THE DRAGON Quest series is a long-running series of turn-based RPGs that have been popular in Japan for years, but only really started getting popular elsewhere recently.
Its popularity in Japan has seen it adapted into a manga and an anime, and now a PS5, Nintendo Switch, and Xbox Series X|S game based on that anime has been released.
It’s called Infinity Strash: Dragon Quest The Adventure of Dai, and much like its name, the game is kind of a mess.
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Infinity Strash follows the adventures of a young boy called Dai, who is essentially a rare dragon/human hybrid with incredibly powerful magic abilities that are rivaled by very few.
After awakening to his powers and having been trained to make the most of his abilities, Dai and his band of allies set out to defeat the Dark Army, an evil force threatening to take over the world.
The story has the potential to be quite interesting, but unfortunately it’s told through bizarre still frame cutscenes, where each key moment of a cutscene seems to be a still frame from the anime with voiceover.
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The result is that cutscenes that last for two minutes will only have a dozen or so individual frames of visuals, which makes them difficult to pay attention to.
What’s worse is that some seemingly key storylines, like Dai’s defeat of the fake heroes who visited his town, are skipped over with a few short frames in a cutscene, while others, such as the training arc, take half an hour to get through.
Most of the game is these cutscenes, with the ratio of cutscene to combat sequence being about 5:1 — for every 5 minutes you spend in a cutscene, you’ll spend about a minute in combat, if that.
Dai’s story through the world on his way to defeat the Dark Army is an interesting one, and it’s a lot of fun to read in the manga, but here it just feels like a slog to get through.
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I found myself barely able to keep my eyes open with some sections of the game, it was literally putting me to sleep because very little was happening on-screen to keep me stimulated.
When you do get to the combat sections, there’s nothing particularly special on display either, though it is at least more stimulating than the cutscenes.
Infinity Strash’s combat is a fairly straightforward action RPG fare mixed with a teensy bit of 3D arena fighter vibes.
You’re typically in a small arena, with a small number of enemies (usually just one) and you hack and slash your way through those enemies until you win.
Most fights can be won simply by mashing the standard attack button and occasionally dodging, but for tougher enemies you often have to use abilities.
There are a host of different abilities, but if I’m being honest, I didn’t really pay attention to what they were or what they did — all of them did more damage than a basic attack, so I just used them when I could.
Most fights typically don’t last very long, with some lasting as little as 30 seconds depending on the difficulty level selected, and few lasting more than a couple minutes.
Once the fight is over, you’re almost always immediately back to watching lacklustre cutscenes, which could last for up to half an hour before you get back to combat.
Eventually, the story becomes less of a focus and it pivots to more open-ended combat levels, but by the time you get there you’ll probably end up not wanting to play much longer anyway.
I’m honestly not sure why this game exists in the way that it does, when people interested in the story could just watch the anime instead, and people interested in the combat could play something like The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom and have more fun.
Infinity Strash: Dragon Quest The Adventure of Dai is a game of bizarre design decisions, poor pacing, and boring story told in the least interesting way.
At the very least, the game looks and runs well on PS5, with combat feeling sharp and snappy at all times, even when there’s a lot of particles on the screen.
Its combat is fine, but when you consider that for a fraction of the price you could get the excellent Dragon Quest 11, there’s not much reason to consider it.
What’s worse is that it’s sandwiched between two much better Dragon Quest games — Treasures, which was released late last year, and Monsters: The Dark Prince, which comes out in December.
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Of the three Dragon Quest games released in this 12-month period, you’re better off picking absolutely anything else and just watching the Adventure of Dai anime by itself.
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Score: 2/5
Written by Oliver Brandt on behalf of GLHF.
