Dragon Quest Heroes I & II (Nintendo Switch) Preview

Omega Force's Dragon Quest Musou titles - Dragon Quest Heroes: The World Tree's Woe and the Blight Below and its sequel Dragon Quest Heroes: Twin Kings and the Prophecies End - already reached the UK and US on other platforms and both have been covered here on Cubed3, but now this release gives the chance to try out The World Tree's Woe on a mobile platform for the first time, along with giving a title to benchmark against the Sony consoles while waiting for Skyrim later this year.

There has yet to be a title to act as a benchmark and compare the Nintendo Switch against other options out there, but now with this, there is, since Dragon Quest Heroes II is going to be made available on PlayStation 4. How does it measure up? Graphically, it holds up. The PlayStation 4 version runs at 1080p and the Nintendo Switch in docked mode runs at the same, although in portable mode it drops down to 720p, the same as the PlayStation 3 version that was released in Japan. There are more basic textures on the Switch compared to the PlayStation 4, along with there being richer colours and brighter bloom but it still looks fantastic, especially in portable mode when compared to the Vita iteration.

The problem lies with the frame-rate, which is, frankly, not great... but, it's rather understandable to some extent. The PlayStation 4 runs at 60fps, while the Switch and the Vita both run at 30fps, or at least in theory they do. When entering combat there is noticeable stuttering and combat lag that can make the game feel a little unresponsive at times.

Regardless of these performance dips, though, how does it play? The demo is all in Japanese, but the level of language is very basic, so beginners will easily be able to understand, and, in all honesty, the demo itself requires no understanding of the language to play and enjoy. It's a simple and straightforward case of following the checkpoints on the map to take on some enemies and a boss. It also gives a glimpse into some Nintendo Switch exclusive content, allowing players to try out the new character, Ragnar McRyan, previously seen in Dragon Quest IV.