DRAGON QUEST® XI S: Echoes of an Elusive Age™ - Definitive Edition

**Story Spoilers** This was my first introduction to the Dragon Quest series. My first and biggest takeaway from this game was that I couldn't believe I had waited so long to dive into the series, and I'm now eagerly awaiting DQ12! I'm not sure how to organize my thoughts so this might be a little all over the place. I want to start with the combat - I think the combat in the game is fantastic. Through all 3 acts you feel yourself getting stronger with each upgrade and new node in the skill tree. I feel like there are so many cool combos you can come up with between the party members. It was fun to experiment when I would get new abilities to see how I could combo them together with what I already had. I thought it was really flashy and satisfying, and the pacing between the moves and move text was quick enough that it didn't feel like it dragged on (except for the 2D mode) which is something that some JRPGs suffer from. I felt like each party member had their own path for combat that the game "wanted" you to go down, but it was nice that you still had a few options for each member. As for the party members themselves, they had an excellent variety where each one felt super unique. Some of their personal stories were hit or miss for me but i think that ultimately boiled down to my own personal preferences and also the Act 2 -> Act 3 dilemma which I'll touch on more in the story portion. It really felt like the ultimate party of heroes, especially by the time you get 8, which I didn't know about going into the game so I was genuinely really shocked and excited when they joined up with us. Now for the story... I'm going to try and be as concise as possible but there is so much that I could say about the story of this game. It starts off pretty generic, but honestly really solid. I don't mind if the story of the game isn't amazing right off the bat, I enjoy a slow burn; But even in the early moments of the game, there were a few moments that really got me. When you return to Cobblestone and have the past time moment with Chalky where he recognizes you springs to mind as something really emotional. By the time we had got to the end of Act 1 there was a big part of me that thought it really might be the finale with some epic confrontation with Jasper serving as the penultimate boss before moving on to Mordegon. It was a big shock watching it all come crashing down at the end of Act 1, it really felt like a dire situation going into Act 2. I think Act 2 starts off a little slow - I think it clings to some of the companion moments for a couple beats too long, but maybe that was just because I was eager to get back to playing my story and seeing how I would survive what had happened. Without going into each moment, I think Act 2 was phenomenal. It does such an amazing job of building up characters through the grief and sadness they had experienced in the new world order. By the final confrontation in Act 2 it really did feel like we had been on this great long epic journey together and we had earned the right to challenge Mordegon and save the day. I liked that the ending was a bit bittersweet. Dealing with the loss and having to rebuild what was destroyed felt like a great way to spend the next act of the game. I thought that may be the direction it was going; helping each settlement rebuild after all that had happened. So that brings us... To Act 3... Act 3 is really complicated for me. I have talked to a couple of my friends that have played the games before me to see if I was alone in how I felt, and it seems like there was some kind of general consensus about Act 3. Which is tough for me, because there are some great things that come out of it. My biggest gripe is that it sort of feels like leaving behind all of the work that I put in with my party, all of the moments we had shared good and bad were effectively for naught, and a lot of the personal character growth undone. From a gameplay perspective I actually really enjoyed Act 3, it was super fun getting to run around and gather the legendary weapons and armor for the party members. It turns into a super fun power scaling fantasy. I also really enjoyed getting to do some of the endgame activities like the Drustan Trials. I just wish it didn't come at the cost of everything we had done in Acts 1 and 2. It's not that I didn't want the game to have a happy ending, it's just that I felt like the game did have a happy ending at the end of Act 2 in spite of everything that had happened. I did think the storyline with Erdwin's Lantern was really cool and the fight with Calasmos was super fun and felt very epic. The music in this game was fantastic. Music in games is really really super important for me and is often one of the first things I consider when I score a game or rate it in my head, "how many times did the music really catch my attention and make me feel something." There were several scores in the game that were amazing, very memorable. As a little bonus - I didn't really have much to say for the Tickington stuff, obviously, as this was my first DQ game, because it was comprised of mostly what I'm assuming, are just memorable moments from the previous entries. But I did really appreciate what they did with it and I think a long time fan would have loved something like that. Anyways, this game was incredible. They have me very excited to play the DQ I II, and III remakes and I'll be eagerly awaiting XII whenever that is ready!