Review Insights · App Store
DRAGON QUEST Smash/Grow
SQUARE ENIX · 963 ratings · ★ 4.6
4.6
★★★★★
963 ratings
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Top complaints - extracted from 40 negative reviews
Recurring phrases mined from 1-2★ reviews. The bigger the percentage, the more users have the same problem. Fix the top 2-3 in your version and you have product-market fit on day one.
1
"game"
33 negative reviews mention this · 83% of all complaints
★★★★★ "System Error. I keep getting system error. I have the latest iPhone, play tons of games with no issue. Redownloaded this game several times and keep getting system/session error. Lame, fix your game." - Nhazul
2
"play"
13 negative reviews mention this · 33% of all complaints
★★★★★ "System Error. I keep getting system error. I have the latest iPhone, play tons of games with no issue. Redownloaded this game several times and keep getting system/session error. Lame, fix your game." - Nhazul
3
"games"
9 negative reviews mention this · 23% of all complaints
★★★★★ "System Error. I keep getting system error. I have the latest iPhone, play tons of games with no issue. Redownloaded this game several times and keep getting system/session error. Lame, fix your game." - Nhazul
4
"dragon"
9 negative reviews mention this · 23% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Avaricious, unappreciative, and unwilling to listen to feedback.. Too much rng. Too grindy. Resource drought. Not enough incentive to do harder content. Total refusal to listen to community feedback. It was fun at first, but the sheer greed has ruined it. Dropping Bambooligan with -50% damage from the onl…" - EmblemTiki
5
"gacha"
8 negative reviews mention this · 20% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Gacha Trash. Just another gacha grab preying on your FOMO." - FourmyleRa
6
"money"
8 negative reviews mention this · 20% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Thin before you spend money. Good concept of a game. Gacha is ok and they give you decent amount of tickets and points to roll on banners. The armors are linked to weapons, so if you don’t get a weapon type and element, the weapon buff on the armor is useless. Weapo…" - Worker 7
7
"quest"
8 negative reviews mention this · 20% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Low effort trend-chasing game. Can we please quit it with the new gacha games copying Genshin Impact with the character swapping party system? For the love of god just make your allies fight together. This is Dragon Quest, you literally have 10+ years of experience knowi…" - ReaFafnir
8
"dragon quest"
8 negative reviews mention this · 20% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Low effort trend-chasing game. Can we please quit it with the new gacha games copying Genshin Impact with the character swapping party system? For the love of god just make your allies fight together. This is Dragon Quest, you literally have 10+ years of experience knowi…" - ReaFafnir
9
"system"
7 negative reviews mention this · 18% of all complaints
★★★★★ "System Error. I keep getting system error. I have the latest iPhone, play tons of games with no issue. Redownloaded this game several times and keep getting system/session error. Lame, fix your game." - Nhazul
10
"every"
7 negative reviews mention this · 18% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Thin before you spend money. Good concept of a game. Gacha is ok and they give you decent amount of tickets and points to roll on banners. The armors are linked to weapons, so if you don’t get a weapon type and element, the weapon buff on the armor is useless. Weapo…" - Worker 7
11
"gameplay"
7 negative reviews mention this · 18% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Force update in the middle of gameplay. I was kicked out of the Machine Ruins in the middle of playing for 20 minutes. Time and resources lost" - Paughthead
12
"getting"
6 negative reviews mention this · 15% of all complaints
★★★★★ "System Error. I keep getting system error. I have the latest iPhone, play tons of games with no issue. Redownloaded this game several times and keep getting system/session error. Lame, fix your game." - Nhazul
📋 All 40 negative reviews
Every 1-2★ review we fetched. Use the copy button to grab them all for your own analysis (paste into ChatGPT/Claude with a prompt like "summarize core user problems, group by theme, ignore bugs, focus on missing features").
System Error
I keep getting system error. I have the latest iPhone, play tons of games with no issue. Redownloaded this game several times and keep getting system/session error. Lame, fix your game.
Gacha Trash
Just another gacha grab preying on your FOMO.
