What a game Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age is. Just when you think it's over, there's another 50 hours left. Then maybe another 50. But somehow, throughout all that time, it still manages to keep you on your toes. Its overall plot may be cliche, but the way that it's told and the many twists that it conjures deserve a huge amount of praise.
Charm and character are key to the Dragon Quest series, and Dragon Quest XI has both in abundance. It's hard not to fall in love with its colourful world and excellent cast, and there are so many memorable moments peppered throughout its story. Put simply, the game's an absolute delight to be a part of.
Admittedly, Dragon Quest hasn't changed all that much in 30 years. It's gotten a lot prettier, sure, but the core gameplay structure of the series has barely budged. You don't fix what isn't broken, though, and because of that, Dragon Quest XI is decidedly old school in how it approaches combat and exploration.
Its turn based bouts may be methodical, but with flashy attack effects and some phenomenal enemy designs, grinding feels great. Likewise, creeping through a dangerous dungeon or trekking across a vast stretch of countryside give a real sense of adventure -- something that's often sorely lacking in many of today's cookie-cutter open world titles.
There's an overarching sense of wonder to Dragon Quest XI that sells the game better than anything else. Certain plot points wow time and time again with how surprisingly extravagant they are, and events are portrayed in such a way that you can't help but want to see what awaits the party around the next corner.
And as if the base journey wasn't enough, Dragon Quest XI's endgame is, dare we say it, one of the best, most fleshed-out post-credit campaigns we've ever had the pleasure of playing. Without spoiling anything, the whole scenario offers up something that most titles would save for an expansion or even a sequel, so the fact that it's just there, waiting for you after the credits is, in this age of gaming, quite incredible.
But that's really Dragon Quest XI in a nutshell. For three decades, Square Enix's franchise has stood still while the world has moved around it, but in doing so, it now feels more unique than ever. This is a tried and tested formula refined to near Japanese RPG perfection.
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Are you a big Dragon Quest fan? Where does Dragon Quest XI rank among the series' best entries? Set off on a grand adventure in the comments section below.
Comments 31
I’ve heard a few people complain about the music now. Is it just really repetitive?
@get2sammyb It's pretty much mostly agreed upon that the score itself is great. The problem is that the composer is a stickler for only wanting people to experience his music in concert or by buying CDs and he won't let Squeenix use the actual orchestration in the game. The result is MIDI format in the game itself. I'm one of like five people that didn't mind this, but a lot of people quite understandably found this unacceptable.
Overall though, this is my personal game of the year.
@get2sammyb
Not terribly, but the battle theme in particular can turn you mad after a while, especially if you're playing without the orchestral soundtrack workaround. If you replace it tho, it's definitely one of the best gaming soundtracks out there! Of course most of it is taken from past games, but nevertheless..
Oh god, let's not get caught up on the music. Yes, it's pretty bad, but the rest of the game is superb. There's a reason it's number four on our GOTY list, let's at least try to look at the positives!
I quite like the music. Sure it's very repetitive but nothing so drastic as to spoil the game or anything. I've just got the last orb so the gang are now making their journey towards Yggdrasil. So far far it's been a joy to play and it would definitely be in my top 3 games of this year.
Easily one of the best games of the year. But gamers have short attention spans and feel like they have to kill something every five minutes, so of course this is overlooked.
This game on PC with the orchestral mod installed has easily sucked me in at 60+ hours, and I'm just now reaching the post endgame content. Yes, it is repetitive, but it is touted as an old school JRPG, so it's not like you don't know what you're getting yourself into. Easily the best JRPG I've played in years, definitely up there with DQ8.
As I've moaned about many times on here, the soundtrack really knocked this game down a few pegs for me and was ultimately the reason I stopped playing after around 40-50 hours. I really disliked it that much!
I also just thought that Sylvando was straight up annoying. Veronica was really cool, though.
@kyleforrester87 I quite like Sylvando, darling.
@ApostateMage haha actually there's someone I know in real life that I'm not keen on who calls everyone darling, and that's probably why.
This is probably the best game on the list I haven’t played. It’ll definitely be a mid - late 2019 game for me. My friend is supposed to let me borrow it eventually.
