Dragon Quest XI S: Echoes of an Elusive Age is one of those games I’ve pretty much only heard good things about. Recently I decided to give it a try, starting with it’s generous demo, which took me 8 hours to complete. I finished that and felt sort of mixed on the game, but since the game is so highly rated and I wasn’t hating it, I decided to purchase the game and play it some more. I’ve now put in another 35 hours and I’m still feeling quite indifferent on it. It’s a perfectly fine game. It doesn’t really do anything particularly memorable or interesting. Nothing stands out as great, and other than some cringe inducing sexism and some slightly annoying music, nothing stands out as bad.
I’ve never played a Dragon Quest before, so I didn’t really know what to expect outside of turn based combat. I’m usually not huge on turn based combat, but there have been a few turn based games that I thought were fantastic. This is not one of them. The combat is really easy to the point it often just feels tedious. However, I did find many of the monsters to be visually interesting.
The story does have some “twists”, but they are always telegraphed way in advance, so when they are revealed, you’ve already known about them for hours and they never feel like twists. The companions do feel varied, but none stand out as particularly interesting.
Structurally, this is not an open world game, which I appreciated. It does have open areas, but it’s still very much linear. There are a few times where you can choose where to go, but it always feels like there’s a correct order. If you choose wrong, you’ll just need to go to the correct one, do some stuff there, and then go back to the other area.
Similarity, the game’s story is quite linear. It’s mostly told through dialog without any choice. You do occasionally get a dialog choice, but there’s always a clear correct answer. A few times I tried selecting the obviously wrong one just to see what happens and it basically forces you into the correct answer. There’s nothing super wrong with this, but it always makes me wonder why they bothered to give a choice.
Overall, I don’t feel like I have a lot to say about Dragon Quest XIS because I don’t feel like it’s a game that has a lot worth talking about and after over 40 hours of it, I certainly do not get the hype. It’s a fine game, and since I’ve already paid for it and started it, I may eventual go back and finish it, but I don’t really feel like I should recommend you go out and spend your money and time on a game that is just fine when there are so many masterpieces out there.