Thin before you spend money
Good concept of a game. Gacha is ok and they give you decent amount of tickets and points to roll on banners. The armors are linked to weapons, so if you don’t get a weapon type and element, the weapon buff on the armor is useless. Weapons are basically lowest rate, for every one weapon in the banner there are four pieces that go with that weapon. If you don’t get the weapon and matching element, it’s a bust. Events last WAY too long at 45 days each and the grind is atrocious. Over 200k coins needed in event and you get an average of 1k per run. 15 to 20m for 1k coins average. Whoever thought that was a good idea did not think of burnout. 3k gems per roll is a high amount to save. I give it a year before it goes bust like DQTact did and is removed. It will be an interesting year though.
Avaricious, unappreciative, and unwilling to listen to feedback.
Too much rng. Too grindy. Resource drought. Not enough incentive to do harder content. Total refusal to listen to community feedback. It was fun at first, but the sheer greed has ruined it. Dropping Bambooligan with -50% damage from the only premium pool 3 star ice weapon was scummy. Dropping Dragon Ruins with a different coin shop, removing the coin boon, and making other boons require the new claws to be utilized is next level cashgrab. Sorry to have to leave this review, but if you're going to ignore us, then this is the way the ball bounces.
Greedy and Grindy
Game is fun to play no doubt but the devs are asking to much for your time and money, they could do better but i doubt they will ☹️
Force update in the middle of gameplay
I was kicked out of the Machine Ruins in the middle of playing for 20 minutes. Time and resources lost
Constantly crashing
Love the game, but it consistently crashes like every 5 or so mins snd its getting annoying
Fun but too much like gambling
The gameplay is great, super fun, lots to do. My issue is the gatcha system for gear. Gems are expensive for what little they buy you in game and the pull rates are so low. I have played through the entire campaign so far and still do not have adequate gear despite farming gems and draw tickets
Designed to drain…
Unfortunately, as much as I loved this game when it came out I can’t honestly say it’s a game anyone should play.
The new event transmute gear (the spear and armor from the merchant event) is rigged in a way to make it so you have to spend at minimum 1,000 USD to get the gear. This is absolutely insane and should be illegal.
I spent 200 dollars and got NOTHING but old gear drops. Not one item from the new event dropped.
This should never happen and is why they should be forced to charge a flat fee for new gear. Regulations need to happen, corporations are insane. The good thing is that these games are dying quickly as people can’t afford them any longer.
If you have gambling problems and/or are struggling financially then you need to stay away from this title.
Squenix can’t get Final Fantasy back on track and now they’re just hoping the FF14 MMO and games like this will be able to keep them afloat. I really hope they fail.
200 dollars and not a single drop? You’re out of your mind. I already spent like 2000 on your game and noticed that drops were getting stingier with every event. This event it’s incredibly obvious you’re limiting event gear until a certain dollar amount is spent.
It’s not random; it’s rigged.
The new event transmute gear (the spear and armor from the merchant event) is rigged in a way to make it so you have to spend at minimum 1,000 USD to get the gear. This is absolutely insane and should be illegal.
I spent 200 dollars and got NOTHING but old gear drops. Not one item from the new event dropped.
This should never happen and is why they should be forced to charge a flat fee for new gear. Regulations need to happen, corporations are insane. The good thing is that these games are dying quickly as people can’t afford them any longer.
If you have gambling problems and/or are struggling financially then you need to stay away from this title.
Squenix can’t get Final Fantasy back on track and now they’re just hoping the FF14 MMO and games like this will be able to keep them afloat. I really hope they fail.
200 dollars and not a single drop? You’re out of your mind. I already spent like 2000 on your game and noticed that drops were getting stingier with every event. This event it’s incredibly obvious you’re limiting event gear until a certain dollar amount is spent.
It’s not random; it’s rigged.
Good Game BUT
1) Co-Op nightmare too difficult
2) need a way to choose blessings that may appear in the level
3) Not allow auto in co-op
4) add more weapon types to allow for better progression
5) have more red gem opportunities
2) need a way to choose blessings that may appear in the level
3) Not allow auto in co-op
4) add more weapon types to allow for better progression
5) have more red gem opportunities
Low effort trend-chasing game
Can we please quit it with the new gacha games copying Genshin Impact with the character swapping party system? For the love of god just make your allies fight together. This is Dragon Quest, you literally have 10+ years of experience knowing how to make a proper party system. And whats with every game trying to force roguelites into things? This game is just walk forward to win like the rest of them.