Sylvando is hilarious, his story arc in Act 2 was great. All the characters are pretty solid actually, I assumed I'd find Veronica annoying but nope.
Slow pacing? I started DQ after Red Dead and my god it felt wonderfully fast in comparison being able to get places quickly and fast travel easily.
The music I initially was a bit put off by but as the game went on it grew on me and I couldn't stop humming it lol.
Only criticism I have is you can't turn on 'stronger monsters' difficulty mid-game and it's been pretty easy without but I'm not starting the game again.
Great write up for such a fantastic game.This was easily both my most hyped for and Game of the year for me.
I really don't see every ones problem with the music because I love it all,repetitive or not.
Every Character is great,each with their own charming personality.My favourite though is easily Veronica and like the guy above find Sylvando hilarious!
And also like @AyanamiReign it's a shame the monsters weren't stronger during the main game as I found it way to easy,especially as I have played the older titles and they were a real challenge.But saying that,once you beat the game,see the credits and end up doing the 'Epilogue' EVERYTHING becomes a challenge!I'm 104 hours into it and no matter who I try to help the boss of that area wipes me out everytime..
Fantastic game that anyone remotely interested in JRPGs should play.
I'm probably waiting for the Switch version, but the music also kind of makes me want to get the PC version as well. It sounds so much better with that orchestral music mod.
Got the limited edition from the Square Enix store for like £130 or so. I really need to get around to it.
First time that I played a Dragon Quest game and it was a great experience. I really liked the art style and the characters. My only complain is that the game starts to drag after some time, I reached the credits and played a little bit more, but I'm not sure if I will do everything and reach the end. My experience is likely done.
Another game that deserves to be in the list, until now I played all the games except for Hollow Knight. Hope that I reach 90% of the list though.
@Wazeddie22
It's just so jarring and annoying:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=d3AnyHbCXmo
It would sound better if it wasn't Midi I suppose. Listening to it once is not that bad I guess but over and over again whenever you are outside a town for 60+ hours? Argh!
To be honest one of the reasons it bugs me is that the rest of the game was really quite good.
The music does shift. Near the end it gets pretty good. I mean the maddening nature of it adds to the overall uniqueness of the game.
Amazing game with nice surprises in the story (if you don't watch spoilers obviously), great characters with personality especially Verónica, Erik and Sylvando and the best gameplay from any Rpg I have played as for the music it has the best songs from every Dragon Quest game and while it's not the orchestral version it still sounds like every Dragon Quest unless this is your first DQ game and you only like orchestral music in Rpg's
Definitely one of the best games of this year... Spoilers
and to me the first ending it's the best and more satisfactory of the game
I absolutely adore IX on DS so I’m torn whether to get the Switch version or get the PC version if the music’s really that annoying.
But what about the music?
@RadoGoji It sounds like they should get a new composer who will actually let them use the games music in the game. Someone less greedy.
@Jaz007 Possibly, but Koichi Sugiyama has been with the series since the beginning, and is as synonymous with the brand as Yuji Horii and Akira Toriyama are. I don't think they would be looking for someone else anytime soon.
Good taste: the website
@Spectra What on earth is wrong with Persona 4's music?
@Spectra LMAO. You obviously have never played a Gameboy Advance if you think DQ XI's music could be handled on that handheld. PS2 possibly could, but GBA's audio chip wasn't even as advanced as the one used in the SNES...
I might pick it up at some point, but its length is one of the reasons why I've held off for now. There's a couple of other long games that I really want to play through first before I think about getting this.
I am really sad to hear so much negativity in the comments, I absolutely love this game and while I concede the music is repetitive I personally really liked it, I would hum along to it constantly.
I think the repetitive stuff is something you can level at almost every JRPG ever made, for example, I haven't played FFVII for 15 years but I can still hum every song in that game to to how repetitive it was when I played it. I gavent heard thd same complaints about repetitive music in Nino Kuni 2 either and the same goes for every Zelda I have played. Just to clear, I am not comparing the songs themselves, after all, Zelda would beat anything else 😃.
@Spectra Even though I don't agree that it sounds bad, at least I now know what you're getting at.
Audio levels: effects 10, music 1, voice 0.
Problem solved.
Love this game, easily in my top 10.
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