As one of the largest and most popular video game companies in the world, Square Enix hardly needs any introduction to long-time gamers, especially fans of RPGs. Joining the mobile gaming market as early as 2011, Square Enix has released more than 100 titles and well over 80 million downloads of its games for Android platforms alone, bringing popular franchises earlier released for consoles as well as new titles exclusively designed for mobile devices. The Final Fantasy series, Romancing Saga series, and Dragon Quest series are just some of its most popular franchises backed by millions of fans and largely positive reviews. Today, Square Enix remains as one of the most-loved gaming companies by fans and continues to secure more followers for its present and upcoming games.
Dragon Quest of the Stars is Square Enix’ first mobile exclusive incarnation of the highly popular Dragon Quest franchise. Showcasing the well-respected art style of no other than Akira Toriyama himself, and exhibiting the turn-based combat system that fans of the series as well as similar JRPGs love and enjoy, it’s no surprise that Dragon Quest of the Stars quickly amassed over 20 million downloads and counting since its launch.
The game has also made its mark on top ten lists of games in countries where it is available and continues to secure largely positive average review ratings from its users. Whether you are a fan of the franchise or a newbie player who enjoys RPG adventures with friends, Dragon Quest of the Stars is definitely a game that you should not pass on.
Dragon Quest of the Stars takes you to a mysterious fantasy world brimming with magical treasures and monsters scattered about. Having been defeated by the Dark Lord of the Stars, you gain consciousness in this strange land robbed of all your belongings as well as your memory. With only the Questocrat’s tome in hand, and your new friend, Cyril, you journey through the land to uncover the book’s secret and defeat the Dark Lord of the Stars.
Dragon Quest of the Stars may hold a lot of features and content that may seem overwhelming at first, but for both experienced and new players alike, the mechanics are all fairly simple. Like most RPGs, Dragon Quest of the Stars follows a story that progresses through the completion of quests. As you complete one, more may become available. Rewards are obtained not just through completing quests, but also satisfying various objectives attached to it.
With in-game stamina in play, each battle you engage in as well as travelling from one location to the next will decrease your stamina. Stamina replenishes once every 3 minutes, though, and completely recovers whenever you level up. Though gears can be obtained through combat, the best ones lie behind treasure chests that can be obtained via the gacha method. While you will get free pulls at the start of your journey, subsequent ones will be paid using in-game gems. Skills are attached to weapons and can be switched and upgraded as well.
Dragon Quest of the Stars is a relatively easy game to pick up and play so long as you read through the tutorials whenever you unlock something new. Beyond that, there is an in-game guide that you can visit at will to understand some concepts better. If you find yourself unable to clear a particular challenge or if you are simply looking for more efficient ways to level up and progress through each quest, then stay with us and check out our Dragon Quest of the Stars beginner’s guide. Our detailed guide features loads of useful tips, cheats and strategies to jumpstart your questing adventure!
1. Prioritize The Main Quest
If the franchise title does not hint of the game centering around quests one after another, then being an RPG on its own should suffice to hint that Dragon Quest of the Stars is loaded with a plethora of quests. Starting off with a unique premise, and a magical teleportation into an unknown world, you just know that there will be a lot of adventuring and exploration to go around. As you start your journey, goals are trimmed down to a series of quests and as you complete some of them, you are bound to unlock some side quests along the way.
The main quests just does not give you the experience points as well as the most basic items you need for your journey, it is also the means for you to unlock more features in the game as well as learn the most basic features and mechanics it has. Although you will consume in-game stamina almost every step of the way to complete quests, the rate at which it replenishes will more than make up for its consumption.
There will be several instances where you will be taken a bit off the path of the quest to look into new features you unlock. You can simply tap on the globe icon at the bottom of your screen and go to the next question mark to continue on with your adventure or tap on the current location button at the upper left side of the screen to go to where your hero is.
With some free gacha draws at the start of your adventure, you are bound to be a little overpowered for the starting enemies and bosses. Expectedly though, at some point, the challenges ahead will become more and more difficult. In case you have come to experience difficulty with a particular battle, then you are free to replay any dungeon you have completed in the past. Beyond that, upgrading your equipment will also become a necessity.
