2005
It's Christmas day, 2005. The tree is surrounded by wrapped gifts for my siblings and I to open, I don't even know this game exists. Among the gifts are 3 particularly large boxes with no tags on. "Those are for decoration", Mother says, urging me not to touch them for fear of ruining the display. This is the first year we've used fake gifts as decoration, strange.
The day goes on, many a gift is opened and smiles fill the room. But a young Jake can't help but feel a little disappointed that he received no video games for his beloved Nintendo Gamecube console. How much longer must he replay Sonic Adventure 2 Battle, Super Monkey Ball and The Incredibles before his horizon would expand...
But then. The impossible should occur. "Jake, aren't you going to open your last present?" My face becomes the definition of bewildered. "L-Last present? I got them all didn't I?" I ask, naively searching under the tree for the lost gift. "Oh really? Then I suppose you don't want what's in here."
I couldn't believe my eyes. There she was, my own mother, whom I'd learned to trust and rely on, gesturing to the so-called 'decorative' box from earlier. Denial filled my soul. "Ha! I'm not stupid, there's nothing in there" I shake the box to prove its lack of contents. But then, what's this? A rumble. Contact is being made between objects beneath the santa-covered paper.
I can hardly contain my excitement, and tear the paper away in an instant! Inside, a large cardboard box. I open that.. and inside...
... Another box, complete with wrapping paper. Another, another, at least 9 boxes, all individually wrapped and progressively decreasing in size. It was a hard fought battle, but at the end I saw him. It was a face I knew well.
Shadow the Hedgehog. And what's this? He has A GUN!? I threw myself upstairs to play it. And have since forgotten almost every single thing about it.
I cannot rate a game I don't remember, but I do remember how I received this game, so I'm giving it 2.5 stars out of respect.
The day goes on, many a gift is opened and smiles fill the room. But a young Jake can't help but feel a little disappointed that he received no video games for his beloved Nintendo Gamecube console. How much longer must he replay Sonic Adventure 2 Battle, Super Monkey Ball and The Incredibles before his horizon would expand...
But then. The impossible should occur. "Jake, aren't you going to open your last present?" My face becomes the definition of bewildered. "L-Last present? I got them all didn't I?" I ask, naively searching under the tree for the lost gift. "Oh really? Then I suppose you don't want what's in here."
I couldn't believe my eyes. There she was, my own mother, whom I'd learned to trust and rely on, gesturing to the so-called 'decorative' box from earlier. Denial filled my soul. "Ha! I'm not stupid, there's nothing in there" I shake the box to prove its lack of contents. But then, what's this? A rumble. Contact is being made between objects beneath the santa-covered paper.
I can hardly contain my excitement, and tear the paper away in an instant! Inside, a large cardboard box. I open that.. and inside...
... Another box, complete with wrapping paper. Another, another, at least 9 boxes, all individually wrapped and progressively decreasing in size. It was a hard fought battle, but at the end I saw him. It was a face I knew well.
Shadow the Hedgehog. And what's this? He has A GUN!? I threw myself upstairs to play it. And have since forgotten almost every single thing about it.
I cannot rate a game I don't remember, but I do remember how I received this game, so I'm giving it 2.5 stars out of respect.
How funny it is that despite all my efforts to beat it sooner, I would complete Xenoblade Chronicles 2 on Friday the 13th, as my 4th completion for 2023. With the date being considered unlucky here in the West, and the number 4 being considered unlucky in the East.. It’s almost poetic that even the finale wasn’t safe from my misfortune.
To those who may not know, the majority of this game was played at my mother’s house, where I lived for about half of December due to a fault at my own home that left me without central heating. Simultaneously making for a pretty bad situation, that resulted in me being almost forced to play a game that I’d been really wanting to, but struggling to put on when at home. On the contrary, as I played out the finale late last night, beating the final boss and bringing this epic journey to an end, I received an urgent call from my brother… For those of you that know why they consider the number 4 to be unlucky in Japan, well.. It was a long time coming, we’re all okay, but it made for a pretty significant weight to be added as I paused the closing cinematic 5 minutes before the end, only finishing it hours later.
