Dragon Quest Heroes: The World Tree's Woe and the Blight Below
Overview -
Outside of Japan, being a Dragon Quest fan has been a painful experience. Square Enix has been releasing spin-offs, remakes, and ports of the popular JRPG left and right, but none of the seven 3DS titles have had so much as a localization announcement outside the Land of the Rising Sun.
Thankfully, Omega Force has heard the laments of the fans, and have worked with Square Enix to bring the exceedingly long titled 'Dragon Quest Heroes: The World Tree's Woe and the Blight Below' to Dragon Quest starved audiences. However, this isn't the typical JRPG that the series helped to create; instead, players get to experience an Action RPG with a fair injection of the 'Musou' genre, made famous by Omega Force's own 'Dynasty Warriors' series.
Video Review
'Dragon Quest Heroes' is quite the looker. Seeing Toriyama's art on the big screen and in HD is great, and it can even be hard to tell that this PlayStation 4 title was also on the PS3 in Japan. Characters and monsters alike are bright and colorful, true to Dragon Quest form. In battle, skill and spell effects look great, and it's downright fun to see the destruction that your party inflicts on the foes around them. Oddly enough, the only time the game seems to noticeably stutter is in the home base, which can be a bit annoying, but doesn't do much to actually affect the game itself.
Audio Review
The Dragon Quest series is well known for its solid, sweeping soundtracks, and 'Dragon Quest Heroes' if of course no exception. Then again, the game might be cheating a bit. This spin-off pulls tracks from various other Dragon Quest titles, and gives them a faux-orchestral tune-up. The result is great, and hearing old battle and overworld themes amped up from their original 8-bit and 16-bit origins is wonderful. The only complaint is that the actual tracklist is a bit limited, so players will be hearing the same tracks relatively frequently.
The voice acting is also pretty good, with characters having the absurd accents that the later series entries are known for. Players less tolerant of cheesy voice acting might find the acting a bit grating, but it's silly and doesn't take itself too seriously, and is representative of most of the Dragon Quest series in and of itself.
Final Thoughts
'Dragon Quest Heroes: The World Tree's Woe and the Blight Below' is not a perfect package. There are some flaws with the overall nature of the game that keep it from being a truly great experience, and as such not everyone is going to have the patience to deal with some of the title's issues. Despite that, though, this game is rather solid, and if you're interested in either Musou titles or Action RPGs, 'Dragon Quest Heroes' is sure to be an enjoyable experience. All of this enjoyment value is increased exponentially for 'Dragon Quest' fans, too; it's been quite a few years since the last localize Dragon Quest title after all, and it's a good game to boot!
