Dragon Quest XI "S" (PS4 / Nintendo Switch / XBox One)

[alan_fatima]

Please don't make me explain why missing dialogue is different from only missing the performance of the dialogue. Or why an inherently interactive medium would be far more likely to inspire such impatience. Plus THE LITTLE PROMPT IN THE CORNER SAYING PRESS X! IT'S ALWAYS THERE! What man could endure such cruel temptation!?

[Joust Williams]

I bet it's circle in Japan

[dog$]

https://www.polygon.com/2017/7/28/16...pe-square-enix
Sometime in 2018. The date and platforms are unspecified, but I don't see why it wouldn't be everything.

[Yoshi]

[dog$]

Thanks for posting that - I was wondering about how the Pro would treat the game. No 4K TV yet so, unsurprisingly, it wouldn't do much of anything for me.

[dog$]

Main story concluded at 85 hours. There's some post-ending stuff to do which seemingly extends the story a bit, but after spending this much time on it and seeing the credit roll, I'm calling that good enough for now.

I think there are two main aspects which differentiates this from previous DQs. One is how much more interactive the character is with the environment. There's cliffs and ledges to climb, ropes to climb, rock gaps to crawl under, animals to board and ride, and so on. There's horse races in the game, and when I first read about this, I figured that it would have been a supplement to the casino with races to bet on, but you actually participate in them as a rider. The crafting system is not passive like 8's alchemy pot; instead it utilizes a kind of portable forge which requires you to choose spaces to hammer upon so that the raw material is processed to form the item, and as you progress you have different abilities to choose from so that you can create the higher quality goods.

The second aspect is how the lack of a singular open world changes the sensation to how it feels to play. I have a feeling that this was a decision made so that they could have everything be presented with higher detail or not have the game constantly loading content as you move around. In doing this, they probably had more freedom in making the environments more intricately designed - most areas have varying elevations everywhere (with several points to look out a far distance over a wide expanse), there's not much of any wide open spaces anywhere, and internal areas like towns tend to feel multi-layered rather than situated on a singular flat plane. The fact remains though that the world is segmented into individual pieces and represented on the map as if it's a series of halls or tunnels. Combining this with the game giving multiple ways to ensure that you always know exactly what you're expected what to do next (general summary on world map, party members tell you what to do in camp or in friend chat, specific people to talk to in areas in order to know where to go are distinctly marked with a pink dot), I never really had much of a feeling in here as I did with previous games that you are free to explore things or have a choice in how progress occurs. I suppose this isn't too terribly different from previous games, only now the guiding seems much more explicit. On that subject, progress in the main story line is segmented into about 20 "chapters" or so which are divided in the trophy listing, and, on the basis of acquiring those trophies, there's only one point in the game where I managed to break the sequence it had set for the story's exposition.

Otherwise, this is pretty much what someone who played a Dragon Quest game in 1987 would imagine a Dragon Quest game would be like in 2017. Every time I would pick the game up, seeing the summary of events and then starting to move around did bring an immediate sense of familiarity as well as admiration for seeing how this new DQ game looked and felt on my screen now. The monster design remains very distinctive and well crafted, and both sides of the battles have reactions to attacks and effects which lend to strong characterization. The style of writing and presentation is exactly as it has been in previous games, and there are many times when character motion and expression is lovingly subtle. In those 85 hours, I did only a minimum of optional battles, and that was only to round up some crafting materials. Most of that time spent was rolling from one point to the next, talking to everyone, doing what side quests I know I could immediately do, and steadily following the story as it came to be revealed. I've read some people say that they could clear this game in 40 hours, and I think the only way you can do that is if you never do anything other than go to the immediate next plot point.

When this is released worldwide, I'm fairly confident it will have the US DQ8 treatment and everyone will get voices and the soundtrack will be recorded with a live orchestra. However, I don't think the game as it stands now is particularly worse without these changes. It's easier to accept the protagonist as silent when everyone else is too. The NES-era sound effects don't stand out so glaringly against standard synthesized BGM instead as they do against an orchestrated recording. Even if these changes are made, I suspect the general public and press will regard the game as too simplistic and trite to consider it as good as other JRPGs.

On a personal note, it has taken me this much time to reach this point, so as it stands, this may well be the last time I play a game like this as long as I have my present job. There aren't many stretches of more than an hour between points where you can save, so it's not like you need to dedicate an entire day to doing things in order to ensure you progress. Regardless, it's hard to shake the notion of it feeling like another job when there's usually only one day of the week where I could dedicate time to playing it.

[Space Pirate Roberts]

PS4 and Steam versions coming west September 4th, Switch version not releasing anywhere until “much later” (definitely not this year), 3DS version staying in Japan

[BonusKun]

I'm really fucking bummed about no 3DS Version.

[Timber]

Same here, nowadays I don't finish JRPGs unless they're on a handheld. Maybe I'll hold out for the Switch version for whenever I finally get a Switch.

[Frogacuda]

There's no way I'm playing this on anything but Switch. Don't have time for that.