2. Choose A Right Mix Of Vocations
At the onset, playing your hero along with 2 permanent NPC partners and an extra fourth companion may seem somewhat bland given that the only difference each one has from the rest are their looks as well as the skills their equipped weapon has. Once you reach Alltrades Abbey by following the main story, things will start to get a lot better for your team. It only takes about a little over an hour or 2 to get there from the start depending on how fast you go through the main quests. In any case, you will be prompted to change your heroes’ vocation based on how you see fit.
As you will probably be around level 9 or 10 as an Apprentice Adventurer you may be surprised to find that shifting vocations will bring down the level back to 1. Do not worry though as character levels are actually tied up to their vocation and changing into any other than the starting one boosts your stats and grants the hero new skills. You can freely shift from one vocation to another and the levels will stay the same.
There are basically 2 things to consider when choosing vocations for your party of heroes: Banking on the best gears you have that are preferred by vocations you can choose for each member; or finding a good mix of the available vocations for a more synergistic party regardless of available gears. In any case, you should be able to find a decent mix of these vocations that utilizes your top gears well enough. Be sure to look into what each vocation can do although you should give each one a try at some point in the game.
The warrior stands as the most basic class in most RPGs. Although seemingly very common, what makes the warrior an important part of any adventuring party is its high defense and resilience coupled with decent attack power. Nothing too flashy and not much on the AoE side, warriors typically faint last in difficult battles. If you have played several RPGs before, chances are that the main hero or character is a warrior or a knight, and while there may be a few exceptions to the usual stereotype, the most important aspect of having a warrior in the team is to have a balanced character that can deal and withstand damage across all challenges.
Also immediately available is the Mage, who is the resident magiuc user and magic AoE specialist for the team. Expectedly, Mages have strong offensive strength but lag behind most vocations when it comes to defense and HP stats. If you have a staff or any of the Mage’s preferred weapons then you may want to consider having one in your party.
If you want to save up on healing items and prefer defensive spells over attack ones, then you can shift vocation into a Priest. Priests may not contribute much to dealing damage to enemies but will certainly boost the team’s survival in more challenging encounters and dungeons. The priest is probably not among the most popular vocations for the main hero but you can consider the vocation for any of your 2 companions.
The Martial Artist works most like assassins in other RPGs. This class or vocation exhibits high offensive potential as a result of critical rates and hits. Though the Martial Artist does not sport high HP and defense, they can avoid some attacks due to their naturally high levels of agility.
The Sailor is a unique vocation that works much like the Warrior except they provide more offensive raw strength and power but have lower defensive prowess. Sailors also provide buffs to party members and can work as both an effective attacker and a support to any party.
The Dancer is like a mix between a Mage and a Martial Artist due to its high damage attack spells and high levels of agility. Dancers can further boost their evasion rate with their skills but will also take in a lot of damage whenever they are hit by enemy attacks.
Last, but definitely not the least, among the basic vocations is the Ranger. This is not the usual equivalent of archers or rangers in other RPGs that deal great physical damage to single targets. Instead, Rangers in Dragon Quest of the Stars are also versatile units that can deal decent physical damage and provide healing for the party. If you are fortunate enough to land a bow, boomerang, or sickle with your initial gacha pulls, then a Ranger would definitely be a great starting choice for you or one of your companions.
Beyond the initial 7 vocations to choose from, there are 7 advanced ones to go for later in the game. These specialized vocations require reaching level 50 on two specific basic vocations as well as obtaining the scroll for it. Naturally, these special vocations are much stronger and even come with stat boosts based on levels of the required vocations.
3. Be Selective When Enhancing Equipment
Although each hero in Dragon Quest of the Stars grows in strength with each level they gain, about half of each one’s strength comes from the gears they are equipped with. The free gacha roll at the start of your adventure guarantees at least one 5-star gear to help you on your journey and should make the initial quests and battles easy but as you reach farther through your adventure, you will need to start investing in the right equipment.
From the gacha itself as well as the battles you go through, you can obtain weapons and equipment of varying grades from 1-star to 5-star. Naturally, you would want to bank on 5-star gears as they are the most powerful ones but given that these are also the rarest of the bunch, investing in at least 4-star grades are recommended. Chances are that you will be flooding your inventory with gears belonging to the lowest grades and while they seem pretty much disposable, each piece of equipment has uses to further boost the other ones’ strength.
