Positives
- boss battles are frequently challenging and exciting
- synthesis is an engaging system, as it rewards the player with either stronger versions of existing monsters or completely new ones
- talents can be freely transferred from one monster to another through synthesis, granting a sufficient amount of customization
- traits allow each monster to feel unique
- excellent monster variety, which includes a plethora of returning classics, alongside a selection of original creatures

Negatives
- occasional crashes
- underwhelming graphics and art style, due to most explorable areas boasting an unpleasant color palette, poor textures and noticeable object pop-in
- inconsistent frame rate, with significant drops during season and weather changes
- animations for several monsters feel incredibly limited
- forgettable soundtrack, comprised of an excessive amount of reused tracks from previous Dragon Quest games
- mediocre voice acting from both the English and Japanese versions
- mostly uninteresting main story and characters
- Psaro being a silent protagonist is detrimental to his character development, as it prevents any understanding of his thought process and motivations
- choices are meaningless, since the overall story progression is the same, regardless of which option was selected
- certain dungeon puzzles are extremely tedious because of the abundant amount of aggressive enemies scattered throughout
- some high ranking monsters are disappointing in terms of overall strength, considering the amount of time required to synthesize each one
- egg exclusive monsters make completing the monsterpedia more time-consuming than necessary