If we're totally honest, we never really got into the whole Minecraft craze here at Everybody Plays. Sure, we can tell our Creepers from our Endermen, we can craft a lever with the best of them, and we were officially the coolest cousin ever when we managed to track down a talking creeper for someone's fifth birthday, but we've never really got all the "in to" the blocky builders' world. In truth, perhaps we just never found the idea of painstakingly mining stone that interesting - but dress it up in a cute and colourful Dragon Quest-y garb, add in a cursory story to play through, and we're there quicker than you can say Slime.
Dragon Quest Builders, as it's called, will be landing on the PS4 and PS Vita this autumn, and takes the popular role-playing game series, cutesy creatures, pun-tastic sense of humour, epic stories and all, and crafts a decidedly Minecraft-esque adventure out of it. The game's set in the shattered world of Alefgard - a land which has been largely destroyed and plunged into darkness by its menacing monster ruler, the Dragonlord, who scattered the kingdom's inhabitants to the wind, and robbed them of their ability to build. As a legendary hero chosen by the Goddess herself, it falls to you to help the exiled humans rebuild their towns and cities, and return the power of creation back to the people in the process. By gathering materials, crafting tools and piecing together the towns and cities block by block, you'll spend most of your time constructing all kinds of structures for expectant citizens, as you take on their ever-more extravagant requests.
It's about slime someone sorted out this pesky Dragonlord business!
Together with this charming story of traditional Dragon Quest proportions, you'll come across plenty of familiar faces and monsters along the way, from the iconic smiley blue Slimes to the huge brick Golems. As you'd likely expect, your building skills will only get you so far in the world of Dragon Quest Builders, and sooner or later you'll need to get your hands dirty and beat back the Dragonlord's monster armies in order to reclaim the lost lands for your citizens. Battles appear to be a more real-time, button mashy affair than the traditional turn-based encounters of old, following on where recent Playstation 4 foray Dragon Quest Heroes left off - but as the latter was so much fun, that's certainly no bad thing.
Dragon Quest Builders will be hitting the Playstation 4 and Playstation Vita this October, as part of the role-playing game series' 30th Anniversary celebrations - although handheld players will likely be grieved to hear the Vita version will be digital only. Why not pass the slime (sorrynotsorry) till then with an announcement trailer:
