Video Game / Dragon Quest Treasures

This must be worth a fortune!

Dragon Quest Treasures is an Wide-Open Sandbox Spin-Off of the Dragon Quest series. The game features Erik and his sister, Mia, from Dragon Quest XI as children living aboard a viking ship. It released on December 9th, 2022 for the Nintendo Switch, as well as for Steam and PC on July 14th the following year.

While sneaking off one night in search of treasure, the siblings stumble across a pair of strange animals that the Vikings had captured: a purple, bat-winged cat and a green, insect-winged pig. Taking pity on the animals, Erik and Mia free them. In turn, the animals lead them to the land of Draconia, an archipelago of islands floating in the sky that are just brimming with treasure. The cat, named Purrsula, and the pig, named Porcus, are two budding gods and they request help from the siblings to find the seven Dragon Stones so that they may be granted full godhood. But they aren't alone in their hunt, as a multitude of sky pirates roam Draconia in pursuit of booty.

Gameplay is centered around exploration and dowsing for treasures with the help of recruitable monster friends. Strewn across the lands are a multitude of collectibles and side quests that you can tackle more or less in any order, within limits. You can choose to play as Erik or Mia and swap any time you want.

Originally, the game was going to be a Dragon Quest Monsters title, but after experiencing Development Hell, Treasures was retooled as a separate concept.

Let the treasure hunt begin!

• All Deserts Have Cacti: The Manelands is a desert area full of cacti, with some reaching gargantuan heights. The Cinderback Ridge has some desert areas but the cacti are mostly found around the lava fields of the Fire Trap.
• Ambush Enemy: Muddy Hand-type enemies will hide around bodies of water, mud, or Grimy Water, only to pop up and attack once you run past. Shade-type enemies will sometimes behave similarly at night.
• Ascended Extra: Mia, who goes from a major NPC/Gyldygga, one of Mordegon's Spectral Sentinels in Dragon Quest XI to co-starring with her brother in this game.
• Attack Its Weak Point: Some monsters, particularly larger ones, have certain spots that will receive more damage if targeted. For example, a Gigantes' weak spot is its eye. Rimeblood, Proudmane, and Hornbull all have a gem on their chests that serves as their weak point.
• Back Stab: Sneaking up directly behind a monster or otherwise catching it unawares allows Erik and Mia to perform a surprise attack that deals high damage.
• Beef Gate: The different islands have different level ranges, as do the subareas within these islands. As such, it's usually recommended that the Wingswept Moors is tackled first in a new game. It is possible to either sneak or rush past the higher leveled monsters but an underleveled party can easily get Zerg Rushed to death.
• Boke and Tsukkomi Routine: Shady is the dim-witted Boke while Shambles is the Tsukkomi that corrects him.
• Bonus Dungeon: The B5 teleportal at the bottom of The Snarl, unlocked post-game, is an endless challenge where the enemies become tougher the further you go, but offers rewards in the form of rare monsters and medals.
• Brats with Slingshots: Although the game calls them "Catapults". Instead of casting magic, Erik and Mia collect and craft pellets with different effects, from ordinary pebbles to Buddy Bullets that increase the chances of recruiting a monster.
• Bull Fight Boss: Hornbull and Proudmane can be baited into ramming the pillars around the boss arena, temporarily stunning them.
• The Cameo: Near the end of the game, Erik and Mia get a bit of help from their older selves from Dragon Quest XI.
• Classy Cane: Gustav of the Thunderous Plunderers has one, adding to his overall sophisticated image.
• Continuity Cavalcade: Nearly every treasure in the game is a reference to another Dragon Quest game, from items and equipment to characters to monsters.
• Cool Airship: In a setting full of sky pirates, you would expect more of these. However, the only groups seen with airships are the Sylphanians and Thunderous Plunderers.
• Cool Train: The Trans-Draconic Railway is the main way to get to places in the game, utilizing a magic, flying, three-component train that runs on crystalized dragon blood.
• Cooking Mechanics: Recruiting Madame Blancmange the Queen Slime and unlocking The Canteen allows you to acquire a variety of foods and drinks made from the ingredients you collect during your explorations. Food items can be fed to monsters and each type gives a different buff effect. Feeding a monster its favorite food improves the buff they gain, and high-rank monsters require their favorite food as part of their recruitment fee.
• Cosmetic Award: Completing Flag Quests and treasure categories rewards the player with different banners that can be displayed at the train stations. The treasures exclusively earned from completing sidequests also count.
• Dramatic Irony: Completing some sidequests for Captain Levanter of the Sylpha Seekers mentions that Silverbones became obsessed with treasure to the point of starting his own crew, the Thunderous Plunderers, and warns either Erik or Mia not to succumb to the same desire his former friend did. Of course, anyone who played Dragon Quest XI knows the latter will eventually go down that road as Gyldygga, one of Mordegon's Spectral Sentinels in due time.
• Everything's Sparkly with Jewelry: A number of special treasure categories are gemstones. For starters, the seven Dragonstones that are the main goal of the game. Then there are a series of special locked chests holding monster jewels, which are in the shape of the various monsters in the game. And finally, there are crystal reproductions of mundane treasures, which can only be found by hunting down random crystal variants of certain monsters and either defeating them or stealing the crystal treasure from them.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: After defeating him in a rematch, Silverbones expresses confusion over how you, a scrappy kid, managed to defeat him, a seasoned pirate. He compares you to Levanter and outright admits he'll never understand The Power of Friendship or loyalty or whatever empowers the both of you. Regardless, he's not going to let that stop him from pursuing power the only way he knows how.
• Fall Damage: On the plus side, fall damage can never kill you, only reduce you to 1 HP. Just make sure there are no enemies around where you land. Riding on a monster with the "Sprint" skill (or "Stealth") will negate fall damage.
• Fairy Companion: Purrsula and Porcus fit the bill, being small winged creatures accompanying two children.
• Foreshadowing: Pursuing Princess Anemone's sidequest has you searching for various stone monuments hidden around Draconia. These monuments provide hints to what La Isla Dorada and the Treasure of Treasures is: namely, that the Treasure of Treasures is a dragon egg and La Isla Dorada is where it must be hatched.
• Gameplay and Story Integration: Mogsworth is noted as being a lousy pirate. Once you recruit him after finishing his sidequest chain, you'll find he has the lowest Safekeeping Score of any monster (80%), meaning he's prone to dropping loot when attacked.
• Genki Girl: Gayle, the peppy up-and-coming Sylphanian treasure hunter.
• Ghost Pirate: The main antagonist is a skeletal pirate captain named Silverbones.
• Good All Along: Completing the sidequest to repair the Heartless Hunter that attacked Mia at the beginning of the game (doing so requires talking to a Soggy Hand in the Manelands) reveals that the Heartless Hunter was only fulfilling its orders to protect Erik, much like how Mogsworth was to keep an eye on an unconscious Mia when she first landed in Draconia. It just didn't know that Mia wasn't a threat. Once repaired and having the situation explained to it, it registers Mia as a "safe" entity and becomes recruitable.
• Green Hill Zone: The Paternoggin, the starting area, and the Wingswept Moors, which is usually recommended after the Paternoggin.
• Grimy Water: Certain areas, like Mount Greywing in the Wingswept Moors, contain poisonous purple swamps that sap at your health so long as you're standing in it. Grotty Hands are made of this swamp water.
• Guest Fighter: Square Enix distributed two gift codes allowing players to recruit special monster versions of real people. One is series creator Yuji Horii as a King Slime. The other is hololive Virtual YouTuber Usada Pekora — as a bunny-themed Killing Machine, of all things.
• Guest-Star Party Member:
  • Admiral Mogsworth briefly accompanies you during the game's prologue. Completing his sidequest chain makes him permanently recruitable.
  • Whichever sibling you're not playing as will appear to assist you against Silverbones. This is the only time this happens.
• Guide Dang It!:
  • At the beginning of the game, you're given sidequests to defeat rival gangs a certain number of times, but the one for the Sylpha Seekers notes that they're friends and aren't inclined to attack you. The quest does say that maybe you can talk to someone to arrange a battle, but chatting with the Sylphanians won't do anything. What you really need to do is complete Captain Levanter's "training" sidequests — but as the highest-level one involves tracking down and defeating Optional Bosses that randomly show up in dungeons from treasure maps, you're not likely to complete this until the postgame.
  • You can send spare monsters out on Dispatch Missions, which the game will tell you gives you materials and maybe a piece of treasure. What it doesn't tell you is that there's also the chance that the dispatch team will find a target for you to go after, whether it's a metal or jewelled monster or a temporary camp of a rival gang. This is also the only way to battle the Sylpha Seekers early on, if the RNG is in your favor.