Broken ads
I put around 8 hours into this game and uninstalled. I don’t know why they’re offering free pulls to watch ads when the ads last 2 minutes and then force you to play the game in the ad and then freeze on the ad page. You go through all of this and then have to close to the game and not get the reward for doing it. Games not fun enough to put up with it and I’m not putting money into it when they’ll just pull it in a few months.
Meh
Game was fun for the first few hours. After that it gets really repetitive. Not because it’s a gacha that gives you boring clothes, but the gameplay. I like the rougelite aspect. This one is not for me.
bad overall
horrible experience, auto battle that tries to make you lose everytime, pay to win.
Constant crashes Ruin a fun game
I don’t write many reviews for apps, but I end up playing a lot of games. This one is great on the surface. The world of dragon quest mixed with all the fun of a bullet heaven (or survivor-like). The issues come pretty quickly after getting into it.
First off, and my biggest issue, is the crashing. Finish a level? Good chance the game will crash. Trying multiplayer? Crashes, then you’re stuck with lobotomized versions of the players you matched with. Doing a timed mission? Network error at the end, forcing a restart where you may or may not get the required score. It’s awful, like the game isn’t optimized for the mobile devices it’s available for.
Secondly, there’s the in app purchases and premium currency. You need 3000 gems for a 10 pull, but only earn 80 on a level cleared with all challenges cleared. This makes grinding a chore for gear you need to progress. And the price of the premium passes? It’s ridiculously greedy.
I cannot recommend it in the state that it’s in.
First off, and my biggest issue, is the crashing. Finish a level? Good chance the game will crash. Trying multiplayer? Crashes, then you’re stuck with lobotomized versions of the players you matched with. Doing a timed mission? Network error at the end, forcing a restart where you may or may not get the required score. It’s awful, like the game isn’t optimized for the mobile devices it’s available for.
Secondly, there’s the in app purchases and premium currency. You need 3000 gems for a 10 pull, but only earn 80 on a level cleared with all challenges cleared. This makes grinding a chore for gear you need to progress. And the price of the premium passes? It’s ridiculously greedy.
I cannot recommend it in the state that it’s in.
Sad archer knockoff
There’s better rogue likes that won’t weaponize nostalgia to steal your money on gacha. Bring dragon quest walk to America!
Game crashes
Game constantly crashes their response is generic and very delayed. Their response is for you to buy the newest iPad available. The game isn’t worth your money and especially your time
Negative outlook of the game
Been spending at least 3 hours daily in this game grinding out, if you didnt re roll for a boomerang you are really gated it, and of course you would need to spend a lot of money for in game weapons.
Terribly Predatorial
We all know gatcha games prey on the gambling chase. But this game is the worst. You can spend thousands of gems and never get a 3 star let alone a featured (not counting the terrible stamp card rewards). It’s 2026 and DQ fans deserve better.
Was a great game but then they broke it!
So when it first came out everything was smooth and working well. Now after 1 level or doing a pull it just crashes! Sometimes even mid level clicking a statue causes it to crash! I have even seen some crazy texture bugs! Not sure what the last update did but it definitely broke a few things. Really hope they fix it as it’s unplayable right now.
Unstable/Glitches ~ Wasted 14 days
Super unstable game. Kicks you out of every event, stage, loading screen. Do not follow online instructions to remove/reinstall. Your data and time spent will be gone. Really unfortunate because the game has good features. Formerly Kaladin
Developers should be ashamed
They should be ashamed about what they did to this awesome and beloved series. Turned it into a PTW gacha. With the prices and rates of transmuter, you should not get duplicates. At least not until you have it all. It’s absolutely insane and greedy. Energy based…
Strong Start, But Feels Limited Right Now
I really wanted to love this game. As a big fan of the Dragon Quest series and roguelites/roguelikes, this should’ve been a perfect fit.
The core gameplay is genuinely fun. Runs are engaging, and it captures that “just one more run” feeling the genre is known for.
That said, there are a few things holding it back right now.
