Dragon Quest XI - Echos of an Elusive Age

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.

I caved and bought it during the Greenman Gaming sale. Who knows when it releases for Switch and I’ll probably get really into Smash Bros. this December anyway, so it might be now or never for me and Dragon Quest. I don’t expect I’ll have too much time for it, but I figure I can take it slow and play a few hours here and there during weekends and make it last all Autumn. Now to wait for it to download. . .

The most surprising thing for me so far is the quasi-platforming elements. Totally not expecting that. I wish there was a little more character customization options aside from the skill points, but I didn’t really expect anything more from a JRPG. Otherwise, I’m enjoying it so far after about four hours. The character and enemy designs are especially good, and I love being able to avoid random encounters. I get some occasional stuttering though, I wonder if I should try locking the frame rate at 30?

I am a little bit disappointed in the combat (still early in the game, met Veronika/Serena) … but so far combat is just attack/heal … tried different skills/spells in combat, but did not notice that some enemies are really weak against fire for instance … If I hit with a sword I make 15 damage, if I use a spell it is about the same…

The pep system helped me with a boss (rescuing Serena)… I fought mobs until my guys where pepped and then entered the boss fight.

And the fights are taking a lot of time (I think it is a DQ thing not to show HP of the enemies?)

Playing on normal, I like the world, the stories, characters, the fights are a bit dull. I guess later with a full party, the combat will be more interesting?

I only made it probably a bit over halfway through the game, but combat didn’t change at all once I had the first 4 characters. The numbers go up, magic becomes a bit more effective, but it all seemed basically the same. Only the boss fights provided any challenge.

I did enjoy everything else, same as you, but to get any challenge from the combat I had to restart on hard and try not to overlevel. Which is when I fell off; only got about 10 or so hours into the hard playthrough before I felt it was time to move on. Playing on normal I suspect the entire game is just a faceroll outside of the bosses.

that’s good enough, if there is more than just attack/heal during boss fights… I am OK to defeat the mobs fast, without thinking.

Finally finished this game, despite not wanting to finish it and have the journey be over. Such a wonderful game!

I’m now a ways into the post-game content and I gotta say - the game is more clever than I gave it credit for :)

Welcome to JRPG?

I started this on PS4 Pro tonight. It’s a beautiful game. I’m going to play it the Tim Rogers Japanese way like a bedtime story. Maybe an hour or so a night to cleanse the palette before bedtime. I completed the climb and found out who I’m supposed to be. Saved at the church before leaving town. Looking forward to striking out into its world near daily.

…with my buds.

I finished Act 2 after 108 hours. Loved Act 2 and the bosses were quite tough with stronger enemies on. Many of them I beat by the skin of my teeth which made them really satisfying. The second to last boss was a total bastard, that one took me a ton of tries. I leveled up a bit, hit the forge, tried a bunch of stuff until I came up with a good strategy, and finally brought him down. The final boss of Act 2 went way more smoothly than I thought it would. I went in mostly to gather info on what attacks he uses and such before I died, but I ended up taking him down on my first attempt.

I’m a little ways into the next part, really interested to see what all is in store.

Still playing the end game material but grinding out levels / gear to beat all of the Wheel of Harma trials is a huge pain in the ass since I was playing most of the game fairly under-leveled.

I might take a break to play a different game for a while…

…picked it back up and finally beat it! The post-game content got a lot more manageable after I used the EXP trick w/ the Electro-Light Pep-power to boost my party 10 levels or so.

Definitely well worth playing through it though. There’s another ~30 hours worth of content here and the last boss fight + the true ending scene is well worth it.