Review #779: Dragon Quest XI S - Echoes of an Elusive Age Definitive Edition

 Where the hell did Square Enix get the money to budget this masterpiece?

 So... I've never been much much of a fan of first-person JRPGs, so I never did quite get into Dragon Quest, not until IX anyways, and I loved that game. I own VIII but never got around to playing it, but for one reason or another I decided to jump right into the Switch version of XI, Dragon Quest XI S - Echoes of an Elusive Age Definitive Edition. As the opening line would lead you to believe, I loved this game. Like love-love. It's so big, so large, so beautiful that I simply can't figure out how Square Enix could spare such a large budget to an RPG.

 The story pits you as the Luminary, the reincarnation of a hero of old who is born to save the world from darkness. Sadly, the King of the city nearby doesn't seem to think so, casting the hero as the Darkspawn and sending him to the dungeons. Luckily, the hero manages to escape and sets out to clean his name and save the world. Alongside him is a party of seven different heroes, with their own backstories, personalities and motivations, and absolutely everyone gets their own scenarios and moments to shine. Every character is absolutely endearing, it's hard picking a favorite from among them. I know that Dragon Quest loves to stick to its traditions, but man, the mute hero is getting stale. And it shows, flashbacks to the hero's youth will have him gain a voice and personality, because a mute hero is too limiting, it's a wasted opportunity for yet another fantastic personality to join the adventure. That aside, the game is made up of three acts, the third one being considered the post game and somewhat optional. I'm a bit torn, because the second act has a pretty good ending, and because reasons the third act involves time travelling... and losing a ton of character development. Some characters get a bit of re-development but it's nowhere near as deep as it was during the second act. The third act aims for a happier ending, but undoes a all of the best moments from the second act. At least it's optional and the story is not too bad, but it pales in comparison to Act 2.

 This is as classic as JRPGs get without feeling dated. You have a relatively large world to explore, it's not open ended like Western RPGs, there are set routes between places and you can't make your own routes. You go from town to town, talking to NPCs to further the plot, while partaking in dungeon exploring and monster slaying to fund your equipment and to proceed with your adventure. Environments are pretty large, larger than your average JRPGs, and they are gorgeous. There are plenty of towns to explore too, very different and distinct from one another, from the architecture to the accents their citizens speak with. There are a ton of sidequests to fulfill, although most of them open up on the third act, as well as plenty of bonus objectives that don't count as sidequests but still are worth your time thanks to their rewards. It's very meaty, I cleared the second act after clocking 67 hours, and the postgame/act 3 took me about 10 hours more, and I didn't finish every single sidequest. My hero was nearing level 90 and the rest of my party were averaging 80, I was quite happy with my equipment and the alternate costumes I managed to find and even got to select my bride(exclusive to the Switch version!) so I decided it was time to slay the bigger bad. And I did.

 Combat is your tried and true turn-based affair. Each turn you can attack with physical attacks, abilities unique to your character, spells or items(Remember that each character has their own bag, and if they aren't carrying the item on their bags they can't use them!). There's the Pep mechanic, randomly your character may enter Pep mode which lasts a few turns and enhances a few of their stats, as well as granting them access to very powerful Pep techniques. If more than one character is in Pep mode you may even get to use combined Pep techniques. Regardless, combat is pretty snappy, landing critical hits is made extra crunchy thanks to the slowdown and the white flash on the enemy. Leveling up earns you stat points that you can then spend on each character's unique skill tree. I'm pretty sure that by level 99 every character can learn all their abilities, since my 80ish level characters had their skill trees almost completely unlocked. As for grinding, if you're smart about it, or know anything about Dragon Quest, you shouldn't need to go out of your way to end completely overleveled, just remember to learn Metal Slash on any character that can and try to use multi-hitting abilities on Metal slimes before they flee from battle.

 There's also a simple crafting system, you gather materials(in the Switch version you can purchase them when forging, which you can now do at any time on this Switch version), get a recipe and then try your hand at a very simple forging minigame in which you must bash steel, trying to fill various gauges without going outside their sweetspot. You unlock different bashing techniques(2X2 zone bash, double strength bash, etc) and have to mind the heat of the forge, as a higher temperature nets stronger bashes. It's surprisingly fun once you get the hang of it.

 So, what makes the Switch version the 'definitive' version? Well, the graphics obviously took a hit and the framerate is capped at 30fps. Not that it really matters, because the game is still beautiful, character models look great and textures are fantastic, it's a beautiful game no two ways about it. That aside, we get to ride a few new monsters, nothing to write home about and a few bonus scenarios between Act 1 and Act 2, which total about 2-3 extra hours worth of content, once again, nothing special. But now we can select costumes as a different equipment piece, not being tied to the equipment itself as long as you owned the equipment pieces at least once, which is purely cosmetic but something that adds a lot of charm to the game. Squeenix also integrated the 3DS' 2-D mode, and you can freely swap between 3-D and 2-D at Save chapels. It seems that the transition sometimes may reset a bit of your progress, I wouldn't know since I didn't care about 2-D. It's VERY slow paced and the combat mechanics change to feel more like the retro DQ games. If you're itching for a more retro experience, go ahead, it wasn't my thing. And that's the beauty of it, you can pick whatever mode you wish, and the ENTIRE MASSIVE game can be played in either mode, so in a way, it's almost like 2 games in one. They also added the Retro stages, which are alright and I actually did play. You can only play these in 2-D, but the game transitions between 3-D and 2-D, provided you are playing in 3-D, seamlessly, so nothing is lost and you don't even have to pick to return to 3-D, you simply exit the TickinTock town and you're back to where you were, alongside the 3d dimension.

 Dragon Quest XI is easily one of the best JRPGs I've played in recent times. The story is engaging, the characters are lovable, the combat is decent... it's got everything you could want out of a JRPG. It also sticks closely to its roots, which makes it stand out from more modern JRPG offerings, which focus more on waifus, and cutesy girls and derpy boys doing cutesy things in a whimsical world that isn't going to fall in peril from a world-devouring monster any time soon. It's a very classic SNES/PS1-era JRPG but with a very modern coat of paint, exactly what I've been looking for. It also has a very simple combat system that isn't bogged down by countless mechanics stacked on top of each other or other popular pitfalls of the genre. What I mean to say, is that Dragon Quest XI does what it does masterfully and proves that classic JRPGs can work really well in the modern day.
 10 out of 10