Dragon Quest XI - Echos of an Elusive Age

I played about 90% of Ni No Kuni 2 and lost interest. That why I’m playing DQ XI… In retrospect NNK2 was a bit too bland for me, with not as interesting a story as the first one, but it’s still a fine little game. Honestly my best experience of NNK2 was very early on with the president escaping being nuked and winding up in a strange world. As soon as the world became familiar enough not to be strange, and as soon as it became clear the president wasn’t the main character, my interest faded.

Agreed 100%.

I never liked traditional JRPG"s and after around 30 minutes of playing this last night, I was regretting spending the cash…but I forged on not wanting to waste my money like with Mass Effect Andromeda and, to my happy surprise, I ended up playing a couple more hours and now I wish I had the flu. Very fun and unique.

You guys are doing a very good job at pretending this is out. But I’m on the joke.

Doesn’t release until next year, on the Switch.

First of all, Dairy Queen is amazing and DragonQuest should never eclipse your internal barometer for what DQ means.

Second, I think it’s possible you could get very into the mechanics of the game. While the base level of it is fairly simple (as the progenitor of most JRPG tropes and mechanics, the DragonQuest games are also a little, erm, stuck in the past :) ) and it does have your least favorite thing–adjustable difficulty!!!–there’s supposed to be quite a bit of surprising depth to the battle system and how it interacts with the characterization/story development. Since the game features some kind of post-credits extra hard content (I’m not spoiling myself on the specifics, but you can google easily enough), there are even places to really challenge yourself to eke out the most advantageous smidgens of efficiency on normal difficulty, too.

So one of those “easy to learn, difficult to master” combat systems, paired with really lovely, storybook like graphics and a strong focus on character, perhaps at the expense of the most sophisticated plot imaginable.

I’m sure there’s lots of bits you wouldn’t enjoy about it, but I can at least imagine parts of it appealing to you a lot :)

Just got to the first city last night, and things happened.

I love how you can completely telegraph what is going to happen from a mile away, but it is still good and interesting. The world in this game is so earnest, from NPCs complaining when you smash their pots to a good lady making stew for her grandma.

Also, I read a book about the dungeons below the castle, and that sure sounded nasty, I certainly hope I am not going to end up visiting that place…

:)

It is just awesome how well this world is built, and how beautiful the graphics and setting is. I spent 30 minutes running around the first town checking every cabinet and talking to every NPC, and it was good and worthwhile. I saved a cat, found a book, talked to some interesting people…

I love DQ games, it has been so long since 9, and it is awesome to see this on my 50 inch tv.

Heh, indeed! There’s so much heart to it. I love that kind of thing.

Even in the “tutorial” area… the way the game makes you feel about Gemma and Cobblestone… I’m really liking this. It feels special indeed.

I’m 9 hours end and I can’t get enough of this game. It’s been a long time since I played a JRPG that felt so fun and engaging.

I have not played RPG"s much for years but was up until 2am last night playing this.

I only meant to play for an hour last night, and ended up playing nonstop for five hours. I can’t wait to start up again tonight.

I keep getting cut short by sleepytime pills :( – after finally making it home from a shitty workday yesterday and cooking a big dinner for the gf and I and doing some household chores, I had about 30 minutes to squeeze in before my eyelids came down against my will :-(

And then tonight I’ll be playing in a long-running homebrew RPG with rotating GMs with a bunch of my friends. My buddy Bri is running her first game ever as GM for us as she steps into that slot. I’m pretty pumped to see how she does! And eat the tasty dinner she said she’s making for us. . .

. . . then tomorrow, I’ll be attending the first night of games run by our local RPG Meetup Group’s GM Mentorship Program’s GM Mentee “Graduates,” plus celebratory drinks at our favorite wing bar afterwards. . .

. . . then I’ll be running a potential finale session to my own long-running scifi comedy game Spaceward, Ho! Saturday morning, then maybe going to a Vietnamese festival here in town with the gf, or maybe just a local restaurant + drinks afterward. . .

