The Dragon Quest Monsters series has been going strong for nearly 30 years. It’s a beloved spin-off of the mainline turn-based Japanese RPG titans, with monster catching mechanics fans of Pokemon might be familiar with. During PAX West 2026 in Seattle, I had the behind-closed-doors opportunity to play for about an hour. Dragon Quest Monsters: The Withered World is the latest entry in the series, and offers both plenty of familiarity and new mechanics longtime fans of these games will appreciate.
As a monster catching game, the vast bestiary of Dragon Quest enemies we’ve fought over the years are all here. Slimes, Dracky’s, Wax Murderers, you name it. My roughly hour-long demo started with a bit story exposition, setting up that Bianca and Nera from Dragon Quest V: Hand of the Heavenly Bride are the main playable characters. You have the option on the outset of your journey to decide between the two. They each come with their own bespoke monster preferences and attributes. But regardless of who you pick, both characters are present throughout, and it appears as though you can switch later in the story. I chose to play as Bianca due to her affinity for dragons, and I was thrust immediately into the game’s open world and started fighting and capturing monsters.
Over 500 Monsters
A quick personality quiz is given to determine your starting monster, similar to what we see in Pokemon Mystery Dungeon games. From there, I scoured the world for more monsters to add to my four-slot party. This is a turn-based RPG first and foremost, and much of what makes traditional Dragon Quest’s mechanics great return. Monsters can use a regular attack or spells, and you can either control each move manually or set parameters for autobattling.
But the main mechanic that sets Monsters games apart from their mainline cousins is the Show of Force option in battle. This is a special ability that allows you the chance to recruit a monster for you team. You can have one or more of you monsters use it, with a meter filling up to 100% fster the more you use. In these early moments, it was fairly easy to get any monsters I wanted, but I imagine it’ll be tougher down the line.
“About 50% of players experienced at least some level of motion sickness”
The Withered World’s, well, world, is filled with plenty of monsters and points of interest, even early on. Monsters roam freely and will attack you on sight. There are even chests packed with useful items strewn about. And later on, once you get a magic watering can through the story, you can bring plants to life for various helpful effects, like finding Seeds for permanent stat boosts. But the main thing you’ll want to hunt for are trees that heal you, act as a save point, and as a way to access your monster reserves.
But exploring its vibrant world comes with a caveat. According to the Square Enix representative during my hands-on time, about 50% of players experienced at least some level of motion sickness. I thought I was alone in this until they mentioned it. I even sat further away from the screen to help mitigate it to no avail. Luckily, the game has two different accessibility options to help reduce this effect.
Good, Mindless Fun That Made Me Sick
You see, the world exists on a sort of spherical design. The backgrounds will roll in like what you’d see in an Animal Crossing game. It serves solely an artistic purpose, as one of the accessibility options is to switch the camera to a fixed top-down style, but it made me very nauseous. But once I turned it off, it got worse in battles. I’m not sure exactly what caused this, as I have never reacted to a video game like this in my 30+ years of gaming. It even got to the point where I actively avoided battles because of how it made me feel. I really hope the team finds a way to fix this before launch, because engaging with monsters in battle level up and recruit is the game’s bread and butter.
“It’s nice that I can plan my monster party without facing much RNG”
Recruiting monsters on the overworld isn’t the only way to get new ones. There’s a new Synchronization option that works much like Persona fusions from Atlus’ games. Here, you’ll pick two different monsters to create a child monster. You can pass down various stats and effects to roll powerful (and rare) new creatures. And something I appreciate is that you can see the possible outcomes before you decide. As someone who isn’t big into gacha mechanics, it’s definitely nice that I can plan my monster party without facing much RNG.
Despite the weird motion sickness hiccup, I truly enjoyed my time with the game. After about an hour, I could feel myself getting hooked on its mechanics. Tracking monsters and min-maxing their builds is something I could spend hours doing, so thankfully its battle mechanics and exploration are just as pleasant despite the nausea. I hope my body reacts differently when Dragon Quest Monsters: The Withered World launches, because I can see this being the perfect game for long commutes and general time-killing.
Dragon Quest Monsters: The Withered World launches December 3 for PS5, Xbox Series X|S, Switch, Switch 2, and PC.