As you can imagine, these things alone have solidified that Xenoblade Chronicles 2 will forever live in my memory as a game of great conflict, but through it all I honestly find this to be appropriate. The highs are immense, in some parts even towering over those of its predecessor, but the lows are so, so low, that at times I genuinely considered skipping to the third entry, and even gave the game a placeholder score of 3/5
For the first 40 or so hours, I noted down some of my thoughts in order to remember them for this review, but by the time I’d gotten properly into the game, I sort of did away with this and just enjoyed it instead. Therefore, the following will be a series of my notes as I wrote them, and where necessary they’ll be responded to with my current thoughts to see what’s changed. All I’ll say upfront is that I love this game, but I also really fucking hate it lol. (for fun, I’ll put my bullet points in [ ] indicators so you can see what exactly I wrote down lol)
Please enjoy the rambles of a madman fighting with his heart as he falls victim to yet another flawed JRPG 🙂
The first thing I’d like to talk about is the world, more specifically the map. The world designs are pretty great, they’re all grand and diverse like in the first game, maybe even more so to be honest, but my god do they not want you to traverse it. The [map is dogshit]. The player icon on the minimap uses the pointy end to indicate the way you're facing, but the main map always has the pointy end at the bottom, so everytime I check to see which way I need to go I think I'm facing south. It's also really bad at indicating paths to higher/lower levels, honestly just awful to navigate in general. You’re given nothing but a waypoint and a compass but if the way there requires going through a building to the West or an underground cave or even up over a tree, good luck finding that without looking it up online :) This is significantly worse in 2 or 3 areas with most of them being bad but not completely awful, but when I cross a bridge and the compass says “go straight” and there are stairs directly in front of me, I don’t expect to have to go around the stairs to an unmarked path.
The second thing is interesting because I’ve done such a 180 on it. In my notes I wrote down [combat is a step down from the first game] - At the time I didn't understand it very well and was just pushing the prompts when they lit up, even saying that it “feels like I'm player 2 or something, I can't strategize at all bc I don't even know why I'm winning”-- This is partly on me, but I can’t forgive the game for doing such an abysmal job with the tutorials. It’ll teach you how to do something once, and then you may not even be able to set up the execution again for hours, and there’s no way to check how exactly the combat works. The closest thing to a reminder is a control scheme which doesn’t explain how to use the combat effectively. However, after looking up a tutorial online on how to use blade combos and chain attacks, the combat in XC2, for me, now surpasses that of the first. There’s a lot to it, but once you get your head around it you really can win just about any fight by tweaking your team a little, making grinding much less necessary than previously. It’s great fun, it’s flashy, I love it.
Another complete 180 I pulled: [Characters are great, not quite XC1 level] – I can only assume that at this point in the game I was spending 90% of my time lost, and 10% of my time watching the party talk about something I’d forgotten we were doing. By the end of the game I can safely say that I fucking love the cast of XC2. I loved XC1’s group as well, but 2’s party all feel a bit more genuine and memorable to me. I have fond memories of almost every member for their own reasons and they all shine and grow in different ways. Comparatively, when I think of XC1, I remember Shulk, Reyn and Sharla fondly, but everyone else is a blur. I think this is largely due to the Heart-to-Heart scenes not being locked behind ridiculous requirements. A much needed change that makes 2 feel a lot more like a journey with friends than a journey with a couple friends and then people that tag along. (That’s a bit harsh/extreme but you get my point lol)
One thing that I have surprisingly little to say about, is the story. The characters and the world
‘Got’ me so much that even though I followed and enjoyed the story a lot I can’t really find anything to say about it. It’s a story of people and existence, tackles some really big questions about why different species exist, what purpose they serve, and most importantly it’s about perspective. What happens when an open question can have wildly conflicting answers? How could you ever know who is doing the right thing? If you are doing the right thing… This game has such a strong optimism through Rex that all people have the potential to be good, and even those who are doing wrong are simply misguided, and idk it’s not exactly a new concept but it’s executed so well that the entire game is brimming with hope, and that’s pretty amazing.
