Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest have a storied rivalry dating back decades. Once the properties of two different companies, both are now firmly in the grasp of Square Enix now. While Final Fantasy has struggled to find its identity (read our Final Fantasy XVI review to see why), the main Dragon Quest games have always stuck to what made them good. That’s not to say the series hasn’t experimented with offshoots over the years. One of these offshoots is of course, Dragon Quest Treasures.

With positive experiences from playing the Dragon Quest Builders games, I was really amped to play Dragon Quest Treasures on the PC.

I have a Nintendo Switch, but its crap hardware meant I really try to limit my gaming on the console. That’s why when Square Enix launched the game on the PC, I jumped at the chance to try the game out!

Now with a ton of hours under my belt with the PC version, how does it fare?

Read on and find out!

What is Dragon Quest Treasures?

Dragon Quest Treasures is a single player third person action RPG co-developed by Square Enix and Tose Co. and published by Square Enix. It’s available right now on Steam and the Nintendo Switch.

Our copy was kindly provided by the awesome folks at Square Enix! Thanks so much!

First things first…There aren’t a lot of visual tweaks you can do to the game on the PC. You get your regular resolution (there’s 4K support now) and graphical options and that’s it.

We’re of course running the game on our gaming rig, with the following stats.

– MSI B550M Mortar
– AMD Ryzen 9 5900X with NZXT Kraken X73 RGB Liquid Cooler
– MSI GeForce RTX 3080Ti Suprim X 12GB
– 64GB DDR4 RAM (Teamgroup T-Force Dark Z 16GB x 4 @ 3600MHz)
– Samsung 980 Pro 2TB SSD

Settings were all set to the maximum, at 4K resolution.

A side mention; both our motherboard and GPU were awesomely sponsored by the great folks at MSI. I can honestly say the MSI GeForce RTX 3080Ti Suprim X 12GB is a hell of a GPU and more than worth its asking price. Great performance in games, looks damn cool with its RGB stylings too!

Thanks to MSI and their kind generosity, we’ll be reviewing more PC games now since we have the hardware to deliver a quality review experience.

The whole experience was relatively painless. The framerate was stable throughout the game though I do have issues with some of the textures. Some look great (despite their simplistic style) but some textures are really bad at 4K.

The textures for the environment (look at the ground and the lava crack textures) look horrendous. I blame it all on the game being developed with the Nintendo Switch in mind.

Thankfully characters look much better and most of the environmental textures are as bad as the examples I gave.

I do have to wonder why the game takes so long to load though.

Travelling back to your hideout and to the islands have rather lengthy loads. I’m talking about 10 seconds or so. I’m using the Samsung 980 Pro, an NVMe m.2 SSD, so loads should be relatively quick especially for a game that’s not visually intensive as this.

You’ll be able to build up your base as you get richer.

Again, I can only suspect it’s due to the Nintendo Switch being the lead platform.

Other than those trifling issues, the rest of the game is great.

Starring orphaned siblings Erik and Mia, Dragon Quest Treasures has the two embarking on a treasure hunting escapade, trying to recover seven valuable stones. There’s a plot to the game (involving rival treasure hunting crews) but the main gist of it is that the kids are looking for treasure to build up their rep and to help a flying pig and a winged cat (seriously).

They do that by using a magical train and island hopping to various destinations, where the stones and various other treasure chests are hidden.

Despite being kids, Mia and Erik never get into annoying territory. They aren’t obnoxious brats, which makes their journey in the game rather endearing. That also applies to the colourful (if rather stereotypical) cast.

The people you meet in the game are pretty one dimensional, so there’s not much depth to them. You’d think that’d make them boring, but weirdly, the straightforward nature of the game is a refreshing change from most modern RPGs where you don’t know where a character’s loyalties lie.

Guess…Bad guy or good guy?

Gameplay too is relatively simple.

The islands you explore are open world so you can head where ever you want. Enemies scale somewhat to your level, though there are areas on each island with tough enemies that’s meant to be tackled later on.

You can recruit monsters (up to 3 can be in your party at one time) on your treasure hunts. They serve as your bodyguards (Mia and Erik are tremendously weak in combat) so bringing a team that works well together is half the fun.