  • Finding all 100 of Shady and Shamble's balloons without a guide can be a challenge, since some of the balloons are rather deviously hidden.
• Hello, [Insert Name Here]: Unlike the trope's use in the rest of the franchise, Erik and Mia's names are already established. Instead, you get to name their treasure-hunting gang.
• Hub City: Eggshell Island is the base for Erik and Mia's gang. There's also the Sylphanian Stockade on Paternoggin, which you will be frequently returning to for story quests and sidequests.
• I Owe You My Life: Upon completing her post-game sidequest, Bonnie expresses her loyalty to Captain Silverbones as this. He took her under his wing when she was but a starving orphan and now she works for him as a lieutenant for the Thunderous Plunderers.
• Item Crafting: Recruiting Axel the Gigantes and unlocking The Werks allows you to make pellets from the various materials you collect during your explorations.
• Lethal Lava Land: The Cinderback Ridge.
• Level Scaling: The rival treasure hunters that attack you periodically scale to Erik and Mia's level. So do the dungeon areas that you occasionally find.
• A Lizard Named "Liz": Sometimes the random names assigned to recruited monsters are like this. Another example would be Shady the Shade and Shambles the Sham Hamwitch.
• Lucky Seven: Your goal is to find seven Dragonstones, and there are 777 different treasures in total.
• Made O' Gold: La Isla Dorada (literally "The Golden Island") is the sky pirates' ultimate dream, a literal island of gold said to be full of treasures. It is also said to house the Treasure of Treasures. The Gold Golem found in other games can also occasionally appear in place of a regular Golem. Finally, a rare Gigantes known as a Golden Goliath exists. He serves as the boss of the first level of the Snarl, and can be recruited on the endless floor. Finding one, though- that’s the tricky part.
• Magic Compass:
  • Erik and Mia can sense where treasure is, aided by their monster pals. This sense is visualized as a spectral compass that points to the approximate location of where the nearest treasure is.
  • The legendary Cloud Compass, which is said to lead to La Isla Dorada, the ultimate goal of all sky pirates. Erik and Mia use their close bond to combine their "treasure sense" compasses into the Cloud Compass.
• Magic Mirror: A dirty old mirror is found in The Snarl, initially deemed useless because it can't reflect anything. A mysterious voice informs Erik and Mia to return to the mirror if they ever find themselves unable to proceed. When Captain Silverbones steals the Dragon Stones, using the mirror reveals the "saviors" of Draconia, who give Mia and Erik advice. These saviors? Erik and Mia's older selves from Dragon Quest XI.
• Making a Splash: The Splish spell line from the Joker 3 games, as well as Maelstrom, a recurring skill/spell in the series, and the Water Tower skill from Dragon Quest XI.
• Metal Slime: Metal Slimes, Metal King Slimes, Hardy Hands, and Gold Golems make their return, with the addition of the new Shiny Dragling. As well, the game introduces jeweled enemies like Jade Slimes, which drop crystal treasures when Pinched or defeated. The rarest specimen is the Golden Goliath, which only appears in and can only be recruited from the post-game Bonus Dungeon.
• Meaningful Name:
  • Madra is derived from "madre", meaning "mother", while Padra is derived from "padre", meaning "father". This is fitting since their bodies form Draconia, making them the "mother" and "father" of the lands. They are also literally parents, as the Treasure of Treasures turns out to be their egg, which they separated into the Dragon Stones in a bid to save their child.
  • Mr. Euston, the Restless Armour in charge of the train station at Eggshell Island, is named after a train station in London, England. The other train stewards are named similarly.
  • Blancmange is a milk-based gelatin dessert similar to a pudding. Like the desert, Madame Blancmange the Queen Slime is jiggly and wobbly.
  • Some randomly assigned monster names are like this. For example, Rufus the Red Giant (Rufus means "red") or Mortimer the Wight Prince (a pun on mort, meaning "death" in French, which is fitting for an undead monster).
  • The two lieutenants of the Thunderous Plunderers, Bonnie and Gustav, are likely named after historical pirates. Bonnie might be named after Anne Bonny and Gustav might be named after Gustav Skytte.
