Dragon Quest XI - Echos of an Elusive Age

This is where I’m at as well, and to be honest I didn’t think I’d get into crafting - I rarely like “mini-games” like this - but for some reason I got super into it, and every time I got a new crafting ability or enough forge points to try for a harder difficult rework that previously confounded me, it was every bit as satisfying as taking down a tough boss or finding a better suit of armor in a chest or something. Very cool.

I think there are a few decisions that make this a well done system as opposed to one where frustration could overwhelm some/many gamers:

  1. You simply cannot fail. A base level item might be disappointing (i.e. not an upgrade), but you still get the item. And you can just rework it later. Or right then. Or whatever.

  2. The actual whacking mechanic wasn’t designed in such a way that you’re not stressing over “fuck, I am at 600 degres. I could lightsmack now and I think that might get me a gold, but I might need to use another hit elsewhere first to lower the temperature” decisions.

  3. And there’s no strict perfection requirement beyond “land in all the red areas” and “nab a few golds”. There’s no “you must get half of them to gold to perfect” e.g. I assume it’s just some hidden score you need to hit.

  4. Unless you go insane with “I must perfect all the things”, you won’t run into too many crafting walls.

  5. It never completely overrides finding/buying gear but also compliments those things perfectly with reworking.

It could be an absolute garbage system. IMO they did a great job with it, though. So much so that one assumes it will feature in the next proper Western release of DQ: 2029’s DQ XVII.

Just wanted to chime in by saying, I love this game. So far it is everything I was hoping it would be.

It’s going to be strange that in a year I got Pillars 2 and Pathfinder: Kingmaker my GOTY ends up being Dragon Quest XI but that seems to be the direction I’m heading in.

I am loving DQ XI. I just maybe ran into my last character to add. Wonderful game, great graphics, exploration, charm. Even combat is super good. Fast and easy generally but a challenge sometimes. My main is named “Ed” and thought I wish I could have chosen my sex I love him. Strong, silent type (with a small gambling problem).

I will add that my personal rule of only using crafted weapons and armor (unless there’s a cool costume to buy) is working pretty well in balancing the difficulty.

Unless you grind a lot (which I don’t) you’ll rarely have enough material to craft 2-3 items in between major battles and that does a good job in keeping older weapons relevant.

Mine is named Ed as well. I wasn’t very creative, but what made you choose Ed?

Mine is Edward. Just saying.

Ed just seemed right.

So wow I am deep in. level 27 I believe and … well I can’t tell you. I really do love some of the story beats. I finally got better at crafting (damn bunny suit!) and I think I have all my characters now. I wouldn’t call the story a 10 or even an 8 --but I would call the overall mechanics/characters/combat a near 9.

Just wrapped it up, completely. The final (post-credits) 20 or so hours are stronger than most game’s first 20 hours. I’ve never been so completely sated from a video game - it really did pull me in and never let me go. I never got tired of playing, never wanted to wrap things up for the sake of wrapping stuff up, and would have kept playing for another who knows how many hours, except I thought I’d try the last fight and … things went quicklyl down a rabbit hole. I still have a dozen or so quests and a few important story updates I actually missed, and some of my characters didn’t have their final equipment/armor stuff either even. So much to do!

At least tied with FFXII for my favorite JRPG. It might even be better - just because of how relaxing and awesome it was for 80+ straight hours. I was almost never frustrated, or annoyed, or anything like this. This deserves all the praise and accolades.

So now that I’m on a no-shopping draconian quest, is there any use for gold later in the game outside of respecs and the occasional help from the churches/statues? If so, no need to be specific, just tell me to hold onto some coins.

If not, I can blow most of it on casino tokens and save myself a fair amount of gambling time to reach whatever items are available via the casino.

I spent a lot of money on materials and pearls to re-forge stuff.

You can’t get those outside of shops though, correct? I haven’t tried, but I assume I can’t buy the pearls. I’m sure I can’t buy the mats, at least not from normal items shops.

You can buy pearls, eventually if not even fairly early.

This is going to be called Dragon Quest XI S on the Switch, sounds like it could potentially/possibly (nothing official yet) have additional features when it drops on that platform. If I ever get a wild hair to play this again (and that seems likely, maybe a few years from now?) I may end up double dipping.

Might be cool to be able to switch to the 2D visual mode and back like on the 3DS - I like the retro feel of the 2D mode.

It could also be downsized to fit on a cartridge. Or a port of the 3DS version with second-screen functionality removed/revised.

That all seems pretty unlikely. I’m sure it’s just going to be the same version on PC/Console only on the Switch. They have a 3DS version, no reason to port that to a Switch.

Approx. 30gb install on PS4, maybe it will fit on a cart, but I have my doubts as to whether the Tegra can perform at the same level as even a base-model PS4. Be interesting to see how it’s done.