Welcome to my review of Dragon Quest 11: Echoes of an Elusive Age, the game that made me love the RPG genre again!
Dragon Quest 11: Echoes of an Elusive Age™ follows the perilous journey of a hunted hero who must uncover the mystery of his fate with the aid of a charismatic cast of supporting characters. They embark on a quest taking them across continents and over vast oceans as they learn of an ominous threat facing the world.
Dragon Quest 11 brings a massive, gorgeous world to life in a style that blends stylistic cel-shading with photorealistic detail.
Engage in a turn-based battle system that eases players into combat with an accessible experience, featuring mechanics simple enough for novices but with enough depth to satisfy long-time fans.
In the past years of playing games, I often felt like I was falling out of love with the Role Playing Genre. Often most RPG games felt like they wanted to really reinvent the genre by adding a ton of gaming mechanics, sure, the majority of those mechanics have been time tested and proven to be great, but the application of how they are added, that is where they often went wrong in my book.
Dragon Quest 11 brings the original RPG feeling to the table, like you are playing a 90s game, adding in gorgeous current day graphics by the one and only Akira Toriyama. Back when the genre was still in its infancy, some of the best games were made. Dragon Quest 11 does its very best to bring this same experience and in my humble opinion, it succeeds.
When you start the game, you and your best friend need to go climb the mountain to prove you have entered adulthood. Obviously, things go wrong and what is supposed to be a very easy climb, turns out to be a path crawling with the classic Dragon Quest monsters like slimes, … Once you are finally at the top, you are shown a view of the lands below and it is at this moment, that it sinks in that this game is just awesome. Its graphics are really beautiful and the art style has been consistent throughout the entire series, but this one goes the extra mile.
At the top, you are suddenly attacked once again and this time by a big enemy! You shoot off a big lightning bolt at the enemy and that mark on your hand lights up. Once you are back down in Cobblestone, your village, everyone congratulates you for obtaining adulthood and once it comes to light what happened up the mountaintop, you are explained all about your history and that you are the Luminary, the reincarnation of the hero of Light who fought off the forces of Dark in the past. The village chief tells you to head out for Heliodor kingdom as the King can fill you in about your past and history.
You set off to the Kingdom up north and you learn to ride a horse along the way! The ability to really speed up long travel is a most welcome gift! Once you reach the castle and make your way in, you are given an audience with the king himself. In his throne room, manned by his best knights, you greet the king and tell him all about you, showing off the pendant given to you back in the village and before you know it, you are arrested and thrown into the dungeon!
The belief is that if you are the real Luminary, that also means you will be bringing back the darkness too. So they sent off troops to Cobblestone village and you are imprisoned in the meantime. Not wanting to stay there, you decide to escape with help of the mysterious man in the cel in front of yours. He manages to break you out and you escape into the sewers where you need to sneak around the guards in order to proceed and at one point even run as fast as you can so you won’t get killed by a big dragon… What the hell is that doing under the castle, you see them say, which made me smile as I knew those words were not said in vain.
Once you get out of the sewers, you are still not safe! Standing on a cliff, you have 2 options, fight the guards or jump off the cliff! The mysterious man suddenly introduces himself as Erik and tells you to jump! Shortly after, you wake up after a gorgeous intro video of the game itself. It is clear to you now, Erik will join your party and you need to figure out what is going on and so the real story of this game begins!
All I described till now, just the first 2 hours of the game. Not joking, this is just barely scratching the vast story of the game, but it is a truly amazing story. It made me fall in love with the genre again and that is no small thing to say, everything just screams perfection in this game. The battles are as old school as can be, turn-based combat with you mostly fighting as yourself, in this case, the Luminary.
The classic armor and items mechanic is present and in true Dragon Quest style, they are great. I love the single handed and double handed difference in weapons and how to use skill points, the skill tree looks impressive and I can not wait to finish the path I chose. Items like healing herbs are plenty and you score gold with every battle.
When your team falls in battle, you even get 3 options! Revive from the last place you visited, from your last save or your last autosave. You do lose some gold along the way, but the 3 options actually can be manipulated to your advantage. When you yourself fall in battle though, your team can still keep going and you are revived with 1 health point. The full experience is an experience in itself!
I honestly think this game should be the RPG of the year, even beating out the one called Octopath traveler. Dragon Quest 11 is the complete package, old-school gameplay, modern graphics, a great story, the way it plays overall is just perfect. I have not played a better game in a very long time and I am most likely going to name it my game of the Year.
In conclusion, Dragon Quest 11 is the perfect RPG in every way and if you like the old school feeling, go buy this one now!
