Square Enix
Infinity Strash: DRAGON QUEST The Adventure of Dai: An Adventure for fans
We follow in the footsteps of Dai and company with a title that moves away from its roots to approach current genres.
If we think about the adaptation of a work to video games, we can find all kinds of products. From those that take basic elements of the work and transport them to something that has nothing to do with it, to games that truly understand the concept of the product and let us live the most important moments. And in the case of games based on anime, we sometimes come across real hit or misses that sometimes abuse their fan base.
The case of Infinity Strash: DRAGON QUEST The Adventure of Dai marks a very special case, as it closes a circle that has been seen in very few cases. For context, Dragon Quest The Adventure of Dai began as a manga based on the popular Dragon Quest at the late 1989, which was very popular in the famous Weekly Shōnen Jump. It later spawned an anime that left the series unfinished in that format, but it was not until 2020 that it returned with a new version that told over 100 episodes of the adventures of Dai and his friends. If you have played Dragon Quest - and you have played an RPG - you will find several of its elements in this work, so a video game did not sound like a bad idea.
The adventure of the little hero
Infinity Strash: DRAGON QUEST The Adventure of Dai follows the story of the titular hero Dai. The video game begins in an advanced part of the story, which becomes the catalyst for our hero to lose his memories and start his adventure from scratch. Infinity Strash follows around the first 40 episodes of the latest anime, of which there are 100 in total, so don’t expect to see the whole story.
The game moves away from the classic RPG in which it is inspired to take a step forward and turn it into an action RPG. Our characters will have a basic attack that can be turned into a combo and three magic or special powers, as well as the options of sweeping and blocking. In addition, each of the characters will have a special ability, in combat either Dai will summon his power as a Dragon Knight, or Popp will meditate to reduce the cooldown of his magic. Finally, there is a bar in the bottom left corner that will activate the Coup d’Grace, a powerful attack that will cause more damage to our enemy. As we progress in the story, our team will grow and we will be able to switch between each of the characters by pressing a button to change strategy, although the artificial intelligence that controls the other characters is quite capable.
A hero’s training
The way the game’s story is structured is in chapters that take us through sections. These are divided into narrative, combat, and side quests. The narrative part has still images from the anime to quickly tell some of the events of the story, such as encounters or situations. It is the combat and mission parts that lead us to the action. Here we will have cutscenes to put us in context before and after the battle. These sections can be very small, where our goal may be to eliminate certain enemies, reach a certain point, or fight against one of the commanders of the Dark King Vearn’s army.
The combat is mostly fast-paced, and especially in the beginning there is a pacing problem that is terrible, as you’re watching more of the narrative and cutscenes of the combat parts than actually playing the game. The combat gets a bit repetitive, and while it has potential, there isn’t much to make it more dynamic other than jumping between characters. Unlike other RPGs, our items are limited to a preset selection. At first, I didn’t remember having any items to heal or upgrade during combat until the difficulty increased.
As the story progresses, the process of making combat sections last longer grows, but it still feels like a hard cut in pacing and narrative. There is a reason for this, as after each section the game rewards you with experience points, items, and on special occasions, cards called Memory Bonds. These cards, with illustrations from the original manga, represent important moments in the story, and we can bond them to any of our characters, giving them stat boosts such as more HP or increased magic. As we level up, the number of Memory Bonds we can add to our characters increases.
A hero’s memories
As we progress in the adventure, a new area will appear on the map called the Temple of Recollection. It is in this place that we will have a series of tests where our progress will be reset to zero, and as we go down the levels we will receive improvements for our characters, either attack, defense, magic, or the ability to find a special item. We will also get Memory Bonds, some repeated, some new, so we will have more options to improve our protagonists. On the other hand, magic and attacks can only be improved in this section, so it will be an important place to visit as we progress through the story. Although it feels a bit like grinding, the game itself will hold us back, as we won’t be able to go any lower depending on the chapters we’ve completed.
In addition, the game’s audio is in both English and Japanese. If you had the opportunity to watch the anime in its original language, you will find the original voice actors themselves. Likewise, many of the songs and tunes from the recent anime are found in the story, making the listening experience appreciated by fans.
Visually, it should be noted that technically the game runs quite well, with a very stable 60 frames per second, something important for an action game. The cel shading is well applied, and although it is complicated to make a 2D art jump to 3D, in most cases the work is well done.
Infinity Strash: DRAGON QUEST The Adventure of Dai simplifies the action RPG experience in order to deliver an anime-inspired game that is competent and, compared to other titles in the series, decent. It has the potential, should there be a sequel to continue Dai’s adventure, to offer many improvements in terms of combat mechanics, but for now it’s a flashy title for fans of the little hero of Dermline Island and nothing more.