With its worldwide release just around the corner, Infinity Strash: Dragon Quest The Adventure of Dai is a bite-sized adventure that is for both those familiar and unfamiliar with the story of Dai and his companions. Relegated to short mission segments that mostly contain battles, with a few extra features tacked on for engagement outside of its narrative, it looks to encapsulate the experience of the anime in a playable format.
Players will assume the role of Dai, the titular hero of this adventure, perhaps to the surprise of no one given the title of the game. Following the story of the anime, he is on a quest to avenge his mentor. During the preview, I was given the opportunity to experience a good hour of what the game had to offer. While The Adventure of Dai does feature some cutscenes, the story is also told through sepia-toned anime stills with voice acting to accompany these static images. Those familiar with the anime will no doubt recognize these more pivotal moments, specifically Dia’s encounter against antagonist Hyunckel. (This was the small segment of the game I played.) However, previous knowledge wasn’t required to appreciate what story beats this preview had to offer, which should make these little bite-sized adventure segments feel approachable to those unfamiliar with the story or characters.
The combat system in this build felt decent enough and relied on players balancing and managing cooldowns to create an ebb and flow in battle. You control one of three characters, Dai, Maam, or Popp, and can freely switch between any at all time. Characters you are not playing as are controlled by a mostly competent AI. For example, Maam is the healer of the group and can cast restorative spells. Playing as Maam myself was a nightmare, so I let the AI handled it and found no issue there. I spent most of my time alternating between Popp and Dai, focusing on dealing physical damage with Dai (who is also an all-rounder character, that deals in swift sword strikes and magic) and flinging spells with Popp. Encounters themselves are relatively easy, but the fight against Hyunckel was more challenging than fighting the handful of skeletons that were thrown at me before the story really started to get going.
Image via Square Enix
Each character has a total of three attacks that can be assigned. There of course is a standard attack that can be used while you wait for your skills to cooldown and an ultimate ability of sorts that either deals an incredible amount of damage or buffs your natural attack. Using these as soon as they became available seemed to be the way to go, since they fill up relatively quickly. But what makes The Adventures of Dai‘s combat system more engaging is the ability to increase the passive stats of your characters through equipping Bond Memories. These can increase your attack, defense, healing, and so forth. However, certain cards that have the most beneficial increases to attack, for example, may also decrease defense considerably. This means players can make true glass canon builds to suit the way they want to play the game. (Or at least control the flow of battle.) With battles themselves being relatively short, it gives some room for experimentation, since you’re never locked into any one thing. As these can be changed before any mission starts, as The Adventure of Dai is split into missions.
Outside of these missions, players can engage in a tower mode. This game mode is a roguelite of sorts where players can collect rewards to use for future ventures into the temple by leaving on designated floors. Each floor has their own challenge. This is generally just defeating enemies or bosses, and sometimes within time limits the deeper you get. Upon completing the objective of each floor, players can pick a door to buff specific stats that will carry on through their run. These kinds of game modes are common these days, but it was still fun and I wish I had more time to properly explore it and see if the difficulty would ramp up. Because as it stands, The Adventure of Dai is easy. Very easy. That isn’t a problem, but I was curious to see if the game would force me to be more strategic in the Bond Memories I would affix to certain characters, or what skills I’d need to balance to make it to the end.
Image provided by Square Enix
That said, because of how compact everything feels, it seems like a game that could be good to pick up and put down, and could be great for fans of the anime and even those looking to jump into Dragon Quest for the first time. The environments are great, and the score by Yuki Hayashi is honestly quite lovely and a great change of pace from previous soundtracks. I’m eager to see what the game will give, even if it may not be all that much.
Infinity Strash: Dragon Quest The Adventure of Dai will release for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, and PC on September 28, 2023.
