Dragon Quest XI - Echos of an Elusive Age

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.

The Switch is fully capable of playing Dragon Quest XI. It can do Doom and Skyrim for heaven’s sake.

e: I mean to comment on size - I don’t think they need to include 4K textures, which should keep the size down. Or it will just be digital only. One of those. Maybe both!

Rick isn’t wrong. The question isn’t whether it’s possible on the Switch, of course it is, but Doom and Skyrim are both worse looking on the Switch. I don’t know much about Skyrim specifically, but from what I read of Doom (and Wolfenstein) at Eurogamer, what’s awesome is that they both did an excellent job of choosing the best ways to scale down to the right balance of playable and good looking on the Switch.

Knowing that a port carefully tailored to the Switch is possible and could look and play great is encouraging, but I think it’s always going to be a reasonable concern that not every port will work out as well as those.

The minimum requirements for this game are very, very low, I really don’t think there is anything here a console capable of pulling of what it can do with stuff like Breath of the Wild and the XCOM Rabbids game will have any problems with. It’ll be capped at 30fps probably, sure, but that’s about it.

I am playing FFXII now. Scott I hate you. I love it.

Let me clarify: In an effort to grab the best JRpgs available I had Final Fantasy XII on my Wishlist == expensive game and a Jrpg so I held off. But wow … I am 33 levels into DQ XI and loved the first 5 levels of FF XII (pc). Not really alike at all btw. Both excellent.

LOL, here is where I bow with a smirk. ;)

Yep, FFXII is freaking great! I ironically hated the demo, way back years ago, but fell in love with it while waiting for release as I had become obsessed with watching JP players dive into it, it was the first time I’d ever watched YouTube videos of people playing video games, iirc. I played the crap out of it then on PS2 (I bought a PS2 Slim just to play it as my original PS2 had long since died) and then played it in emulation, and now on PS4. I may well grab it on Switch at some point because why not!?

Glad you are enjoying it!

@KristiGaines, yeah, @Scotch_Lufkin has been bad for my wallet, too. This game (DQXI), PoEternity I and II, soon Pathfinder. He must be stopped!

FFXII is amazing, especially the reboot. When I’m done with DQXI, I vow to get back to it!

Agreed. I bought PoE 2 because of him, and I’m this close to buying Pathfinder and it’s all Scott’s fault!

I’m most likely doing the same. ;)

With great regret I am going to have to shelve this for now. Why, I don’t know - but Dragon’s Quest loves to crash on my machine after a couple of hours of grinding. Despite multiple attempts to fix drivers, clock the system at nominal speeds, I just can’t get a solid playthrough going. This is extremely annoying as I have been enjoying the game far more than I expected to. But after my last crash, my saves are now corrupted and that’s eight hours gone. Aargh. I’ve been through this once before and I gritted my teeth and worked my way back. But I can’t bring myself to do it again right now.

I guess I will wait for the switch version and hope that comes out soon. A real pity, as I was super enjoying it!

The demo that shipped with DQ8 was pretty bad. It failed completely to show what was interesting about the combat system.

I’m about 66 hours into this now. Finally got all the MacGuffins and met he who must not be named. I hit a roadblock with the boss Dora in Grey for a few days. First time I fought her she did an attack that took off 75% health on everyone and just obliterated me. Apparently with harder enemies on her damage is doubled, she gets 3 moves per turn instead of 2, and her status effects practically always land. I was about level 24 when I reached her, went back and leveled up everyone to 27ish and got them the best weapons and armor, spending a good chunk of time making everyone the best they can be. Went back to her and she demolished me again. I figured maybe she was optional or I did things out of order so I scoured the rest of the world only to find out that I totally had to take her on. Ended up leveling up everyone to 31 before attempting her again and I put up a good fight for most of it, but it all went to hell towards the end. Barely made it through, but I was glad to be done with her. The boss after her was a joke compared to her, didn’t even break a sweat on that one.

Really interested to see where the story is going at this point.