Monsters also have fortes, skills you can trigger to give you a leg up.

Gliding is fun!

Some can boost you to high places, some can be ridden as mounts, some can allow you to glide…and so forth. There are quite a few different fortes and all of them have their uses. You can also use them for hints on where treasure is buried.

How is it is simple. When you’re near treasure, your monsters will have treasure icons popping up in speech bubbles. Then you hit LB+A to trigger the kids’ treasure sense, which points you to the general location of the buried loot.

When you’re near, your kid will emit a flash, which tells you it’s time to trigger the treasure sense again.

This time though, instead of an arrow pointing to where you should head, you’ll get three different viewpoints (from your monsters) on where the treasure is buried.

It’s then up to you to find the locations in the hints and dig up your loot.

See the 3 rectangles at the upper left? Those are clues from your monsters to where the treasure’s located.

Most times the hints given are enough and you’ll easily find the treasure and dig it up. Sometimes though, the hints are frustratingly vague and you’ll scream in frustration.

I wish the game allows you to ask for new hints if you’re stumped but that’s sadly not on the cards.

You can just move on though, as there’s no pressure on finding treasure. The treasure you’ll find are random, so just skipping one won’t matter.

Treasure’s also divided into 3 categories; Gold, Silver and Blue chests.

Gold chest loot are the most valuable and can only be dug up with the treasure sense. Silver’s lower value but can be dug up as soon as you get near them. They don’t show up on the treasure sense, but do appear on the radar. Blue chests are similar to silver, but the treasures are replica items other players have buried…so there’s really no point in digging them up.

In combat, you can also trigger a special attack when Erik or Mia’s dagger gauge is full.

These attacks hit look awesome though I wish they’re more elaborate.

I completely ignore them and just focus on Gold and Silver chests.

Combat is a bit on the simplistic side. You only have direct control of either Mia or Erik. Both are identical in what they can do, so just pick your favourite to be your avatar, while the other kid stays at home base.

Either kid can do a basic combo by repeatedly hitting X or dodge with Y. There’s also a special power up mode that you can unleash when the dagger gauge is full. It’s the same gauge your monsters use for their special moves so you have use which fits the situation best. Most of the time it’s the monsters’ special attacks though.

Get used to seeing pitiful damage from Erik or Mia, even at high levels.

Speaking of monsters, you have no control on what your monsters attack or what moves they use. You can only tell them to charge or fall back. Yeah, that’s a bit too basic for my tastes too.

I’m honestly a bit disappointed with the combat system.

There’s so much potential here that’s not used.

Why not give the players to play as the game is now or with a more manual style that allows you to direct your monsters? In battles with numerous enemies, it’s a crap shoot. You can’t make your monsters target the biggest threat, so you’re always forced to use the special attacks in the hopes you can take them out fast.

While you do engage in fights as the kids, they do pitiful damage (even when powered up) and you’re better off just staying away and supporting your monsters with slingshot (which the game weirdly calls a catapult) pellets that can heal your crew or damage hostile monsters.

Controls can be simple while still being having depth…which the game really needs.

The Bottom Line.

I’d like a $200K cat suit too please.

Drago Quest Treasures is a game for the novice gamer. From its simplistic battle system to its cutesy art style to its focus on easy gratification, the game isn’t meant for the hardcore by any stretch of the imagination.

It’s a good game nonetheless but if you’re looking for a deep action RPG with intricate and rewarding mechanics, you won’t find it here.

On the other hand, if you’re looking for a game to pass the time away and doesn’t require much in the way of thinking, it’s perfect!

TLDR:

Simplistic fun that might not be for everybody.

The Good:

  • Simple battle system.
  • Treasure hunting is addictive.
  • Lots of monsters to recruit.
  • Funny writing at times.

The Bad:

  • Battles too hands-off.
  • Player characters do pitiful damage.
  • Generic plot.

Sal's been in the industry since the early 2000s. He's written for a ton of gaming and tech publications including Playworks, Hardwarezone, HWM and GameAxis. Recently, Sal served as a juror for the Indie Game Awards at Taipei Game Show 2020. A geek and hardcore gamer, Sal will play everything, on any platform.