Woodlings draw near!

Before I get into this review, I have to warn you all about something: there is a certain spoiler regarding the endgame of the original Dragon Quest 2, also known as Dragon Warrior 2. The nature of said spoiler should be fairly well known at this point. However, just to be excessively safe, I didn't mention it in the write-up from when we beat Dragon Warrior 2. That write-up did not spoil Dragon Quest/Warrior 2's ending. (The poster said write-up links to technically does, if you see what I'm obliquely referring to here and you put two and two together, but I didn't call attention to it in my writing.) This write-up, however, explicitly will. No, it's not much of a twist by today's standards (more on its impact at the time below, though.) Like I said, you probably know it already, anyway. Still, I'm just warning you... like... just in case?

( Yeah. Just in case. )

See, Dragon Quest Builders is a spinoff series that sets out to answer the age-old question, "What if Dragon Quest were Minecraft and also Breath of the Wild?" It has all the zillion-hour plot-heavy plot of a full-on Dragon Quest game--it is a full-on Dragon Quest game--only the gameplay is more of a Minecraft-like "go around and craft and build things in a world of cubes," complete with at least a few Breath of the Wild-like open-world exploration action RPG elements. Plot-wise, the first Dragon Quest Builders game was a direct spinoff of the first Dragon Quest game, with the same setting and a simple what-if twist: Dragon Quest Builders 1 is set in an AU where the hero of Dragon Quest 1 said "Yes" to the Dragonlord's offer of joining him and ruling the world together, at which point the two of them conquered and destroyed everything, there was a long time skip, and then the Builder comes along.

( Oops, there's that Dragon Quest 2 spoiler again )

Anyone who talks to us on IM or even has us added as a Nintendo Switch friend has seen how much this game has utterly claimed my life in the past few months. I've easily sunk a good 140 hours into it so far and I show no signs of even slowing down, let alone stopping. People, I'm an anxiety-ridden adult living in late-stage capitalism. I don't do 100+ hour romps like I'm eleven anymore. The original Dragon Warrior 2 was probably 15-20 hours, and in terms of how many actual calendar months I spent picking at it, I'm pretty sure I completed the main story of DQB2 in less time than I did DW2. That doesn't happen. But it did.

DQB2 is the perfect combination of everything I wanted or needed in a game right now. It has all the virtual Legos, customize-your-island, "let me show you this big mansion I spent 50 hours building" energy of Animal Crossing and Minecraft. It has all the emotional, impactful story-driven story of a hundred-hour Square Enix game. It has a nearly infinite number of things to do, even well into the post-game, without Animal Crossing's time-based shoot I forgot to do the Halloween event yesterday stresses. Every time I start the game, I look around and... let's see, what still needs doing? There are those rather ugly primitive rooms I made in the first settlement before a lot of the fancier materials were unlocked that could really stand to be remade at some point. There are tablet targets (basically in-game miniature Achievement-like objectives, things like "create X different kinds of food recipes," "tame and recruit Y different species of monsters," etc.) that I still need to complete. Oh, I never did finish a bedroom for the big castle in the third settlement before the plot kicked into high gear and I had to go run off and save the world; I should go back and do that so they have a place to sleep. The people in the third settlement are cooking egg dishes like stuffed omelettes faster than I can keep them supplied with eggs; perhaps I should go back to that one procedurally generated resource-gathering side island and tame and recruit some more chickens. I still want to turn the hollowed out space between the inner and outer walls of the second settlement's pyramid into a giant aquarium. Oh, there's an entire post-game epilogue story chapter that I'm told is amazing, so there's even more story stuff to do, though unlocking that has a whole bunch of prerequisites including finishing all the tablet targets. My ultimate goal is to take Kurt's castle--which we've seen a pretty clear image of in our guided imagery meditation sessions and spiritual visualizations, vivid enough to include a finely detailed floor plan--and bring it to life in this game. Kurt has such a big and beautiful castle. I wish you all could see it. You all will be able to see it. Eventually.

I highly recommend this one. Now that I've fallen into this pit, I'd love for you to join us. The free Jumbo Demo includes everything up to the final battle of the first entire story region of the game--a good 20-30 hours of content right there. If you get into it, maybe we can trade friend codes and you can tour our island.

As for us? Well, this game is complete in the sense that I have conquered the main story, defeated the end boss, saved the world, and seen the credits. However, this is clearly an ONGOING entry because a Builder's work is never truly over.

Do you like nonogram (AKA Picross) puzzles? Do you like lots of nonogram puzzles? No really, do you like a seriously worrying amount of nonogram puzzles? Do you like cute sad stories and cute sad art? Well, then, have I got recommendation for you!

Two Eyes is a nonogram puzzle collection. It follows the standard mobile game formula of being free or like $3 to turn off the ads, which for the most part maintain a balance on their obtrusiveness. It definitely feels good to have them off, but the game is far from unplayable or anything with them. It's fine, just a luxury, but a nice one.

It divides its puzzles into two categories: "Dreamy" puzzles appear to be unrelated shapes and images that have nothing to do with anything, just a pure nonogram experience with relaxing piano music. "Journey" puzzles are this game's "story mode," if you will. They come as parts of a larger grid of images (usually 6x6), and once you've completed the entire grid's worth of puzzles, it unlocks a full image with a little blurb from the story underneath; slowly work your way through all of these to watch the tale unfold. From what I can see so far, this is a story about two perfect soulmate-tier lovers who died and wished to meet again in their next lives, and so they did... as a hungry wolf and a deer he was stalking for prey before they (maybe?) recognized each other. The presentation is dripping with DeviantArt "native" stylings (those feathers and headband on the wolf, wow... and he's even heterochromatic because of course he is) but it works and I find the whole thing striking and beautiful.

I guess the big issue for me is the sheer scale of the mountain we're climbing, here. A 6x6 grid of nonograms = 36 puzzles per story beat, times at least 18 nodes per path (the wolf and deer each have their own story/side of the story) just to get to what appear to be three big combined merged nodes at the end, equals something like 1,300 puzzles just for Journey mode, assuming you're here for the story and are completely ignoring the entire Dreamy side. I've gotten into a habit of doing three puzzles a night just before I go to sleep, and at that pace it will take me well over a year to chew through all these nonograms. I'm planting the seed now for what will probably be a very well-earned Rita nomination in 2021 or 2022.

But daunting as the task may be, I persevere, because this game is beautiful and I'm greatly enjoying the nightly foray into it. I'm invested in this story and want to see where it goes, even if I only get to read a paragraph of it once every twelve days or so. It's serene and relaxing and... it's maybe a little early to call it moving, but I can definitely see it striving for beauty and I expect some heart-string tugging in the future.

Random unrelated side note 1: The deer is constantly and consistently referred to as female but is just as constantly and consistently presented with that massive rack of antlers, so I personally choose to believe that she's trans. Sorry, I'm the giant rat that makes all of the rules, it's canon now.

Random unrelated side note 2: If you like the idea of a waiting room style puzzle collection with vaguely nativey story nodes between the puzzles, a pretty and artful aesthetic, etc. basically everything in Two Eyes except that you hate nonograms, specifically, then this same company also has a sudoku one. I may consider that one someday after Two Eyes, but "someday after Two Eyes" is kind of a ways off considering how much Two Eyes there is in Two Eyes.