Dragon Quest Smash/Grow is a decent enough mobile game that will appeal to fans of the series who don’t mind gacha elements, though the story feels a bit generic when compared to other Dragon Quest games. The roguelite elements work quite well with the gameplay, making for a pretty distinct Dragon Quest game to play while out and about.
Credit: Square Enix
You could put Dragon Quest on a cracker, and I would probably buy it. The series holds a very special place in my heart, and I’m pretty much always down to try whatever new titles Square Enix pumps out that are even tangentially related to the series. This time around, the latest spin-off is Dragon Quest Smash/Grow – a mobile roguelite action-RPG, which is an unexpected combination of genres all around for Dragon Quest. Though it certainly has plenty of familiar mobile game trappings, there’s fun to be had for diehards like myself.
Most of Dragon Quest Smash/Grow takes place in corridor-like levels that you traverse through using a virtual analog stick that appears wherever you touch. There’s a ring around your character, which is your auto-attack range. Any enemies that come within the ring get automatically attacked by your basic strike (which varies depending on the weapon type you use), though said enemies can hurt you from outside of it using projectiles and the like. As you defeat enemies, you gain experience that, upon filling a bar in the upper-right portion of the screen, grants you your choice between one of three perks.
Credit: Square Enix
This is where the unlikely roguelite elements pop in. The perks range from full-on attack enhancements like swords that strike from the sky upon your final combo hit to stat boosts. There are different rarities to the perks, and abilities like idle spinning orbs or random projectile shots can be powered up once they’re acquired. It’s a lot of fun to build up a crazy loadout of attack modifiers and skills, as you can turn into a sort of portable bullet hell for all of the enemies on screen. This also makes replaying things like event or training stages much less dull, as you’ll likely have different builds on each run. The main combat loop would be pretty slow and repetitive without this, so I’m glad you’re given so many perks so quickly as you play a level.
Difficulty seemed to progress at a decent rate, as leveling up my characters and their equipment through Training levels and the Forge feature was easy enough and kept me abreast of the average difficulty level in the story. There was enough challenge that I couldn’t just idle my way through by holding down a direction, but I never felt totally outmatched either. I was pleased with the variety of classic Dragon Quest monsters that popped up throughout the stages I played, too, as it felt like a proper smattering of both the most iconic ones and some of the less immediately identifiable creatures.
Credit: Square Enix
Dragon Quest Smash/Grow has the usual mobile game gacha system.
When it comes to summoning/pulling (Dragon Quest Smash/Grow’s gacha system), you’ll be trying to get rare equipment with which to suit up your party. This is a totally personal thing, but I’ve always found it a little harder to be interested in mobile games where you’re pulling items rather than characters. Given there’s a party system in the game already, I’d have preferred it if you pulled for party members or monsters from past Dragon Quest games, so you could create a custom team with more variety than just equipment types. It’s hard to say how essential getting decent pulls will be as the game goes on, but I was able to do pretty well with souped-up common items in the first couple of story chapters.
The story of Dragon Quest Smash/Grow isn’t especially noteworthy thus far, though there is still a good deal of the series’ localized charm throughout the dialogue. Essentially, you play as an avatar character who seems to have more importance than his role as a member of a local guard squad might suggest. Alongside your fellow guard Zepha and the mysterious mechanical Roly, you’ll travel to all sorts of places while battling plenty of iconic Dragon Quest monsters. It’s very simple and not especially memorable thus far, but the character quirks do keep the story missions from feeling too monotonous. The series is incredible at making simple, straightforward stories feel grandiose and memorable, so I hope something similar happens here, despite the game’s obviously more pronounced limits, given its format.
Please note that specific testing items and in-game currency were included as part of the build of the Dragon Quest Smash/Grow that MonsterVine played for this review.
The Final Word
Dragon Quest Smash/Grow does a surprisingly solid job of combining Dragon Quest with roguelite elements in a mobile format. The story is pretty vanilla, and it’s hard to say how much the gacha system will impact the game past launch, but this is a decent enough way to take part in some charming Dragon Quest fun while on the go.
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