To initiate an gear upgrade, you need to visit the Bushy Bazaar, which can be accessed via its icon on the lower rightmost corner of the home screen and tapping on the upgrade workshop. You can use upgrader stones or other equipment as upgrade materials but do note that sacrificed gears have another important purpose here outside of upgrading better gears. As such before you consider using lower grade gears for this check out the skill extraction feature first.
There is also value in securing an extra copy of any gear. Within the same upgrade workshop in Bushy Bazaar, you can evolve a piece of equipment by using jewels or a copy of that gear. Evolved gears will have a higher upgrade level limit as well as an extra slot for more skills that can be attached to it. As 5-star gears are hard to obtain, you may soon find that 4-star gears you have that have multiple copies will be the stronger equipment for your character. As such, be sure to take time to assess each equipment you have in your inventory before you decide to sacrifice any of them.
4. Upgrade And Set The Skills You Need
Beyond the skills that each unique vocation your heroes in Dragon Quest of the Stars have, more skills can be obtained via the gears they use. For the most part, these will be the skills you will spend more time developing given that a good deal of customization can be made relative to the assortment of skills you can have in the game. While you can obtain some skills via quests and dungeon runs, a lot of it can be obtained from the gears you acquire.
Like gears, skills are also classified into types as well as grades. Each gear has specific slots for different types of skills although you can very much set different grades on each slot. Higher grade gears typically have high class skills packed with them although the number of default skills each equipment has is not based on their rarity. As we mentioned earlier, you have to be very careful when considering to sacrifice a piece of gear just to upgrade another as each gear, regardless of grade has skills you may find useful.
You can extract skills from any gear but do note that doing so will destroy the item. Beyond choosing from among the top grade weapons and armor you have for which ones to use and keep, looking into the skills built into them should help you decide on their value. If they have no skills attached, though, then they are better off as upgrade materials.
From the upgrade workshop of the Bushy Bazaar, you can set additional skills on the weapons that your party uses. You will most likely have more than enough skills in your inventory by the time you go through the process so before you decide, consider merging some of them. Even lower grade skills can be very potent once they have been upgraded so you may want to look into what skills you have in addition to what you can obtain after extracting some more from unused weapons and merging skills together. Keep in mind that this should go hand in hand with the empty slots that your current equipped weapons have.
After choosing to upgrade skills, you will be taken to a window that displays gears with skills. Choose to display by skills using the button in the upper right corner of the window to see all the skills you have regardless of whether they are set on a n equipment or not. This will give you a better view of skills you have extra copies of. Beyond that, you can also use ability orbs as substitutes for upgrade and each successful upgrade will increase the skill level as well as the effectiveness of the skill.
5. Pay Attention To Dungeon Missions And Surroundings
Raiding dungeons forms a huge chunk of the activities you engage in as delve into the world of Dragon Quest of the Stars. On top of the experience points you earn and the various items you can loot after each battle, there are more rewards to be earned from it through the trio of missions that come with each of its level as well as the pots, jars, and barrels that appear in-between each encounter.
Before heading in, make sure you check the list of missions at the right side of each level for special rewards. While these may seem like a standard trio of objectives early on, you will be surprised at how much different some will be later on.
From using skilful finishes, defeating bosses within a certain number of turns, and down to using a specific type of weapon, the difference between fulfilling these objectives and failing to do so will more likely stem from not knowing the objectives at all. In any case, regardless of whether or not you find the rewards fulfilling, making the habit of accomplishing all feats within the first run is something to start working on early on.
Chances are that you will be using the speed up button to shorten the walking time in-between battles. Although this, along with auto-attacks in battle can leave you to stay off your device’s screen for short intervals, walking within the dungeon actually offers additional incentives for those who patiently look at their screens as the adventurers travel. Whenever you see pots, jars, or other containers in the background, simply tap on them to obtain items, gold, food, or such other ingredients you can never have enough of.
A lot of these items may not have much value per se, but then again, free stuff wherever available is always good in any RPG. If the pace at which your party travels is too fast that it makes you miss tapping on the objects, feel free to slow it down during those short walks. Take note that this only applies to dungeons so you can always just rest your eyes when travelling in the world map.
