Dragon Quest Heroes: The World Tree's Woe and the Blight Below

 PC
Metascore
73

Mixed or average reviews - based on 9 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 6 out of 9
  2. Mixed: 3 out of 9
  3. Negative: 0 out of 9
  1. PC Invasion
    Dec 18, 2015
    70
    Musou-slashing meets light tower defense and the effortlessly heartwarming world of Dragon Quest; with all the vivid art direction, retro audio, and somewhat repetitive questing that implies.
  2. Riot Pixels
    Jan 25, 2016
    64
    Poorly written story and drab gameplay ruin the fun of playing this colorful, kind-hearted game.
  3. PC Gamer
    Dec 15, 2015
    58
    Confusingly good fun at first, Dragon Quest Heroes soon falls into a familiar, inane rhythm. Dynasty Warriors' audience will at least get something out of it.

User Reviews

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User Score
7.1

Mixed or average reviews- based on 42 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 22 out of 42
  2. Mixed: 13 out of 42
  3. Negative: 7 out of 42
  1. VonBrewskie
    Dec 11, 2015
    8
    Good game. Simple, colorful, fun. A nice blend of Dynasty Warriors combat and classic DQ RPG mechanics. Some might find it too simple in fact;Good game. Simple, colorful, fun. A nice blend of Dynasty Warriors combat and classic DQ RPG mechanics. Some might find it too simple in fact; the gameplay is repetitive. Not much more to do than run around and slay huge crowds of monsters. If you're a fan of Dynasty Warriors, (which I am not, surprisingly enough), you might want to give this a shot. There's enough different here that it doesn't feel the same as the Dynasty or Samurai Warriors games. The switching between characters offers up a nice change of combat styles with each character feeling truly unique in their presentation. The item and equipment system is pretty run-of-the-mill, old school RPG style. The shops upgrade equipment as you progress through the levels. Would have been nice to have missions to accomplish to earn new weapons or equipment. Maybe that's farther into the game. I've been distracted by side missions but I have around 10 hours put in and only about 8% completion. I am really enjoying my time with this game. The characters are fun to listen to in a charming, old rpg kind of way. The story is pretty run-of-the-mill and I have to wonder why we're beating the crud out of our buddies without any sort of moral objection from anyone. I think that could have made the story more interesting from a character development level. It's nice to put on a game that harkens back to the beat-em-ups of my youth. I haven't played one in a long time and the RPG mechanics, while a little bit stale, offer up a bit of variety. Bit of advice: if you're wearing the very best gear and are stomping everything, try putting on lower tier items and equipment. Makes your survivability less certain and I find it more fun that way. Also, there are items that reduce your damage but increase your chances for a crit strike. Those are a lot of fun too. This game reminds me of when I was a kid with overpowered party members in games like Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy. I had to build my own fun. I like that personally, but I understand why some people may not enjoy it as much as I do. If you're a fan of beat-em-up style games, Dynasty Warriors or Dragon Quest, give this game a shot! I think you'll be pleasantly surprised by how engaging such a simple, beautiful game this is. Also the music is great.… Full Review »
  2. Ansatsu83
    Dec 5, 2015
    6
    Its ok, it gets boring fairly quickly. Its like if you combined dynasty warriors with secret of mana. The voice actors do not match theIts ok, it gets boring fairly quickly. Its like if you combined dynasty warriors with secret of mana. The voice actors do not match the characters artwork style, and its almost impossible to do. The English voice acting is so terrible I quickly turned it to Japanese, and even then the voices do not match the characters/art style. I would say it would be better to have silent characters, for this. It is incredibly repetitive as well, which is never a good thing. All in all its an ok game, but it is not worth anything close to 60 dollars. I would say 20 to 30 at most.… Full Review »
  3. blubberguts
    Dec 6, 2015
    7
    What a missed opportunity this is. Dragon quest on a pc - an opportunity for greatness. Gone would be all the limitations imposed by consoles;What a missed opportunity this is. Dragon quest on a pc - an opportunity for greatness. Gone would be all the limitations imposed by consoles; you could have a large, open free-roaming game world for Dragon Questing in. But that isn't what we got.

    This is Dynasty Warriors with a Dragon Quest skin. There is no open world at all - instead you go through endless repeated battles in largish areas. Want to explore them? Too bad, you're too busy fighting off monsters. Well, at least we can kill the monsters and then explore? Nope, the game takes you back to the intermission area instantly when you kill the last monster. So the best you can do is run around fending off monsters while trying to explore.

    And that's all there is to the game. Fight a battle with hundreds of monsters, kill them all, then back to the intermission screen. Which also contains the shops, and chapel. No exploring and looking for new shops with new weapons in this game - you always go back to the same shop; new weapons just appear depending on what battle stage you just completed.

    It gets old very quickly. I'm only level 9 and it already feels repetitive. A lot of the fun of getting new swords and armour is gone too - because of constant heals from food drops from monsters during battles, there's no real edge or strategy here. All the different strike types are wasted, too - the best strategy just seems to be running around and whacking everything as fast as you can. The "dodge" button is almost useless, unless perhaps it's in the boss battles (For example dodging a tail swipe from the green dragon.)

    Art - some problems here. As usual DQ's art is very attractive. I liked the character models a lot - the colours are vibrant and the models match the old 2d sprites very closely. Someone did a top notch job.

    Unfortunately, whoever did the environments dropped the ball. Whereas the characters are bright and cartoony, the textures and environments are "realistic" and a bit dull - it's a style mismatch. In particular the foliage and the textures on the walls and other parts of the environment seem out of place - what is a dingy, dirty and cracked brick wall doing in this bright colourful cartoon world? It's a mixture of styles that makes the game a bit less attractive than it should have been. The environmental modeling too doesn't seem up to par with the character modeling, which is excellent. Perhaps they were done by different teams. But you'd think the art director would have been on the ball and told them to switch styles.

    If you've played DQ before you're going to be disappointed and it's probably not even going to feel like a DQ game; more like Dynasty warriors with the DQ characters dropped in it.

    What score to give it? Hard decision...it's not the worst port I've ever seen; it doesn't seem to crash a lot. The DQ characters are the best thing about it and as usual are fun. But on the other hand it's a great missed opportunity for an open DQ world and a lot of the RPG fun and goodness is gone....

    Seven. Could have been great, but some poor design choices mucked it up. Here's hoping they give us a REAL DQ on the pc next time. Sigh.    … Full Review »
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