First, there’s no true endless mode. Instead, there’s a time-based “endless” focused on score-but you can’t even see other players’ scores. That makes it feel neither competitive nor like a proper endless run where you push your build as far as possible. For a roguelike, that feels like a big missing piece.
Second, the energy system is very restrictive. Runs cost a lot of energy, and the refill rate is slow, which limits how much you can actually play. Something closer to Battle Cats-where your max energy increases and refill speed improves over time-would feel much better. Even reducing it to 2 minutes per energy would help a lot.
Drony already helps by gathering useful materials like gold, memories, and upgrade parts, which is a great system. But it would be nice if there was also a very small chance for Drony expeditions to bring back gems occasionally, similar to how Battle Cats uses Gamatoto Expeditions for a chance at Cat Food. It wouldn't need to be generous-just enough to make long-term progression and saving for pulls feel a little more rewarding
To be fair, the game just came out, so there’s definitely room for improvement. There’s a great foundation here, and I am enjoying it-but these systems hold it back from reaching its full potential right now.
The Falcon Blade does not attack twice by default in this game. Literally took what this sword was known for and removed it. Unfathomably colossal disappointment.
The core gameplay is genuinely fun. Runs are engaging, and it captures that “just one more run” feeling the genre is known for.
That said, there are a few things holding it back right now.
First, there’s no true endless mode. Instead, there’s a time-based “endless” focused on score-but you can’t even see other players’ scores. That makes it feel neither competitive nor like a proper endless run where you push your build as far as possible. For a roguelike, that feels like a big missing piece.
Second, the energy system is very restrictive. Runs cost a lot of energy, and the refill rate is slow, which limits how much you can actually play. Something closer to Battle Cats-where your max energy increases and refill speed improves over time-would feel much better. Even reducing it to 2 minutes per energy would help a lot.
Drony already helps by gathering useful materials like gold, memories, and upgrade parts, which is a great system. But it would be nice if there was also a very small chance for Drony expeditions to bring back gems occasionally, similar to how Battle Cats uses Gamatoto Expeditions for a chance at Cat Food. It wouldn't need to be generous-just enough to make long-term progression and saving for pulls feel a little more rewarding
To be fair, the game just came out, so there’s definitely room for improvement. There’s a great foundation here, and I am enjoying it-but these systems hold it back from reaching its full potential right now.
The Falcon Blade does not attack twice by default in this game. Literally took what this sword was known for and removed it. Unfathomably colossal disappointment.
Game got and error when i was playing pls fix and i fix my drop rate back to 5 stars thanks ok.
Pls fix ok.
Can’t even load the game
Normally I wouldn’t write a review. But I can’t even load into the game to try it. Keep getting stuck on the main page with “Now Loading”. I’m not disabling any of my security or ad blocker to play a mobile game. Never had any issue like this with any other game before. I’ll change my review if they ever fix it and if I give them another chance.
Can’t play
Can’t play the game doesn’t load past “tap to play”
Unoriginal AI Slop
Very sad that SquareEnix took its beloved Dragon Quest franchise and has yet again embarrassed it in some AI slop Mobile abomination. A game that’s barely a game. A game that doesn’t want you to play it. It just wants your money while delivering nothing. If you’ve played a mobile “game” before, you’ve already seen everything this app has to offer.
It will be shut down in six months or less and some executive that makes more money than he’s worth will be scratching his head in confusion because he can’t figure out why people just aren’t shelling out money for his polished turd that the AI whipped up.
It will be shut down in six months or less and some executive that makes more money than he’s worth will be scratching his head in confusion because he can’t figure out why people just aren’t shelling out money for his polished turd that the AI whipped up.
Not a good product
So many resources to collect for very slow progress. The dragon quest art style is layered with phone game cancer. The gameplay itself can be set on auto and just not very fun or enticing
As usual abysmal pull rates.
Over 300 pulls go get 1 mediocre 3* weapon. There is a reason dragon quest games never last long on the App Store. They never learn. I would be so mad if I spent money and got these results. I’m going to be amazed is this game lasts a full year.
Just terrible
Just play the game for less than a week and you can easily see how pay to win it is and how poorly it is designed in every single aspect it is quite sad as a dragon quest fan.
