also released demos for Lost Sphear and Octopath Traveler. Now, it seems as though Square Enix might be ramping up towards releasing some of the big guns on Switch, with the announcement that Dragon Quest Builders will be appearing on Nintendo’s hit system on Feb 9, 2018.
Dragon Quest Builders originally released on PS4 and Vita in January 2016. I played the game on PS4, and I am here to tell you that there is a lot of game to play here. While on the surface, Builders might seem to be a Minecraft clone, the addition of Dragon Quest characters and elements give this title a unique charm all of its own.
Players are tasked with rebuilding a town that was decimated in a long ago catastrophe. As you gather resources and start building things up, new people show up to inhabit your town, offering new quests and recipes for buildings, armor and weapons. Exploration in the world of builders is a lot of fun, and battling monsters, while simple, is satisfying.
The twist to gameplay comes about 8 hours into the game, after a particularly challenging boss battle (don’t read on if you are spoiler sensitive). It is revealed at that point that the town you have been rebuilding is not the only area that requires your attention, but just the first of many. Suddenly the true scope of the game is revealed, and it is gigantic.
The Switch version has a few bits of exclusive content to tempt players. There are new crafting materials, and a new mount, the Great Sabrecub. There also seems to be a free building mode (which may have been patched into the PS$ version after I played, but I certainly don’t remember it being there.)
This is a perfect game for a portable system. I often considered picking up the Vita version for travel, as I could easily burn through a plane trip mining for silver and gold. Totally snagging this when it comes to Switch.