. . . then trying to cram in some mixture grilling with friends, attending a “day party” metal concert downtown, grocery shopping, and cooking on Sunday. . .

Right, right. This is why I shouldn’t spend money on videogames :-D / :-(

I hope y’all keeping posting your impressions and experiences, though. Let me live vicariously through your joy!

Ugh, ya’ll need to stop. Everyone is so happy with this game. I’ve been fighting the urge to get it, as I’ve sworn off JRPGs since NNK2.

I really liked NNK2, but stopped playing it about half-way through, and can’t remember why. That makes it very hard to justify another $60 purchase for DQXI when I know I won’t complete it. I feel so burnt out on JRPGs. Is this one really that much better?

I wrote the following continued impressions/diary for my gameplay experience with DQ XI to my cousin this morning, and will share it for those that want to get some more of an impression of the gameplay experience for DQXI. He had previously expressed a concern over “large cities to explore” so I was trying to ease his mind a little, there, as I’m certain he will love this.


I’m still in the honeymoon phase with Dragon Quest XI and about 10 hours into it. More so, maybe, now that I have 5 party members and two more coming (maybe in the next city I’m heading towards?). Combat starts to open up quite a bit once you get a 4-party team (and the game then knows they can throw more at your as you have four characters), which is fantastic. I think it’s a game you’d devour, myself. The more I play it the more I think you’d really enjoy it, and the excellent “here is what’s happening!” recap stuff at the launch of the save game would help you play just a few hours every now and then and not feel like you couldn’t keep at it. I have also figured out, I think, that when the Kotaku reviewer says “big, fleshed out cities” he really means “compared to JRPG’s” not “compared to The Witcher 3 or Skyrim” because I’ve been in 4 different cities and they have not been massive. However, they have been bustling with NPC’s wandering around, many of whom have some flavor dialog when you approach them (the ones that would, in other RPG’s, just say something generic instead say something via speech bubble pop up as you approach them, which is neat) or there are chests to find, items to loot in vases waiting to be destroyed, and occasionally a side-quest with a cool reward. For example, let me introduce Hotto, the third or so town you find yourself in following the (so far) linear story, by way of example.

As you can see, it’s a gorgeous little burg - lots of people wandering around it’s wide open common area, buildings with a specific architecture design that makes the city feel like a real, breathing, place. However, it’s not like massive or anything. Here is the map for it:

In the screen shot I had taken (the in-game one on top) you see a guy with a pink “!” over his head. He has information related to the main story. You can also see him in the map, in the south part of the city at the entrance. That will give you an idea of where I’m standing in relation to the map of the city when I took the above screenshot. To my right, there is a priest where I can save my game, and an Inn and a Bank in one building, and then an item shop. To my left, two houses worth exploring, most like. Two sets of stairs, to the West the stairs led up to an area with two buildings, another item shop and one with a purple quest giver, and from there the shrine, and on the East the stairs lead you up to another quest giver (that I just realized I never figured out how to get to that guy, maybe I’ll come back later?) and the weapon/armor shop and the Steam Baths. There is one building just to the right of the armor/weapon shop that is also unmarked, and probably worth exploring for mini-medals, seeds, crafting materials, crafting recipes, or any other loots in chests or cabinets.

Also note, new to the US version, is holding down the RT trigger to sprint! So covering distance (already a fast moving walking speed) is a breeze.

So hopefully that gives you the actual scope of the game’s cities, I think you’ll find they are well within your comfort zone. Will there be bigger ones down the road? Possibly, sure, but all of them so far have been about like this. A handful of buildings to explore, some people to talk to, and a really, really well made map that keeps things easy and clear. Also, this can’t be stated enough so I will again, the cities look and feel just wonderful. Such good stuff.