• Mineral Macguffin: The Dragon Stones are seven gems of different colors shaped like various dragon body parts. They're highly sought after because collecting all of them will reveal the way to La Isla Dorada. Purrsula and Porcus want them as a part of their godhood trial.
• Minion with an F in Evil: Mogsworth, despite his enthusiasm, is noted to be terrible at treasure hunting. Anything he does get his paws on is deemed worthless by his captain. Silverbones is quick to abandon Mogsworth due to this. Mogsworth's sidequests still has him doggedly chasing Silverbones' approval.
• Mucking in the Mud: Muddy terrain both slows you down and causes you to sink into it, forcing you to persistently jump to avoid getting sucked down.
• Mythology Gag: Leaving aside the many references made by the various treasures, one of the rival gangs is Robbin' 'Ood and his Merry Men, a recurring series miniboss.
• Nice Day, Deadly Night: Monsters grow stronger at night, gaining glowing red eyes and becoming cloaked in shadows. Certain monsters only appear at night.
• Optional Boss:
  • Masquerading variants of the Hornbull, Proudmane, and Rimeblood bosses are available post-game via dowsing for treasure dungeon teleportals. These are souped-up versions of the story bosses with new attacks and gimmicks. They are required for Captain Levanter's final sidequest.
  • You can rematch Bonnie's team in the post-game (she's found east of the Forsaken Station in the Paternoggin).
  • Completing Gustav's sidequest will enable a rematch against Captain Silverbones, verging towards Super Boss territory with how high-levelled he is this time around.
• Phantom Thief: One of the rival gangs, the Thieving Phantoms, are themed around this — though it really just amounts to the fact that they wear top hats. They admit they "don't do calling cards", and will mug you for your treasures in the field like any other gang as opposed to trickery and committing nonviolent heists.
• Pink Girl, Blue Boy: Mia has the pink Dragon Dagger while Erik has the blue one. At the start of the game, the first monster recruits you gain is a pink Cutie Slime for Mia and a blue regular Slime for Erik.
• Punny Name: This is a Dragon Quest game, so this is given.
  • Porcus is a pig (pork) and Purrsula is a cat (purr).
  • Recruited monsters will sometimes be randomly assigned a punny name that relates to what they are (e.g., Oozebella the Cutie Slime).
  • The "mog" in Mogsworth can mean "cat". It can also mean "to move away", so Mogsworth can be interpreted as "only has worth when moving away", something that Captain Silverbones seems to think.
  • Because the islands are formed from the bodies of Padra and Madra, location names tend to be punny, like the Maneland, Wingswept Moors, and Hinterquarters.
• Purely Aesthetic Gender: The choice between Erik and Mia amounts to this. The game even makes it a point to say that switching between them will make no difference in gameplay.
• Random Number God: Primarily affects attempts at 100% Completion.
  • The game uses a Treasure Forecast system, which changes every time you find treasure and return to base to have it appraised, which tells you what types of treasures will be more common should you go hunting in a given area. As well, monsters have specializations in what type of treasure they will most frequently find. Having monsters with specializations corresponding to the Treasure Forecast in your party will increase an area's Golden Ratio, raising the chances of finding that type of treasure. However, monster specializations are randomly assigned upon recruitment, and it's common to roll repeats when collecting treasure. Even if the Treasure Forecast happens to align with what you're missing for 100% Completion, you might still have trouble getting the particular pieces you need if you have bad luck.
  • Flag Quests require the player to defeat rival gangs a certain number of times, but who you fight and when are random. The easiest way to engage with rivals is to run around out in the fields while carrying a lot of treasure until someone ambushes you. Rivals will also randomly target your base and sometimes, your dispatch monsters will find rival camps to raid. However, since these encounters are up to chance, you might not be attacked by or be attacking the group you want depending on the RNG. The only group to subvert this are the Sylpha Seekers, who you can fight whenever you want but only after you complete all of Levanter's sidequests. Otherwise, Dispatch Missions will be the only way to encounter them, since they won't ambush you.
  • The Masquerading Bonus Bosses can only be found in treasure dungeons. Finding treasure dungeons in and of itself is random, depending on either gaining a map from defeating monsters or Dispatch Missions, or finding teleportals via dowsing for treasure. Even then, there's no guarantee that the boss of a given dungeon will be one of the bonus bosses or the bonus boss you haven't defeated yet. You can fight the same boss multiple times, and if luck isn't on your side, it'll take some time to complete Levanter's final sidequest.
