Dragon Quest: The Adventure of Dai: A Hero's Bonds
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Dragon Quest The Adventure of Dai: A Hero's Bonds (ドラゴンクエスト ダイの大冒険 -魂の絆- lit. "Dragon Quest: The Great Adventure of Dai – Bonds of Souls") is an upcoming action role-playing game for Android and iOS devices. It was scheduled to be released on 28 September 2021, available in Japanese and English.
| Spion-off games | |
|---|---|
| Dragon Quest The Adventure of Dai: A Hero's Bonds | |
| Developer(s) | Dena |
| Publisher(s) | Square Enix |
| Series | Dragon Quest |
| Platform(s) | Android, iOS |
| Release date(s) | September 28, 2021 (Worldwide) |
| Genre(s) | Action role-playing |
As an adaption of 2020 anime Dragon Quest: The Adventure of Dai, the game contained two stories: the storyline "Dragon-Tracks" followed the anime's plot and cast, while "Bonding-Journey" featured a brand new story.
Development
A Hero's Bonds was originally announced on May 27th, 2020 as part of the "Dragon Quest: The Adventure of Dai project", a project to make a brand new anime and videogames based on the manga series. The 2020 Anime series, Xross Battle and Infinity Strash are the other parts of the project.
Square Enix started social media accounts in Japanese and English for the game around September 2020. On September 17, 2021, roughly ten days before the service started, they introduced Facebook accounts with French and Chinese support, the last two languages the game supports.
Gameplay
Players control two characters, the Leader of the Luminaries and a character from the Dai series, and have two additional characters as support units. Characters advance forward fighting hordes of enemies in three lanes. Players can autoattack, defend, freely change lanes, use skills which take some time to charge up, and swap between their two main party members.
There is multiplayer for up to three players.
There are 6 type of missions, divided in two categories: Story and Events. The three Story mission types are:
- Dragon Tracks: "Delve into the memories of Dai and his loyal companions, and witness their tale unfold."
A retelling of the story in Dragon Quest: The Adventure of Dai. - Bonding Journey: "Join Dai and his friends on their adventures in the world of Milladosia."
Aside from experiencing a brand new story, players can unlock playable characters in this storymode. - Character Quests: "A new tale of bonding with Dai and friends."
Players can learn more about the characters from Adventure of Dai that they have befriended. Players will need to spend time with their favorite characters in order to increase their bonding level and unlock more character quests.
The Events mission types are:
- Challenge Quests: "Complete training quests to improve your skills."
Instead of using stamina like all other quests, tickets are required to embark on these missions. These tickets are resetted each day. - Event Quests: "Experience a new story and complete quests to earn exclusive rewards."
These quests are timed, only available for a limited time.
See: List of events in A Hero's Bonds. - Hall of Perdition: "A hall wreathed in mystery. Challenge super-powerful new enemies!"
Players can challenge strong bosses to fights in order to earn Trophies and other rewards. Trophies can be equipped to increase the party's overall strength.
Story
The game includes two intertwining stories: Dragon Tracks and Bonding Journey.
Dragon-Tracks
Dragon Tracks is a reteling of the story from the manga, but with the help of the Luminary Leader in all fights.
Bonding-Journey
Bonding Journey is a brand new story supervised by the original writter of the series, Riku Sanjo. Koji Inada, the original manga artist of the series, designed Pinky, a pink talking dracky that assists the players through this adventure. It takes place in the world of Milladosia, a parallel world to Dai's. The threat of Xevallo, the Lord of the Void and bond breaker, must be combated by the Luminary Leader and the friends they make in Dragon Tracks.
Customization
Appearance
The player can freely customize the main character at the beginning of the adventure or from the menu (Menu > Communication > Change Look). The options are:
- Hero type: This affects the protagonist's gender. Two options: A and B.
- Hairstyle Shape: A selection of 10 hairstyles per type to choose from.
- Hairstyle Colour 1: The main color the hair will be. There are 20 options to choose from.
- Hairstyle Colour 2: The color for details in the hair. There are 20 options to choose from.
- Face Type: There are 4 options per body type. All of them have the Luminary Leader Crest on their forehead.
- Eye Colour: This option affects the color of the character's irises. There are 20 options to choose from.
- Skin Tone: This affects the character's skin. There are 8 tones to choose from.
- Voice: This affects the voiced lines and grunts the character has. The are 3 options per type: Brave, Calm or Cute for Type A; and Brave, Calm or Clown for Type B.
Vocations
The main character is the only character that has access to the vocation system. The player can freely change vocations. The four vocations available are:
- Hero: A well balanced vocation. What makes it unique is people on the Hero vocation can defend and their normal attacks usually only affect enemies on their lane. Heroes have a good variety of skills available, some of which can hit enemies on all three lanes.
- Warrior: An offensive vocation. Instead of being able to defend, warriors can charge up more powerful attacks. Their regular attacks can hit enemies on all three lanes. Warriors are usually slower than Heroes, but their attack is higher and they are great for breaking the enemy defense.
- Mage: A ranged magical vocation. Mages cannot defend either, but they can charge up their ranged attacks. Their normal attacks only affect enemies on their lane. Mages excel at elemental damage, particularly Fire and Light spells. They are also great for clearing enemy lines with some AoE spells such as Bang or Sizz.
- Priest: A support vocation. Priests can defend just as heroes do, and their normal attack only affect enemies on their lane. Priests excel at healing and buffing allies, but they can also do AoE spells like Woosh.
Equipment
The player can equip, upgrade and evolve gear. The gear equipped on the main character will be reflected on their appearance. Equipping weapons allow characters to use skills related to the weapon type, for instance equipping Dai with a sword will allow him to use sword-restricted skills. Most gear give characters stats bonuses and/or other additional effects such as slight elemental resistance.
Gear can be upgraded with raw materials and other gear, and doing so increases it's stats and level. A max level weapon usually has much higher attack than a non-upgraded weapon of the same type.
Most pieces of equipment can be evolved using duplicates of the same equipment as materials. Evolving equipment raises the piece's maximum level and can upgrade traits.
There are 5 kinds of weapons: Swords, Spears, Axes, Wands, and Heavy Wands. There are 8 kinds of armor: Shields, Large Shields, Armour (Top), Armour (Legs), Outfit (Top), Outfit (Legs), Clothes (Top), and Clothes (Legs). Each vocation can equip a subset of weapon and armor types:
- Hero: Swords, Spear, Large Shields, Armour (Top), Armour (Legs), Clothes (Top), and Clothes (Legs).
- Warrior: Swords, Axes, Large Shields, Armour (Top), Armour (Legs), Clothes (Top), and Clothes (Legs).
- Mage: Heavy Wands, Shields, Outfits (Top), Outfits (Legs), Clothes (Top), and Clothes (Legs).
- Priest: Wands, Shields, Outfits (Top), Outfits (Legs), Clothes (Top),and Clothes (Legs)
It should be noted, however, that characters originally from The Adventure of Dai, can only equip one weapon type regardless of their vocation. For example, Crocodine (Vortex Axe) can only equip Axes despite being a Warrior type.
Party
The player has access to 10 parties to customize. Each party needs, at least the main character and one partner character, but can include two additional allies. The difference between allies and partners is that the player can swap between the main character and the partner during battle while the allies act on their own.
Players can also equip parties with a trophy, which increases the party's combat power and might grant special passive skills, like additional damage against specific enemy types. The trophies can be leveled up with duplicates, for improved traits.
Each character can equip one weapon, one armor top, one armor bottom and a shield, two normal skills and one special move. While characters from the same party can't share the same equipment or skills at a time, they can be shared between parties. The same applies to trophies.