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

 PC
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

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  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; 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 itGood 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.… Expand
  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 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,Its 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.… Expand
  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; 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    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.    … Expand
  4. thepatient613
    Feb 16, 2016
    3
    I tried to give this game a chance. There's not even local coop. There is litterally no redeeming quality about this game whatsoever. I was utterly disapointed by the graphics as well. When you compare this to DW8, SW4 and Arslan this game is pretty much garbage. I would recommend this game to a 10yo child who for some miraculous reason already knows and loves DQ.
  5. and94
    Jan 9, 2016
    10
    Obviously you have to be a fan of dragon quest to get full enjoyment from this game. And considering how many dragon quest games never made it to the west, and looking at the large number of poor user reviews, now we know why square enix is reluctant to bring its japanese flagships over here. Gameplay is largely the same as other samurai warriors games. You have super skills, a variety ofObviously you have to be a fan of dragon quest to get full enjoyment from this game. And considering how many dragon quest games never made it to the west, and looking at the large number of poor user reviews, now we know why square enix is reluctant to bring its japanese flagships over here. Gameplay is largely the same as other samurai warriors games. You have super skills, a variety of different heroes, and giant enemy bosses.… Expand
  6. Revadarius
    Apr 27, 2017
    5
    I'm very late to this game, but I thought I'd share my experiences regardless. Firstly, I am not a DQ fan. I've no memory of every playing a game (due to them not really being available in Europe until the DS/Wii era... and that's about the time I gave up all hope on Nintendo). So finally getting to play a game, even if it's a spin-off to the main series, and on P.C. made me somewhatI'm very late to this game, but I thought I'd share my experiences regardless. Firstly, I am not a DQ fan. I've no memory of every playing a game (due to them not really being available in Europe until the DS/Wii era... and that's about the time I gave up all hope on Nintendo). So finally getting to play a game, even if it's a spin-off to the main series, and on P.C. made me somewhat interested. And it came with that Square Enix seal of approval.

    Unfortunately, that aforementioned "seal of approval" has been tarnished greatly since around 2013. Oh yes, they've done some great games. Or atleast produced, if not developed, some great titles like Tomb Raider, World of Final Fantasy with their latest being Nier: Automata. But they've only done semi-decent ports of the FF series and some questionable games since. Such as Just Cause 3, Final Fantasy XV, Deus Ex: MD... I'm now on the fence when it comes to my fanboyism.

    Sadly, this is one of those games that hits in the 'questionable' section. From what I gather it's purely fan service. Which does nothing at all for me, being new to the series, so I guess my view point is fresh - especially when it comes to story, gameplay, mechanics, and the characters. And to begin with this game doesn't know what demograph it's meant to pander for. It has a comically anime style, as expected from the designs of Akira Toriyama (which are easily noticeable by the fact you get to play as a Goku look-a-like or an Android 18 look-a-like) and the story, and scenes and even the characters and their interactions are immature and wacky. Yet the dialogue, and complexity of some of the systems and side quests are beyond that of what a child, or young person may be able to comprehend. I know, it's not meant for them. But at the same time it doesn't feel like it's meant for an adult either, it tries to be a Jack of all Trades and, if you guessed it, masters not a lot.

    Though the graphics are brilliant. They're not detailed, nor realistic, but they are good and really place you within the previously stated wackiness of the game. And the music is alright, it's nothing to brag about. And I honestly don't remember any of it (having to fresh my memory) but it's adequate enough to set the mood of a fun and comedic hack'n'slash fanservice semi-rpg game.

    Sadly, the voice acting was abysmal. A few characters pulled it off, but it was either the dialogue was beyond comprehensible for a laymen, or it was just poorly written - and all the VA's didn't seem to have the same enthusiasm as each other, meaning they all seemed to be on various pages and the immersion of their characters broke often. Not all, some were consistently good through out. But your MC's (Luceus and Aurora) were offensively overacting to a level that wasn't even funny most of the time. Although I did have a thing for Alena and Kiryl and their semi-racist accents.

    And lastly the gameplay was pretty solid, and you did have a lot of versatility in characters, abilities and playstyles. Unfortunately by the time you're getting accustomed to the other characters, you'll eventually stream line yourself to using only 2 characters. One for easy farming to level up and get materials and currency, and the other for tanking away through any end game content *cough* bosses *cough*. And in all honesty the time and effort would drain your soul prior to actually accomplishing the end game content because it's not at all that rewarding, and you'll be sick of seeing the (though plentiful) re-used and somewhat limited enemies over and over. Unless you're a fan of mind-numbing repetitiveness, then this game will be up your street.

    5/10 is what I can give it, and that's being plentifully generous. I somewhat hated the game, but I did enjoy the opening before I realized all the glaring mistakes and then everything relating to the latter half of the game. I do think it's a bad game, BUT it probably has some sort of nostalgia and fan service for those who are fans of the series or the genre of gameplay. And even then, they're going to be playing it through them rose-tinted nostalgia goggles.    … Expand
  7. Kirillito
    Apr 28, 2016
    7
    It's fun to see familiar characters from the older games. This is the main reason I played this game, since DQXI isn't coming out until 2017. As always in series, character design is awesome.
    On the other hand, the story is boring, but this is not really important in case of this game. Hacking and slashing through hordes of enemies can be surprisingly fun, and it requires a lot of skill    It's fun to see familiar characters from the older games. This is the main reason I played this game, since DQXI isn't coming out until 2017. As always in series, character design is awesome.
    On the other hand, the story is boring, but this is not really important in case of this game. Hacking and slashing through hordes of enemies can be surprisingly fun, and it requires a lot of skill and strategy to win some end-game fights.
    But if you don't have a controller, then you won't get as much fun from the PC version. Keyboard and mouse are clunky and all on-screen control tips are shown using XBox360 controller buttons.    … Expand

Critic Reviews

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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. GameGrin
    Sep 15, 2016
    90
    An uttering fantastic game, Dragon Quest Heroes is more then deserving of your time. If you like hack n' slash games, do not pass this one up.
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  2. Riot Pixels
    Jan 25, 2016
    64
    Poorly written story and drab gameplay ruin the fun of playing this colorful, kind-hearted game.
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  3. PLAY! Zine
    Jan 6, 2016
    80
    If Dragon Quest Heroes teaches you anything, it's that even the well-known gameplay mechanics can make you feel heroic again. Its neat visuals and charming characters will stick to you like glue. Just try not to go around and kill innocent looking monsters for too long.
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