Here's everything the Dragon Quest Builders 2 Season Pass has to offer!
Read on to see just how much we like it!
Dragon Quest Builders 2 has been keeping most of you budding builders occupied for nearly a month, and it's definitely a triumphant sequel. I certainly had a good time, even if everything wasn't to my taste. However, I was eager to try out the Season Pass, which gives you access to all three main DLC packs for Builders 2. There's so much to offer that even as a casual fan of the game, I'd consider the DLC a mandatory purchase, especially if you're a big fan of the base game.
The earliest you can access the DLC content is after the final main story island. You'll know it's unlocked when you're notified that you have mail in your mailbox by the port or that you have access to new recipes. This provides ample time to get used to the game and all of its new tools, and it also gives you something to get excited about. Each of these packs has something new and different to offer, so let's download the new Designer Sunglasses that come with the pass and dive into all of them!
The first of these is the Hotto Stuff Pack. Fans of DQXI may recognise the name, as Hotto is one of the earliest main towns the player visits in that game. It's a hot springs town with an Asian flair where all of the residents speak in haiku. You'll know you've got the Hotto Stuff Pack when you open up a letter and are greeted by three greatly amusing haiku paragraphs. With that, you're granted access to a new location via your ship! This locale is designed to look similar to DQXI's Hotto Steppe, the area surrounding the hot springs town. The island acts as a material island to give you everything you need for the additional 40 recipes that you acquire when you buy this pack. That's a lot of building content, including springs, new baths, new blocks, and lots of Asian-inspired recipes. Unlike the other material islands, you don't have a chance to get unlimited access to one material by examining each item, but the fun design is sure to inspire you, just as it inspired me. It brought me right back to DQXI and made me want to build my very own hot spring back on my my home island.
It's worth mentioning the free Knicknack Pack, which pairs really nicely with the Hotto Stuff Pack and provides players with three new recipes to add more flair to their creations. These three recipes are the Pretty Paddle, a cute little fan with a slime on it which you can use to fight with; the Celebratory Soup, which has a little slime-shaped pumpkin in it and can be used to store food for your residents to eat; and the Ornate Adornment, which are cute little bamboo decorations with a little Hammerhead on the front.
Next up, we have the Aquarium Pack, which is possibly my favorite of the three. This pack also grants you access to a new island, although this one is much smaller than the island from the Hotto Stuff Pack. After reading another letter, you sail to this island to find Gill (it wouldn't be Dragon Quest content without a pun), a woman with a passion for fishing who teaches you how to fish and the basics of building your own aquarium. Anyone who knows me knows I don't like a lot of fishing minigames or mechanics in RPGs (with a few exceptions), but the fishing here is so simple, and the fact you can gather all of your newfound friends and place them in your own lake or build them (and yourself) aquariums is so much fun. I spent more time fishing than anything else while trying out the season pass, and it was a total delight.
The Aquarium Pack is the only pack that offers any kind of additional quests, as after fulfilling all of Gill's requests, you're tasked with bringing back fish from some of the other islands you've already visited. In a way, I wish the Hotto Stuff Pack also gave you a few quests, perhaps with a few more references to DQXI, but I had a lot of fun catching new fish, presenting them to my new friend, and then doing it all over again to either cook new recipes or add some watery friends to my new island.
The last pack on offer is the Modernist Pack. This is largely just a pack of recipes, but don't be disappointed, as there are 70 brand new ones to try out. That's a lot of building. These crafted items are a lot more modern and funky than what has previously been available, and they're closer to what you might have in your own house rather than in a fantasy world. Think bathroom sinks, Ikea-esque storage, and swivel chairs, and you're right there. This pack also gives your player character a few more customisation offers, with some new hairstyles and clothing, and these looked so cute. I put the side-swept hair on my character immediately because I'm a sucker for cosmetic changes.
Overall, I think the Season Pass is an absolute must for fans of Builders 2. Including the free Knicknack Pack, there are over 100 new recipes, two new islands, and a brand new skill, all for $20.99. If only one of these packs takes your fancy, you can pick up each of these separately. The Hotto Stuff Pack costs $5.99, and both the Aquarium and Modernist Packs cost $9.99. Regardless of which pack or packs you pick up, this new DLC adds even more content to the already wonderful experience in Dragon Quest Builders 2, which makes the season pass the perfect package for this game.
