Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age

My cousins had Dragon Warrior for the NES but I was more obsessed with the box art than anything with the game. I remember a family friend borrowed it and a few weeks later said that they had beaten it. "I saved the princess too," a feat we were all impressed by. A friend had Dragon Warrior Monsters and as a reward for a great end of year report card, got the game so we could play together. He moved away that summer. I was flipping through a Nintendo Power in a doctor's office and showing my brother the ad for Dragon Warrior 1+2 for GBC and him asking "you gonna get it?" I'd later pass out when they pricked my finger to take a blood sample. 

Dragon Warrior/Quest is just good RPG. You wanna take a turn and see numbers change? Hell yeah I do. It just gets it right. When I finally beat DW1 on my own on the GBC, I told the same family friend that "I saved the princess too." "Huh? Oh yeah. I played that years ago." 

While I wasn't a DBZ fan, I loved Toriyama's DQ art. Slimes are perfect. They just are. Another friend showed me VII while waiting for our rides from school, and I was delighted by the lizard on top of the Hero's head. I remember getting IX and playing it for about an hour. I was in college and there wasn't anyone interested in playing it or talking about it. 

When XI was announced, I went back and played some of my favorites and decided that I'd commit to playing XI. I got it for Christmas 2018 but didn't start it until May 2019. I felt in a rut with video games and streaming them was helping me find joy in playing a game without the guilt of "I need to pay my taxes and mow my lawn" looming over me. If I didn't stream and play the game, the three people watching me play it won't know what happens next. Loved it to pieces. Just a delight to play and to have people to share it with. 

I've played it multiple times in all its different versions, and I just like it. Combat works for me, story is light, but delightful in a cozy way. It just does RPGs right. Veronica wins again~

5/5 - Pick up and play all the time still

Back to Games