Dragon Quest Monsters: The Withered World Preview

Pokemon Mystery Dungeon opened with a series of questions that decided which of the iconic creatures you would be playing as. It was an exciting feeling, after seeing these cute creatures in so many games and episodes of the anime, that you would be getting to play as one and explore the whimsical world that they inhabit where everybody gets along and works together. In the opening of Dragon Quest Monsters: The Withered World, after completing a similar quiz by saying I like to listen to music, prefer lazy days over action activities, and like to play pranks, I was presented with my starting monster – a walking candle wielding a mischievous smirk and a pointy knife, called Wax Murderer. The person next to me was given an eggplant monster called Woebergine, who they came to adore after laughing at them at first. The wacky monsters of Dragon Quest with their pun names make for a big contrast to the cute monsters of Pokemon and the cool, gun-toting Digimon, and that feeling of difference permeated through my preview session of The Withered World.

Things started off right at the beginning of the game, where two girls named Bianca and Nera get whisked away to another world on a quest to find magic plants that will cure their fathers’ illnesses. They’re not sisters, they both have independently sick fathers. Times are rough. To make matters worse, dark forces have devastated this once prosperous land and the plants they need are in short supply. So they go on a quest to restore the world and save their dads. But this quest is too big to complete by themselves, and so they learn the art of monster wrangling to befriend a cast of weird and wonderful monsters that can fight in their stead.

Bianca and Nera are both distinct characters – Bianca is peppy with a cockney accent, while Nera is more reserved – and have different abilities in battle. Bianca has an easier time recruiting Dragon, Beast and Undead monsters and has a chance of healing her monsters or boosting their attack in battle, whereas Nera favours Slime, Nature and ‘Material’ monsters and has more magic-focused buffs for her monsters. You start off by picking one of the girls to play as, but it sounds like you’ll be able to change between them later into the game. It was shortly into my demo that I realised this was another big change from other monster collection games – most of them don’t give you pre-defined characters with personality, instead giving you a blank-state avatar. And the fact that both of your choices are girls is a bold choice as well, as normally you’re given a choice of a male or female avatar (or even locked in to a male character). It’s a refreshing change, and made me more invested in the story knowing that my characters would be more involved with it.

My stabby candle friend and I set out into the world and soon got into battle against other monsters. Battles are turn-based, and you can have up to four monsters in play at a time. You can either assign your monsters tactics, like ‘focus on healing’ or ‘conserve MP’, and leave them to their own devices, or choose their moves and targets individually. Each monster you encounter can be recruited, but instead of capturing them or bonding with them you have to impress them… by hitting them really hard. You have a chance of recruiting monsters by using a ‘Show of Force’, in which all of your team will attack them a single time. The harder you hit them, the higher the chance of winning them over. Fail, and there’s a chance of angering them instead and losing the chance of recruiting anyone until the battle’s over.

The battle system seemed rather standard, with things like elemental weaknesses and resistances for each monster, which is why I found it weird that the game points so much out to you mid-battle. The effectiveness of your abilities on each monster is highlighted as you scroll through the menu, which is one thing, but the game will also outright recommend a skill for you to use based on its effectiveness. I’ve come to terms with games nowadays feeling afraid of you making mistakes, but sometimes it gets to the point where it feels condescending. I tried to resist these prompts and make my own strategies, but often found that the recommended skill was the best one anyway. But still… I’d like to figure that out on my own, you know? It’s not an action game so the skill is in your strategy, and I want to be in control of that. Having an auto-battle option and a ‘manual but the game will tell you what to do anyway’ option felt redundant. I hope that there’s either an option to disable this, or that later-game fights require more strategy so the safe option isn’t always the best one.

The battle system being simple doesn’t mean that the game lacks depth, rather that the depth is more in what you do outside of battle. There’s a lot going on, and the second part of the demo fast-forwarded to a later part of the game where I could experiment with all these systems. The main system that ties everything together is the ability to ‘synthesise’ monsters together – kind of a mix between fusion and breeding, where two parent monsters combine into a new one. I’m not always a fan of fusion systems in monster collection games because I get attached to my little weirdos and don’t like the idea of sacrificing them, but I AM a fan of seeing numbers go up and spending way too much time planning out team compositions, and The Withered World had a few features in place that put the focus on the latter.

First of all, you could see in advance what the possibilities of your synthesis will be and choose the final monster that you would like. This avoids saying goodbye to two of your favourite monsters only to say hello to something weak or disappointing. We all had a great time mixing and matching different monsters to see what came out, with some of the weirder designs drawing hearty laughs. My favourite was Gasbagon; a goofy, puffed-up monster which could only be described as a dragon mixed with a hot water bottle. The vibrant art style and lively animations helped bring these wacky creatures to life, making even the gross and odd ones charming.

Synthesising monsters isn’t just for fun, though, as it also provides avenues for customising and building more powerful monsters.This is the juicy part of the game that sold the synthesis system to me. Each monster starts off with a ‘trait’, and can unlock more by levelling up. Each of these is a list of skills and upgrades that a monster can earn by assigning points to them, such as a new spell or a stat boost. When you synthesise a new monster you can mix and match the traits it will be born with by selecting up to three, out of its natural trait and any traits unlocked on each of its parents. This allows you to get creative and optimise your monsters by, say, taking a trait that gives access to defence or health boosts and putting it onto a frail monster. I’ve spent so much time planning out breeding chains in Pokemon games and evolution lines in Digimon, so I can see this system sinking its hooks into me.

There was a lot that I liked about my time with Dragon Quest Monsters: The Withered World – Bianca and Nera seem like fun characters whose stories I’m keen to see unfold, and the synthesis system shows a lot of promise that I’m sure I’ll spend a lot of time tinkering with. I am a bit concerned, however, that the depth of the systems on offer may go to waste if the game doesn’t provide enough challenge to justify engaging with them. It’s always hard to judge game balance from short, early snippets of a game, but there were a few red flags. I’ll be crossing my fingers that I’m just full of hot air like Gasbagon was.

Dragon Quest Monsters: The Withered World will be released on the Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch 2 on December 3rd 2026. This demo was played on the PS5 Pro.

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