Dragon Quest Treasures Review – A world full of treasures awaits you
With yours flying train you can visit the different islands of Draconia.
These two characters are the thief Erik and his sister Mida. Both heroes are young adults in Dragon Quest XI, while in Dragon Quest Treasures they appear more in their early teens. They live on a Viking ship and dream of a shelter full of precious treasures. One night, the two sneak off the ship to look for treasure and meet the winged cat Schnurrsula and the winged pig Porcus. Together, the four from the ship make it and quickly find two powerful dragon daggers, which then open a portal to Draconia. With the help of the special blades, Mida and Erik can also understand their winged companions, who then introduce themselves as young gods and have been given the task of bringing the seven dragon stones from Draconia into the realm of the gods. Without thinking twice, the two protagonists agree to help the magical beasts with this task. They are aided in this by the Transdraconian Railway, a forgotten transportation company. Eventually, the four of them start their own treasure hunter team at the railway company's headquarters and set up their own shelter. You get to know rival teams that compete with you for the treasures early on. Very prominent here are the rather peaceful Sylphanians and the ruthless flying buccaneers with their leader Captain Long John Silberbein. Unfortunately, the rest of the story remains predictable throughout the game and could have used one or two unexpected twists.
Treasure Hunt on the Flying Islands of Draconia
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Draconia is an interesting cluster of six flying islands formed from the remains of two ancient dragons. While you go treasure hunting on five of these islands, the sixth serves as your base of operations. Here lives Mr. Blechheimer, the deputy chief of the Transdraconian Railway, who is happy to offer you a shelter. While you initially live in a very dilapidated ruin, the place becomes more and more magnificent as your wealth grows. In addition, there are also a number of useful NPCs available here, such as a trader and a ballsmith. Once you have found your first treasures, you will also unlock your own vault. In this you can exhibit your most valuable items on several platforms. These treasures attract the attention of rival teams, who then try to periodically raid your base and capture the valuable goods. The last significant location within your base is the tangle. This is a buried labyrinth in which you can find clues to the seven dragon stones.
For each of your monsters you get a Treasure Vision. However, you can only dig up one of these treasures. You decide which one.
In order to unlock new levels in the tangle and thus also the clues, you must first increase your wealth. This is where the central core element of treasure hunting comes into play. With your magical, flying train you can go on a treasure hunt on the remaining five islands. These represent large open areas that you can freely explore. Only the strong monsters in some areas can throw a spanner in the works here. So while you explore a freely chosen area, you will quickly come across a wide variety of treasures. For example, when traveling through the area normally, you will find glowing blue spots on the ground that you can dig. At these points you will find so-called frills, not particularly valuable junk that you can still take with you. Much more lucrative are the real, true treasures, which you can only find through the visions of dragon daggers. The monsters that accompany you will periodically alert you to nearby treasures. With the special ability of the daggers you can now search for the place where you can get a vision. In these visions you will now see a section with a potential treasure for each of your monsters. The type of treasure depends on the monster. Each monster in turn has different treasure preferences, such as weapons, armor, treasure maps and much more. Once you have found the place that is shown in the corresponding section, you can dig again at a glittering golden spot and receive the valuable treasure. It doesn't matter whether it's a frippery or a real treasure, the corresponding treasure chest is given to one of your monsters to keep and must first be examined in your hideout. Only after this appraisal do you know which item you have found, but also the quality of this piece of jewelry. Most of the treasures are objects and statues from other parts of the game series.
As already known from other branches of the series, Treasures in Dragon Quest can also be different Join monsters in your squad. However, for this to happen, you must first defeat them in battle. After that, there is a chance that the corresponding monster will apply for a position with you in your base. In order to recruit the applicant now, you have to pay for it with various items. The companions also have different qualities, on which, among other things, the status values and the number of skills depend. The higher quality the monster is, the more and rarer items it wants to get from you as a recruitment fee. While stats, abilities, and treasure preferences are rerolled for each monster, there are also some things that are tightly coupled to each monster family. Each monster family has a so-called specialty, which is a special ability outside of combat. For example, you can use the members of the slime family as a trampoline and thus reach higher places, while the big cats are ideal as mounts and can thus cover long distances. But even in battle there is a special ability for each family of monsters, which is referred to in the game as a dragon attack.
Simple combat system with monstrous companions
The combat system in Dragon Quest Treasures is very simple. On your treasure hunt, you control either Erik or Mida, who have the same skills and can be chosen according to taste. Each of the two protagonists uses one of the dragon daggers as a weapon in battle, with which you can strike quickly at the touch of a button. Your monsters act completely independently and can use their abilities in addition to normal attacks. Dragon Quest fans should already be familiar with these abilities from the other parts, as these are the series-typical spells such as hiss, tinkle or etch. Unfortunately, your protagonist does not have access to such special abilities, but is not completely defenseless. Already at the beginning of the game you get a slingshot, with which you can shoot stones and balls. The orbs replace the spells and usable items - for example, you can heal your allies with the multi-healing orb, prevent the opponent from casting spells with the ooze orb, or deal fire damage with the hissing orb. You can use found recipes to create new balls at your ballsmith in the base or buy them from merchants. Finally, with a special bar that can accumulate up to three charges, you can perform powerful dragon attacks. Here you have the choice whether you want to carry out the dragon attack of one of your monsters or activate your own dragon attack. Your monsters are usually very strong area attacks that are usually associated with certain elements. You yourself have the ability "The Beast in Me", which increases all your status values for some time and turns you into a real killing machine.
The different types of bullets the slingshot replace the spells and abilities from other parts of the series. At least for Erik and Mida.
As with all RPGs, you have to gain strength as the game progresses and the typical way here is through leveling up via experience points. Earning these points feels like Dragon Quest to me Treasures incredibly natural. In addition to the classic method of defeating monsters in battle, you can still hunt for treasure here. Every treasure and frippery that you dig up gives you more experience points, and the real treasures are particularly high. Since you also have to go on a treasure hunt for clues to the dragon stones, the whole system works hand in hand here and thus prevents tedious grinding processes that are known from other games. As a second option, you can create medals. You can find these items in many ways during the course of the game and when you equip them, they increase individual stat values for you or one of your accompanying monsters.
Visually, Dragon Quest Treasures is reminiscent of the Cel -Shading look to the latest offshoots of the series. I found the large, open areas very varied and, among other things, convince with day-night changes and different weather situations. When naming the accompanying monsters, but also the NPCs, Square Enix relies on the well-known humor, so we have, among other things, the scheme Schattias or the mud hand Handrea. The game itself is available with full German on-screen texts and voiceovers in English and Japanese. Occasionally you can still enjoy very nice cutscenes, of which I think there should have been more.