6. Accomplish Treasure Map Missions And Feats
Dragon Quest of the Stars has a creative way of presenting missions in the game. By clicking on the map icon below the screen, you can view3 several maps each filled with objectives to clear for extra rewards. Beyond the immediate rewards you can earn from completing each task, clearing the entirety of the map and all 8 tasks it contains will reward you with very valuable rewards like keys, gems, or high grade items.
While the plethora of quests available every step of the way will keep you playing for hours, the tasks you need to complete via the treasure maps feature are mostly simple objectives that either fall within the basic activities you engage in or are guides revolving around features of the game you have yet to view or explore. As such, be sure to take time to view each objective as some may take only a few seconds to accomplish while some may be well in line with your quest at hand.
Relative to this, there are also feats to accomplish for even more rewards. The objectives you need to accomplish relative to this feature are much like the missions within the treasure maps but work more like achievements or milestones that offer one-time rewards. To access this feature and view the list of accomplishable objectives, click on the menu icon at the upper right side of the home screen and choose “Feats”. There will be an indicator on the menu icon whenever you have accomplished an objective so be sure to keep an eye on it.
7. Search For Sparkles and Earn Special Items
One of the most amazing features in Dragon Quest of the Stars is how it presents its world with a fully rotatable globe that you can easily navigate and explore. Beyond seeing what the fantasy world has in store for you and your party, there are sparkles to keep an eye out on for some extra items you will not find easily anywhere else.
There can be 5 sparkles scattered randomly around the globe at a time as indicated by the meter you can see at the upper left side of the home screen. After a while, all these will be replenished and you can start your search anew. This is a great way to take a break from all the questing and adventuring and likewise a fun way to spend idle time while waiting for your stamina to recover.
8. Add As Many Friends As You Can
In as much as Dragon Quest of the Stars can be played and enjoyed all on your own, playing it with friends, both in real life and online, makes it a lot more enjoyable and easier. Given that your party of 3 adventurers are always in search of a fourth and final member, having a wide roster of friends to choose from will guarantee that you will always have the specific type of help you need.
Regardless of how well you mix and match vocations to have a highly synergistic party, it can never be as fully functional than with a complementing fourth member to complete the team.
Initially in your adventure, you will only be choosing from among a rotating list of NPCs to aid you in your quest, packed with basic equipment and the most common skill sets. With other players as a companion, you will more likely have a huge upgrade for your team given that there will always be more active players than you as well as people who have played a little ahead of you. Do not hesitate to befriend and follow adventurers you have met in your adventure and be sure to accept friend invites as well.
Dragon Quest of the Stars appears to provide loads of benefits to players who brave dungeons with other players. As such, grab every opportunity to play with friends for a chance to earn more rewards from dungeons. For starters, playing a multiplayer game with any player for the first time grants you free gems via the first meeting bonus. Whatever any player gets from dungeon adventures will be received by all other players. Likewise, more treasure chests are bound to appear within dungeon when played with others along with keys you can use to unlock special dungeons.
9. Use Special Keys To Unlock Special Dungeons
Through quests and accomplishing certain treasure map feats, you will earn special keys that unlock dungeons containing specific rewards. Gold, items, food and even upgrade materials are up for grabs within these dungeons. Each one requires a specific key and have various difficulty levels to complete. For starters, though, each one has a level 1 dungeon that you can easily beat even right after changing vocations.
There will naturally be some apprehension as to whether you should use the keys you have on the lowest difficulty levels of the dungeons or saving them for later when you are strong enough to take on the next challenge. Take note that higher level dungeons, though naturally having much better rewards, require more of the same keys to be unlocked. If you are in dire need of specific items or even gold, do not hesitate to take some extra by using your hard-earned keys. Likewise, feel free to use your keys in the event that the same will complete an objective laid out within the treasure maps.
Dragon Quest of the Stars certainly holds a lot more than what we can discuss in a single guide but for now, this is where we end our Dragon Quest of the Stars beginner’s guide. In truth, the game has plenty of content and features we have yet to thoroughly explore but we are confident that what we shared with you, along with some time and dedication on your part, will suffice to take you far in your adventure.
If there are some more tips, cheats or strategies you have discovered and would like to share or if you have some concerns about some of the topics we discussed, feel free to drop us a note in the comments!
Javier
Tuesday 3rd of March 2020
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