Review for Dragon Quest Builders 2. Game for Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4, the video game was released on 20/12/2018
As wisely declaimed by the excellent Donato Marchisiello when reviewing the PlayStation 4 version, Dragon Quest Builders 2 represents de facto an excellent expansion, compared to the original idea behind the original title. Evidently, however, the game's code lacked something so that it could be counted among the best creations within its reference genre.
The innovations proposed, some excellent, others a little less, a broader gameplay and the only slightly modernized graphics are an important improvement, yet the gamer continues to explore every corner of the game, in the vain hope of being able to find something capable of making him exclaim that he has tracked down, in Dragon Quest Builders 2, some trait that elevates him to the supreme deity of the sandbox God.
Far from wanting to re-analyze in detail all the features of the Square Enix production, we will limit ourselves to analyzing the Nintendo Switch version, focusing more on underlining the differences that divide this version from the PlayStation 4 SKU. Let's specify immediately: there are, but they are not so many and in any case they do not in any way invalidate the play experience.
Let's start with the inevitable graphic downgrade: supported by a significantly less performing hardware than PlayStation 4, capable of never dropping - or almost - below 60 fps, the developers have well thought of setting the video refresh rate of the Nintendo Switch version at 30 frames per second. Fortunately, there are very few excursions below this threshold, except in situations with more meat on the fire.
In general, the appearance of the game has also been affected quite sensibly, offering a lower visual spectacle both by definition and by special effects (the routines that manage the lighting system in real time, above all).
Given the hybrid nature of the Switch, Dragon Quest Builders 2 technically doesn't disappoint, however it is, ultimately managing to maintain good levels of detail and a fairly constant frame rate.
The very fact of being able to use the product even on the go is very probably the best value of this version compared to the PlayStation 4. After all, what could be better than being on the beach, lying like a deerskin, blissfully lavish at to play Dragon Quest Builders 2?
Although the daughter of a well thought out but not really comfortable control system, the videogame experience enjoyed in portable mode does not disappoint, aided by a pace of play certainly much more staid than the vast majority of works available on the platform of the Kyoto-based giant. Here there is no rule of the fastest to shoot, or the most skilled to jump from one platform to another: the only requirements are a good degree of imagination and a lot of patience while navigating between a sub-quest and a other.
But be careful: Dragon Quest Builders 2 sucks a lot of battery out of Nintendo Switch: We are on the levels of The Legend Of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild!
If we were to find some other flaw, surely we would identify it even before entering the game: the initial loading is indeed quite long. Nothing fancy, mind you, but less loading time would certainly have been a better business card.
Dragon Quest Builders 2 for Nintendo Switch confirms all the good things proposed in the PlayStation 4 version, enriching the already good basic recipe with an ingredient capable, for many, of making a difference: portability. Minor defects such as a slight graphical downgrade and commands that are not really comfortable if experienced in on the go mode cannot affect the good videogame value of the latest minecraftian production by Square Enix.
► Dragon Quest Builders 2 is an Action-RPG type game developed and published by Square Enix for Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4, the video game was released on 20/12/2018
