Review: Infinity Strash Dragon Quest The Adventure of Dai Is Fun, but Unnecessary

Infinity Strash: Dragon Quest The Adventure of Dai is one of the strangest games I’ve ever played. To be clear, this is a console experience meant for the PS5 and PC, but it has a mobile game-like progression at its core. As a result, the much-anticipated retelling of the classic Dragon Quest spin-off manga and anime series arrives in a bizarre video game form.

Instead of exploring a vast world, players choose which stage to jump into, starting with the first chapter and its first section, known as 1-1. This format never changes as you progress, and you move through the different chapters, such as 2-2 and 3-4, etc. This linear progression style is a lot closer to a mobile game, and yet the gameplay feels like a solid action RPG.

Players take the role of Dai, a kid with exceptional powers who grows up on a remote island raised by monsters. He soon joins a party of heroes to save the world from the Dark Lord. Infinity Strash retells the most recent anime story by letting the player control Dai to hack and slash his way through various environments and boss battles.

The combat is fairly straightforward and includes the usual mechanics of dodging, parrying, and sword slashes. But then you also have some magical abilities that you can use every once in a while when their cooldowns are finished. As you complete each level, you gain experience, which levels up Dai and the rest of his party.

While this all sounds quite typical for an action RPG in this style, I appreciated how fluid and fast the action is in Infinity Strash: Dragon Quest The Adventure of Dai. Dodging around the battlefield and slicing at foes felt solid and swift, just like how I like it. I never felt like the game was too slow in combat, and the mechanics felt quite fun.

This was the most surprising part of the game, as I actually enjoyed the gameplay a lot, especially in the larger, more explorable levels and boss battles. That said, the difficulty is quite easy, which actually helps this game have a more relaxing feel to it. While I appreciated the breezy nature of the campaign, it also made this project feel a bit unnecessary.

This especially becomes a problem when you get to the actual story itself. While the gameplay feels great, Infinity Strash: Dragon Quest The Adventure of Dai uses a strange and cheap way of telling its narrative. Cutscenes are often long and strangely use stills from the recent anime remake.

Instead of just showing an actual clip from the animated series, which would have been somewhat disappointing as well, it uses static images with anime voiceovers added on top. This makes the story feel so odd. This choice becomes an even more glaring issue if you ever decide to pause while a cutscene is playing.

A red bar shows up on the bottom of your screen when you pause, and the game gives you options to fast forward, rewind, and skip entirely. While these options sound nice on the surface, I couldn’t help but feel like I was watching something on YouTube instead. The red bar aesthetic certainly doesn’t help in this regard. This further made it seem like the developers wanted me to skip the cutscenes, which I did most of the time due to their static presentation.

If you want to see this story, there are much better places to experience it. The RPG mechanics and customization options are pretty barebones, too, and honestly unnecessary since the game is so easy even on the highest difficulty. Even with the boss fights, these larger foes will have guards you have to break, but it only takes a couple of cooldown skills to tear through that quite quickly.

It’s a shame because the foundation of Infinity Strash: Dragon Quest The Adventure of Dai is fun and enjoyable, but the presentation makes this retelling feel skippable for everyone except maybe the most diehard Dragon Quest The Adventure of Dai fans.

The rare in-engine cutscenes during epic fights show promise, but they are so few and far between. This game could have been more broadly appealing and intriguing with its frenetic and exhilarating action RPG gameplay but ultimately loses itself with its lackluster presentation choices.

Infinity Strash: Dragon Quest The Adventure of Dai is available on Nintendo Switch, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and PC.