*builds an entire island*

[not_cynical]

I was genuinely not expecting to get sucked into Dragon Quest Builders 2, but HERE I AM. Apparently, "here is a nice island, build some stuff on it, here's some suggestions of what you could make!" is about the right level of emotional investment for me right now, which I probably should have guessed from all of my friends being ambushed by Animal Crossing at the same time.

... In news shocking to everyone, the demo is like... The entire first quarter of the game. Which makes sense, because building games are better when you've got more time to get invested in what you're doing, but also: holy crap this is a lot of game to be given for free. I guess points to whoever made that decision for it working?

But yes, it's great, I have a very minimal emotional investment and a bunch of mindless tasks to be getting on with, A+, fantastic work everyone.

(Spoilers through to the third plot island - Moonbrooke?)

• *aggressively headcanons silent protagonist as using sign language*


• (IT WORKS BECAUSE EVERYONE YOU SPEAK TO REPEATS BACK WHAT YOU SAID, WHICH WOULD MAKE SENSE IF THEY WANTED TO CHECK THEY ACTUALLY PARSED THE RIGHT MEANING FROM YOUR SIGNS.)


• ... Why do I ship my character with the sealed evil in a can? Why has my character not mentioned the ship full of cultists who DEFINITELY said they were worshippers of Malroth? Did I fever dream the entire tutorial? ... Either way, I love one (1) amnesiac god of destruction, he is adorable, I'm gonna be so sad if he decides that not being able to build stuff is frustrating enough to warrant destroying everything.


• (I'm pretty sure that he knows what's going on now and is trying to do what he can to make sure that the protagonist can stop him if he does go on a rampage. Oh no.)


• I cannot stress enough how surprised I am that this is working for me. I'm very much a "I have built a box with a door, let me move on to the soap opera part of the game" style Sims player, but here I'm apparently really invested in creating my little buildings and making sure everyone has somewhere to be? ... I do also keep putting all of my supporting characters into little dormitories and set up my travelling team up with beds in the workshop, so maybe I haven't changed that much.


• The game keeps dropping mobs next to my villages and I MAY have put my geth foot forward on the farming island, in that I decided that doors and windows in the outer walls of my town were a structual weakpoint and I wasn't having it anymore. Like, "my town has a defensive wall made of mud and spiked logs with an outer layer of brambles so monsters STOP EATING MY BASE" levels of not having it. And also the only way in that doesn't involve smashing through a wall is climbing a specific route up a cliff. What is happening to me.


• (Update: ... I may have added extra layers of brambles vertically all around, and horizontally on the side that keeps getting attacked by monsters. It works great, except that my layers of brambles are now deep enough that I can't get close enough to enemies to stab them without getting brambled myself. On the plus side, now I mostly don't NEED to get close to them?)


• I didn't accidentally flood my entire village by leaving the endless water on. No one did that. Do not ask me any further questions.


• I don't understand the order that the villager quests pop up in. Surely setting up bathrooms should be one of the early quests?


• I may have gotten a little obsessive with setting up my first village on the starting island. I maxed out my level before I finished the demo, so just zoomed around my island building fields and easily escaped animal pens. The second village I'm less fussed with, because it turns out that it's hard to layout a town properly in a giant pyramid with no doors???


• I'm really glad that my character had the same attitude to the "Now destroy what you've made!" thing on the prison island, namely "It's fine, I'll make more!" Like, mate, do you not understand how much stuff I've had to smash? I know that building things is forbidden, but come on.


• I definitely did not accidentally flood a world with poisonous goo. That wouldn't be a thing that I did.


• I was wondering how the hell the Children of Whassisface fighting each other was supposed to make sense, but I guess "The ultimate expression of destruction is endless war" isn't the weirdest take.


• I AM KINDA SQUICKED BY EVERYONE GOING "HI, WE'RE THE CHILDREN OF PROTAGONIST!" Like, excuse you sir, I did not consent to this cult, stop that.


• I did come up for air on this, btw, because I got to the third big island (probably the last one?) and I guess the hyperfocus wore off, or the ADHD went "Oh no, we're too close to finishing something, time to abandon it forever!"