Dragon Quest Builders - Nintendo Switch Game | Open-World Adventure & Building RPG | Perfect for Home & Travel Gaming

I played my way through the Breath of the Wild game, and was looking for my next game. This totally hit the spot for me.It's important to know that I am not very good at battle in Zelda, and battles are not my favorite part of that game (though I did play all the way through, including all the temples). In Dragon Quest Builders, the battles are relatively lightweight, and to some extent you can control when they happen or not. (You are asked if you're ready, and you can say no and go enhance your fortifications or whatever first.) Right, and also when you die, you get reincarnated back at the base. If it's a major battle, you go back in time to before the battle started (without your having to have saved yourself). If it's a minor death, e.g., you were out exploring the world and neglected your health, you'll drop half(?) of your items on your death spot, wake up at home, and have to go back for your items if you want them.This of course is also not as big or as beautiful as Zelda, but it's super cute. And I do find the minecraftian elements of just building things up entertaining at times.I am only in "Chapter 2" so far, but I feel that the game elements and storyline unfolds well. Other characters give you quests that push you to particular places on the map, and make you build that slightly tedious thing, or go find that hard-to-find component you need to make something, and everything keeps moving you forward through the chapter, so far, without major annoyance. E.g., you can put off completing their tasks while you want and just go do some gratuitous landscaping or construction if you're in a mood for that. Sometimes, I just work on fortifying my city walls.(Update, 2/25: I'm on Chapter 3 now, and it's not as much fun. Resources are scarce, and I'm finding myself having to spend a lot of time grinding for medicines before moving along to the next goal. And it's actually unclear to me how I achieve my next goal. Everything else was "go here" and then the path was obvious. Haha, and I am past that tiresome start of Chapter 3. It's a long dead flat spot, annoying to get past. Here's hoping I don't run into anything like that again.)(Update, 3/8: I'm at the final boss fight, and I'm not sure I'm good enough to do it. The battles got tougher as the game went on, and hey, I got better at fighting. But there's many waves of different stuff at the end, kind of like the finale at a 4th of July Fireworks. And it's kind of ugh and exhausting to me; not the same as earlier parts of the game. I'm putting it aside for a bit, and will come back. Looking back at the game, I feel like the game designers sort of lost steam as they went along through the chapters, and became less creative and less thoughtful with the later chapters, like maybe Chapters 3 and 4 were a bit rushed to completion.)Oh, one annoying visual thing. The NPCs sometime say things that aren't explicitly a conversation with you; they're just saying stuff. These text bubbles are white text on white boxes... the white text is outlined in black. Why isn't it just black text on a white background? These are really hard to read. I was ignoring them in Chapter 1, so I didn't see all the minor quips from the characters, but you need to be able to read some of the text bubbles in Chapter 2 to advance the game.Some other thoughts (including some ***minor SPOILERS***):1. I have never played a Dragon Quest game before, but didn't have a hard time getting oriented to this. I think folks who've played Dragon Quest games will see familiar references to the past that are likely fun, perhaps akin to the Zelda series.2. You can play as a boy or a girl character, which I greatly appreciate, and you can pick from among some different choices for hair, skin, and eye color. However, all of the NPCs in your town are caucasian. Also, there are a lot more male NPCs in the game than female, and their avocations follow stereotypical gender roles, e.g., the females doing more cooking and nursing and the males doing more leading/building/fighting. (Maybe this all gets reversed in Chapter 3, and I just need to give the game a chance. But I won't hold my breath.)3. If I still had youngish kids (let's say elementary school aged), I can imagine playing this with them, although I imagine the kids might hand over the controller for some of the meaner monsters. (Hmm, and Chapter 3 is too much of a grind for kids, I think.)4. There are definitely some dark themes in this game, including people who were your "friends" turning into monsters and then you have to kill them. This might be something to factor in when considering playing with kids.5. In general, at nighttime, things get "scary". You can immediately fly home with a special feather. But your home base can get attacked at night by monsters, and the minor attacks like this can't be turned off or stopped... another thing to consider when thinking about your own young un's. (Although if you go to sleep early enough, you can avoid these! I don't usually go to sleep and make things in the "evening" hours. Maybe if you go to sleep, you're totally safe from these minor monster assaults. Hmmm.)Excellent game!