Review Insights · App Store
DRAGON QUEST Smash/Grow
SQUARE ENIX · 623 ratings · ★ 4.7
4.7
★★★★★
623 ratings
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Top complaints - extracted from 27 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"
23 negative reviews mention this · 85% of all complaints
★★★★★ "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 …" - Colonel Kitty
2
"play"
14 negative reviews mention this · 52% of all complaints
★★★★★ "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 …" - Colonel Kitty
3
"dragon"
7 negative reviews mention this · 26% of all complaints
★★★★★ "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” feelin…" - ShadowVonMoon
4
"quest"
7 negative reviews mention this · 26% of all complaints
★★★★★ "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” feelin…" - ShadowVonMoon
5
"dragon quest"
7 negative reviews mention this · 26% of all complaints
★★★★★ "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” feelin…" - ShadowVonMoon
6
"games"
6 negative reviews mention this · 22% of all complaints
★★★★★ "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)…" - NoZaku_Boi
7
"other"
6 negative reviews mention this · 22% of all complaints
★★★★★ "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)…" - NoZaku_Boi
8
"feels"
5 negative reviews mention this · 19% of all complaints
★★★★★ "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 …" - Colonel Kitty
9
"these"
5 negative reviews mention this · 19% of all complaints
★★★★★ "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 …" - Colonel Kitty
10
"mobile"
5 negative reviews mention this · 19% of all complaints
★★★★★ "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)…" - NoZaku_Boi
11
"playing"
5 negative reviews mention this · 19% of all complaints
★★★★★ "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)…" - NoZaku_Boi
12
"gameplay"
4 negative reviews mention this · 15% of all complaints
★★★★★ "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 …" - Colonel Kitty
📋 All 27 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").
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.
I’ve seen this game before.
I can’t even express how much I hate P2W, copy-paste gacha games. They always lose me the second they introduce the “auto” play feature that every one of these blights leans on. The moment I turned it on, I realized I wasn’t even playing anymore, just watching numbers go up while the game played itself. At that point, what’s the point?
Normal gacha slot-pull mechanics? Check. Need duplicates of very rare equipment to increase power? Check. Very obvious paywalls? Check.
But this is the worst kind of gacha. The kind that takes a well-known, beloved franchise like Dragon Quest and strips it of its identity in favor of shallow, automated progression and monetization loops. What used to feel like an adventure now feels like a vending machine with a fantasy skin.
The fact that Square Enix continues to push games like this tells you everything you need to know. It’s not about creating something meaningful, it’s about extracting as much as possible from players who are willing to tolerate it.
It’s a damn shame to see a series like Dragon Quest reduced to this.
Normal gacha slot-pull mechanics? Check. Need duplicates of very rare equipment to increase power? Check. Very obvious paywalls? Check.
But this is the worst kind of gacha. The kind that takes a well-known, beloved franchise like Dragon Quest and strips it of its identity in favor of shallow, automated progression and monetization loops. What used to feel like an adventure now feels like a vending machine with a fantasy skin.
The fact that Square Enix continues to push games like this tells you everything you need to know. It’s not about creating something meaningful, it’s about extracting as much as possible from players who are willing to tolerate it.
It’s a damn shame to see a series like Dragon Quest reduced to this.
Re-launch crashes
You guys have to fix the crash/relaunches. Playing through full levels repeatedly is breaking the game.
Other than that… it’s great.
Other than that… it’s great.
Good game, but can’t play it since update.
Game keeps crashing within a minute of launching since the update this morning. There is a loud audio glitch and then the app force closes itself. I’m on iPhone 14. Will change to 5 stars when I can play it again.
Stuck at start screen
Can’t event play. Just stuck at start screen saying loading for an hour or so
Broken
Game doesn’t get beyond the title screen. Junk
Never finishes loading
Can’t play the game. It sits on the loading screen and never finishes.
DQ
I truly enjoy DQ.. to bad this is just yet another gatcha pay to win game 🫤😵
Hoping for some improvements
I played the beta and loved it. Was really excited for the launch. I’m giving the lowest score now in the hopes that this gets seen and something done about it. The game frequently crashes. I can’t go through two games without it needing to relaunch. It is heating up my phone to a high amount, even with the setting to prevent that. The battery drain is just incredible. No app or game should take that much battery power.
The base game underneath is still incredibly fun, and I’m sure with improvements it will be worth rating higher. Until then though, it is a bit of a mess.
The base game underneath is still incredibly fun, and I’m sure with improvements it will be worth rating higher. Until then though, it is a bit of a mess.
DQ Games Never Last Long
It would be one thing if this game wasn’t a pay-to-win micro-transaction wallet buster, but unfortunately it’s a mobile free-to-play Dragon Quest game, which means it won’t last long.
Have to pay for everything
There’s too many things that you have to spend real money on. They have gems that you get in game separate from the gems you pay for.
Doesn’t work
Doesn’t work
Smh
Cant even play it on launch
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.
Drew
Graphics are amazing but it’s basically like any other Gacha game I still recommend playing it, but don’t recommend spending any time more than 30 minutes and definitely don’t put money in it
Co-op mode
Please make co-op more accessible. A token for a co-op game is very weird. I just want to be able to play some matches with friends without it being locked behind a token. I may not play this for long if it’s just going to be a solo vampire survivors with a DQ skin.
Sentiment summary
91%
Positive (4-5★)
3%
Neutral (3★)
7%
Negative (1-2★)