So I'm relishing that this might be the last time in my life I'll be able to do this: catass when not working and just play a deep ass RPG. From here on out I'll have heavy responsibilities and I'm taking advantage of this while I can.
Let's go on an adventure!Scattered thoughts- The Tragedy Quest tradition continues here with some of the saddest vignettes I ever remember in a Dragon Quest game. I love that they kept the tradition of making DQ cartoony, bright and colorful, with full on slap stick humor but with some of the most tragic stories in an RPG. DQ has always been beautiful at that. The story of the Mermaid and her lover is classic DQ and I loved every second. So far I would say that the game has more tragic stories compared to DQVIII, but nothing compared to VII. But then again, nothing really does.
- Story-wise what I am seeing I rates DQXI highly among the franchise. It does a fantastic job feeding you bread crumbs and question and poke and prod as the details emerge bit by bit. So far I'd rate the story probably as good as VIII's. Although VII has the best
individual stories, I feel like IV, V, and especially VIII take the crown in terms of actual plot. What I loved about VIII so much is how you don't know what precisely what happened with Dhoulmagus and the attack on the Trode kingdom, but the game consistently hints until you get to flash back and even then. XI works similarly and it's doing a really good job emoting it.
- Characters-wise this is a really good lineup for DQ. They're all memorable in a DQIV way. Cast-wise, I put DQIV and VIII as having the best casts but this is really challenging them as every character here just fits like a nice little piece. Even VIII has its flaws with Angelo being the weak link and in VIII 3ds they added the thief chick Yangus hangs out with and the crazy Jester dude and they just don't work and feel like filler. XI has no such issue. You've got the loyal partner in Erik, the serious mage, the carefree nice mage, the old man, the swordsman, and then there's Jade who is stealing the show. I can't find a hole in this cast. It's IV tier. That is high praise coming from me.
- Gameplay balance in the S edition is classic DQ. I'm convinced they rebalanced this game in the S edition for vets and the PS4 version was for new players. When I got Jade and Rab in my party they were 5-6 levels above me.
- Money management in this game is God-tier. Every town I'm coming to has gear that is like 3-4k Gold and I have to make each choice very, very wisely: "do I buy or do I skip and save my money for the next town?" age old choice making. But the problem I'm finding is that even if you skip ahead and don't buy anything you're not making enough money on your trek to make up for it when you're in the next town, which makes decision making extremely fluid and personable. Yet at the same time, I've got 40k tokens at the Casino right now and could easily buy a bunch of shit and just pawn it off for hard, cold, cash but I choose not not to. I love it.
- This game just loves to tease. Mini medals for dayyyyys and I was wondering when in the hell does the Medal King show up? They made us wait, and the wait is worth it because this has got to be the best damn Medal King and Medal King HQ in the entire franchise. Holy crap, endless laughs.
- WHEN DO I FINALLY GET THE THIEF AND MAGIC KEY?!?!?!
This teasing has to stop.
All in all, this is shaping up to be a fantastic installment. I'm so glad I gave it a chance My passion for DQ is so damn high and the base DQXI was one of the most disappointing games I've ever played. I have no idea if I was bogged down with depression and couldn't see past caustic, negative thinking or what.
For Yuji Horii's final DQ this might be the swan song I really needed.