• Rhymes on a Dime: Monster profiles are written like this.
• Ribcage Ridge: Occurs in various areas, due to the islands being formed on the bodies to two dragons.
• Royals Who Actually Do Something: Princess Anemone is the leader of the Sylphanian expedition and can be found around Draconia doing archeological investigations.
• Ruins for Ruins' Sake: During your explorations, you'll frequently find old buildings and crumbling structures, implying that there used to be settlements along the islands. What happened to these settlements for them to be abandoned is unknown, although it may have been due to people leaving when La Isla Dorada first disappeared.
• Shifting Sand Land: The Maneland.
• Shoddy Knockoff Product: In-universe. A handful of the treasures you can find are knock-offs. They show the same silhouettes as valuable iconic treasures when you find them in the field, but when you appraise them back at your base they're revealed to be cheap imitations.
• Shoulder-Sized Dragon: The Dragling enemies are small dragons that would fit on the shoulders of an adult. On a kid, though, it might need a whole arm.
  • The legendary Treasure of Treasures ends up being a baby dragon that Purrsula and Porcus name Elys.
• Shoulders of Doom: Captain Silverbones of the Thunderous Plunderers has epaulettes he could take flight with. And these epaulettes are fringed with bullets. He is also the Final Boss of the main story.
• Shout-Out:
  • The fabled La Isla Dorada is a variation on the real-life myth of El Dorado.
  • Silverbones' full name is mentioned early on, and it's Long John Silverbones.
• Silent Protagonist: Zigzagged. Whoever you're playing as usually won't have dialogue, while the other sibling, Purrsula, and Porcus are the ones who do the talking. Because you can swap between playing as Erik or Mia whenever you want, the silent protagonist role can be exchanged between them. In pre-rendered cutscenes, both siblings will speak.
• Sky Pirate: Aside from the plot-relevant Thunderous Plunderers and Sylphanians, there are the Beastly Busters, Thieving Phantoms, Cutie Clowns, Day Breakers, and Merry Men. And of course, Erik and Mia's crew that you grow throughout the game.
• Slippy-Slidey Ice World: The Hinterquarters.
• Spikes of Villainy: An identifying characteristic of the Thunderous Plunderers.
• Spinoff Babies: The game features Erik and Mia from Dragon Quest XI as kids.
• Super Mode: Wild Side returns as a power-up for both Erik and Mia, temporarily increasing speed, attack, and defense at the expense of one Dragon Force meter.
• Suspicious Video-Game Generosity: La Isla Dorada has many chests full of useful offensive and healing pellets prior to the final showdown against Captain Silverbones.
• Theme Naming: Members of Sylphania all have wind related names: Captain Levanter, Gayle, Princess Anemone (a flower also known as the windflower), Ariel ("air" or "aerial"), etc.
• Translator Microbes: The Dragon Daggers allow Mia and Erik to understand Porcus and Purrsula. Without the Daggers, the siblings only hear animal noises. This is presumably due to Porcus and Purrsula's status as gods in training.
• Underground Monkey: There are about 17 unique monster types that are normally encountered and recruitable. Variants of these types bulk up the beastiary to a total of 72-73 normal monsters (excluding special recruits obtained through sidequests).
• The Very Definitely Final Dungeon: La Isla Dorada, where you finally face off against Silverbones.
• Video Game Stealing: Crouching while targeting an enemy will cause the "Pinch" command to appear, allowing Mia or Erik to steal a monster's drop item without needing to defeat it. Pinching allows you to grab multiples of an item rather than the one item that a defeated monster usually drops.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: A downplayed example with Porcus and Purrsula. They consistently fight amongst themselves and tease each other, but it's clear they don't mean anything by it.
• We Cannot Go On Without You: It's game over if Erik or Mia's HP reaches 0, regardless of the survival of the rest of the party.
• We Used to Be Friends: Completing his sidequests will have Captain Levanter mention that he used to be Bash Brothers with Captain Silverbones, until the latter split off to form his own crew in his desire for treasure and power. Levanter was hurt by this but Silverbones doesn't seem to care.
• World in the Sky: Draconia is an archipelago of islands in the sky, formed from the segmented bodies of the two dragons, Padra and Madra.
• Wutai: The Sylphanians have Japanese/Chinese influences, from their clothing styles to their musical theme.

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