Dragon Quest has long been my favorite video game franchise. That still holds true today which is why I followed the announcement of the eleventh installment in this venerable series with great interest. It aimed to bring back the focus on narrative that new fans fell in love with in part 8 while making use of some snazzy HD graphics with an engine that pushed the latest consoles pretty hard. Dragon Quest XI was announced for the 3DS, Nintendo Switch, and the PlayStation 4 much to everyone’s surprise. Years later it was announced for and released on Microsoft’s Game Pass service for the Xbox One, and this is the version I decided to play. Dragon Quest XI is Dragon Quest, for better or worse, but that’s not exactly a bad thing for a longtime fan like me.
This eleventh installment has a pretty traditional scenario by franchise standards. The story kicks off with a full motion video depicting a medieval castle in the land of Erdea on a dark and stormy night. Armies of monsters lay waste to the soldiers and even the king and queen. A baby, the prince of this kingdom, is saved by being set adrift floating down a stream. A kindly old man finds the infant and takes him in as his own son. This is our protagonist, and from this point the game cuts forward several years. He’s a young adult who lives peacefully in the small village of Cobblestone. Little does he know that he’s actually the next iteration of legendary warrior called the Luminary.
After his coming of age ceremony our bright eyed and bushy tailed protagonist is told of his powers. He is sent to the nearby kingdom of Heliodor to meet with the king and follow his destiny. In an odd twist instead of being celebrated our hero is instead imprisoned and sentenced to death. In the dungeon he manages a narrow escape, but with the entire kingdom looking for him things won’t be easy. It’s pretty standard by Dragon Quest stories with two different antagonists, a cast of colorful allies, and all of the typical trappings. The story is complimented by smaller and unimportant vignettes in each town you travel to. These are self contained plots which are charming, but not quite as interesting as in prior installments. I’d actually rate Dragon Quest XI a little weak in this field. I did however care more for the overarching plot than usual.
What’s nice is that the story sequences are almost entirely voice acted. Complete with the typical European accents typically used in North American localizations of installments in this franchise. Dragon Quest XI S features fully 3D environments and character models. You can adjust the camera on the fly as you run around the lush and highly detailed environments. Enemy encounters are not random and you can see the enemies running around the world. You engage in battle by touching them. It’s nice that this aspect from Dragon Quest IX made its return here. It’s even improved here because the environments are significantly more expansive and it’s much easier to avoid encounters here. You can even gain the advantage by striking them with your weapon outside of battle.
The combat system is pretty much a carbon copy of other Dragon Quest titles. You select commands from a menu, and watch the actions as they’re carried out. Numeric damage splashes out of your characters and the enemies when they’re attacked. It’s pretty basic but if it ain’t broke then don’t fix it. There are a few light enhancements. For one thing you can move freely about during battle. This doesn’t have a large effect on gameplay and outside of messing around with it for a few minutes I never revisited this feature. While Dragon Quest XI S appears simplistic on the surface it’s actually a very deep experience. Your allies have a myriad of different abilities which can cause a number of effects. If you explore these you can come up with some clever strategies, and you’ll need to do so when you play on the higher difficulty settings.
Dragon Quest XI S makes use of the skill tree system introduced in the eighth installment. It was pretty terrible back then, but the developers have made some vast improvements to it here. You gain SP at each level up (which in typical fashion is awarded via experience points from battle). Each item on the skill trees requires SP, but once you unlock it the ability or stat bonus is yours. The options are quite vast here. You don’t have the freedom to make a mage into a fighter (or vice versa for that matter) but you can do a fair bit of customization to adapt to new strategies. I’m really happy with the way the skill tree was handled in Dragon Quest XI S.
Part of what makes the skill tree so interesting is the fact that you have more than just four party members to use and customize. There are seven different characters that join your ragtag group, and they function pretty differently from one another. Their skill trees are entirely different though there are some overlapping options. Still, they’re all set up in unique order. Everyone can use different sets of equipment as well, and have their own strengths and weaknesses as far as stats are concerned. There are even pair attacks which can be used in certain circumstances. Few other RPGs have rewarded me so much as this one in terms of tinkering with party formation. I found some boss encounters were a bit difficult so I simply switched my line-up and voila. This is one of my favorite aspects of Dragon Quest XI S.
I really like the game but I do have a couple of complaints. For one thing it feels like some of the vignettes follow some from older Dragon Quest games. You have sub-plots such as the cowardly prince who hires the party to do his dirty work, and the evil little girl luring people to their doom. I can’t point out which games these appeared in, but they definitely feel like retreads of content I already experienced in the older games. Some of these just aren’t original. The biggest offense in this game however is how segmented the world map feels. Rather than exploring the world it feels like you’re walking around in various interconnected zones. It really diminishes the feeling of adventure I get from the older Dragon Quest titles. Even Dragon Quest VIII, which I trash on regularly, handled it better than this one.
The vanilla release of Dragon Quest XI lacked the voice overs and orchestral soundtrack, but additional content was also added to this S version. For starters, you can revisit past worlds in the Dragon Quest franchise and complete short tasks in those world. This encompasses every previous mainline title in the series. What’s interesting is that in these worlds the graphic engine completely changes. The visuals switch to a retro 2D pixel art style. This includes the battle sequences as well. But wait, there’s more. You can actually switch the entire game into this retro style should you choose. Yes, the entirety of Dragon Quest XI S is playable in 2D if you want. This is one of the neatest features I’ve ever seen in an RPG.
Dragon Quest XI S is a very pretty game, but it’s clearly a downgrade from the original release. The character models and lighting aren’t as detailed as they were previously. With that said Dragon Quest XI S is still a beautiful game. Akira Toriyama’s art style shines as bright as ever before with characters that in this case don’t just look like Dragon Ball rejects. The enemy models are as charming as ever, and the environments are chock full of detail. I really like how colorful the graphic engine is here. The soundtrack is a bit bland by Dragon Quest standards. The world map theme is rather forgettable, as is the standard battle and even boss music. The orchestrations are nice, and nothing is particularly offensive, but I found it all to be fairly boring to be honest. The voice acting is high quality and very memorable.
I was initially concerned with this one when it was revealed that the developers were taking a similar route to Dragon Quest VIII. The emphasis on the overarching plot, and high production values for the graphics engine and soundtrack really make this one feel polished. The sheer amount of content is astounding (expect to spend almost 100 hours with it if you want to do everything). The battle system here is just as fun as it has ever been and the new skill tree allows just the perfect amount of customization. This is easily one of the best RPGs of last generation, but slightly disappointing by Dragon Quest standards.