Here are two shots I took during combat. I love the combat, it’s so much fun, but right now I have set EVERYONE to auto-battle (Fight Wisely for my character and the rogue/fighter type, Erik, Show No Mercy for the wizard so she’s just dumping mp into spells every fight, and Keep us Healed for Serena, the healer and buff type caster) and I just hit fight and watch them do their thing. I just really like watching the battles play out and it let’s me also watch Netflix or Hulu or something while making my way through the game’s open spaces where fights can be plentiful if you want and you aren’t in a rush to get to the next camp site or story beat. You can set tactics any time by tapping Y and when one of your characters next takes a turn, they don’t and instead you can use the menu to change tactics (like, oh shit, this fight is WAY tougher than I thought, let’s set everyone to Follow Orders so I can fight this myself) or even Flee. Then you close the menu and the fight resumes. It’s pretty slick.

This fight ended up going very, very poorly for me because I was on auto-fight and my characters made constantly poor choices, haha. For one thing, Serena has a cool harp skill that gives everyone huge fire protection, and I should have opened up with that when I saw there was a Chimera on the battle field. But also two of these enemies I had never faced before and they could do big, painful attacks. I’m glad I dropped the “super tough enemies” modifier earlier. Also one of them scored a critical hit against Felix and nearly killed him and then he died right after, and I have only ever seen ONE item that brings a character back from death in the game so far, and I KEEP FORGETTING to give it to someone to use during combat (it sits in my party inventory, while only personal inventories are accessible by a given character during combat). With my luck the person I gave it to would probably the one to drop, and this thing SELLS FOR 500gp, so I’m too afraid to even use it. I hope it becomes a more common thing later, as death in the game is easy to recover from outside of a fight, but downed characters gain no XP and are essentially unavailable completely at this point.

Here is a look at the harp skill I was talking about, which I wisely used when fighting a dragon-like creature that I (correct) deduced could do at least one fire attack, a bit later:

One (of many) nice touches is that when you have a buff on you there is a little icon with a countdown near the character portrait so you know how long it will last. I think when there is no number (like with this buff) it lasts the entire combat! This seemed so useful to me I purchased Serena’s next skill in the harp section of her abilities, rather than making her better at healing, which protects against Ice. I feel safer having it, and eventually want all of the elemental protections (Earth, Air, and Water are left yet and I have Ice and Fire).


And then I moved on to talk about my son, who turned 18 today, wanting a tattoo this weekend. So there you go, a little insight into my DQ XI gameplay experience.

It took me up until I fought these to realize that “Dragon Slash” was not “slash from a dragon”, but “slash to a dragon”.

This is an absolutely amazing game, full of the traditional JRPG goodness that I grew up playing. Loving it! Hard to believe it’s been more than a decade since DQ8 and this art style.

Is anyone playing with any of the Draconian Quest settings on? I have the harder enemies on and while it’s not too bad right now, I’m hoping this isn’t going to force me to grind in the near future…

I actually mentioned this in my big thread above, but yeah I turned mine off at around the 5 hour mark, it was getting kind of frustrating. Now the enemies are too easy a little, but when a lot of them show up it’s party time and I DO have to control my team manually, and that’s fun and exciting, and of course for boss battles and such as well. The balance actually feels pretty good with that off, honestly, the further I get.

Yeah, I started with harder enemies but I turned it off about 2-3 hours in. The fights were interesting but not much fun with it on; it’s much better now with it off. Maybe I’ll turn it on on a second playthrough, if that ever happens.

I’m playing with Stronger Monsters and had to grind a little bit as I was pushing too quickly through the first few areas. But, it was fine as I was able to try some different weapons with the 2nd character…went between knives and boomerang and settled on the boom. Plus, my main got a new spell and that was cool to play with while doing a bit of grinding. I actually don’t mind a bit of grinding so Stronger Monsters is ok with me.

What I wish there was is a toggle for having the AI tactics come back automatically after manually controlling the characters during battle. Say, I have all of them on a certain AI tactic but there is a boss or a 3rd enemy with a couple easier enemies and I want to manually run everything…I’d love one button go to manual tactics and then have it automatically go back to the set AI tactics once the battle is over. I don’t like having to manually set up the tactics for everyone again after controlling them manually. It does not take too long but kind of annoying.

Quick questions:
do benched characters gain xp from fights?
can you switch in benched characters on the fly?