Unable to Play
I can’t even play the game due to it always saying system error. How do I fix this?
It’s ok
You can progress if you are free to play but the ads are broken you can’t hit the exit button after they are over to collect your reward and continue the game.
Won’t load
iPhone 15 pro max. 1 gig fiber. Haven’t been able to even try the game. Shows me sign in and says loading on the screen after tap to start, but won’t do anything. Will likely delete without ever having tried the game.
Nice game if it weren’t for all the menus and “feats” and check ins and tabs to open.
This game is waaaaay too cluttered. If you can ignore 85% of the things it tries to get you to click it’s enjoyable
Everything was fine?
Suddenly the game just decided to crash and now it’s in a weird glitch loop. Not sure what’s going on. Hopefully they fix it.
10 Days In and It’s Pretty Mediocre
The gameplay is kind of fun, but the random power-up system feels like it holds me back more than it provides fresh experiences. I am currently stuck in the story because the campaign has blocks where you have to score over a certain value in a boss trial mode before they unlock, and there’s this firebird boss that’s severely overturned. It spends most of its time flying above water out of reach, making it hard to get the score you need to continue with the story.
I am not sure if I’m going to stay with this game. It feels really tedious and I can’t help but feel that a lot of these blocks are just to pad the player’s game time because there isn’t a lot of content.
I am not sure if I’m going to stay with this game. It feels really tedious and I can’t help but feel that a lot of these blocks are just to pad the player’s game time because there isn’t a lot of content.
Incredibly fun, horribly run.
Yet another mobile game with fantastic gameplay that is super solid, fun, addicting, and…completely marred by overly predatory monetary practices. I genuinely don’t understand how these games aren’t considered gambling and rated (or banned) accordingly. Draws are expensive, rates are incredibly low, they are super stingy with the “premium currency”, no pity system, featured banners are more likely to give you random other items that aren’t showcased, and it’s a DQ title so the company in charge will most likely have it shut down within a year or two - or less. All around this is probably the best playing mobile game I’ve seen in some time, but they’re right off the bat trying to squeeze people for everything they’re worth + we’ve all seen how Square Enix runs their live service mobile titles. I would easily pay $60-$100 for a full retail release of a DQ game like this, huge shame it is what it is.
An archaic mobile game and worse Final Fantasy Record Keeper
This game feels 10-15 years old, but it is fun at first so it’s easy to look past that. However, unlike Final Fantasy Record Keeper (which this game is very much like except for the combat), the game gets super boring super fast as there is no real strategy, depth or variety to the combat. Every stage and boss is basically the same.
In addition, with Square’s terrible reputation of EOSing games fast compared to other gacha companies I just can’t find it in me to keep going. Oh and a special shoutout to their data saving feature which literally requires a Square Enix account login you can’t save your game data or play between devices in any other way.
In addition, with Square’s terrible reputation of EOSing games fast compared to other gacha companies I just can’t find it in me to keep going. Oh and a special shoutout to their data saving feature which literally requires a Square Enix account login you can’t save your game data or play between devices in any other way.
Meh
Love me some DQ, but it's like Archero with too much complexity (a million menus within menus) and it's like Vampire Survivors with not enough depth in ways that are interesting. It's the most boring of both worlds. The levels are short which I guess could be viewed as a good thing but to me it feels like things end just when they're getting interesting. Maybe I'm still too early on but the ramp up is painfully slow and uninteresting.
Vampire Survivors without the fun
Take what makes vampire survivors and add a really annoying grind for gear, and you get this game.
You dont get the fun destruction unless you pull from the gacha for better weapons/armor. In addition progression requires high scores so even if pass a stage you need a minimum score to continue the story.
I love the DQ world but just play a mainline DQ game or vampire survivor instead of this.
You dont get the fun destruction unless you pull from the gacha for better weapons/armor. In addition progression requires high scores so even if pass a stage you need a minimum score to continue the story.
I love the DQ world but just play a mainline DQ game or vampire survivor instead of this.
Sentiment summary
88%
Positive (4-5★)
3%
Neutral (3★)
8%
Negative (1-2★)