(For consistency, my note said [story good so far] lol)
I’ll try to wrap it up because I’ve hit the major beats by now, the rest of my notes were petty nitpicks or things that annoyed me to great length at that one time lol. To quickfire a few positives I’d like to say that the Blade system is really cool and I love how many rare blades have their own designs and even characters/side quests – it’s just a shame how unlucky I got with pulling them, at least 10 legendary cores gave me common blades and about 20 rare ones did the same :(
Furthermore, Nia’s voice is my favourite, maybe ever. (In contrast, Rex’s outfit is literally the ugliest thing I’ve ever laid eyes upon). The side quests are still not really worth doing imo, and the only one I made a point of doing was for a Poppi upgrade which I really wanted.. Man this quest nearly broke me. I had to go to 3 areas that I’d never been to before and bc the map is so ass I needed to follow videos for them all, and run past level 86 enemies that killed me instantly. All so I could run up to a glowing spot, press A to pick up a stick, fast travel back and do it again… What a boring fucking quest to do something so important. Sending mercs on a 30 minute mission and going to pick up dirt while I wait for them to get back. That quest took me like 2 hours and I fought 1 enemy during it, I was so pissed lol.
One final gripe, the characters and blades all talk soooo much during combat, and normally this doesn’t bother me at all (especially when Nia😌) but at some points a boss will speak to you about plot stuff during combat and you can’t fkn hear them over your party going “We can get them if we fight as one!” and shit lmao
Alright, I’m done. If you can’t tell by now, my relationship with this game has been hot and cold, but I can confidently say that I am truly grateful I stuck with it and in spite of it all will retain the good a lot stronger than the bad. Sure some of it is a huge slog, and it doesn’t explain anything very well, you will probably need youtube guides just to find where you’re going. But once you get there? Man. This game is fantastic.
It has a reputation of being horny and silly, and it definitely is at times, but there is so much more to it than that it’s almost a shame that it’s reputation almost encourages people to skip it. If you liked XC1, or even if you’ve played XC3 already, please give XC2 a chance.
This has run on far, far too long at this point but, well you knew what you were getting into lol.
Thanks for sticking it out this far guys, I hope you’re all having a great January. You’ll be glad to know my next JRPG completion won’t be for a good while, so only shorter reviews until then :p
Until next time :)
To those who may not know, the majority of this game was played at my mother’s house, where I lived for about half of December due to a fault at my own home that left me without central heating. Simultaneously making for a pretty bad situation, that resulted in me being almost forced to play a game that I’d been really wanting to, but struggling to put on when at home. On the contrary, as I played out the finale late last night, beating the final boss and bringing this epic journey to an end, I received an urgent call from my brother… For those of you that know why they consider the number 4 to be unlucky in Japan, well.. It was a long time coming, we’re all okay, but it made for a pretty significant weight to be added as I paused the closing cinematic 5 minutes before the end, only finishing it hours later.
As you can imagine, these things alone have solidified that Xenoblade Chronicles 2 will forever live in my memory as a game of great conflict, but through it all I honestly find this to be appropriate. The highs are immense, in some parts even towering over those of its predecessor, but the lows are so, so low, that at times I genuinely considered skipping to the third entry, and even gave the game a placeholder score of 3/5
For the first 40 or so hours, I noted down some of my thoughts in order to remember them for this review, but by the time I’d gotten properly into the game, I sort of did away with this and just enjoyed it instead. Therefore, the following will be a series of my notes as I wrote them, and where necessary they’ll be responded to with my current thoughts to see what’s changed. All I’ll say upfront is that I love this game, but I also really fucking hate it lol. (for fun, I’ll put my bullet points in [ ] indicators so you can see what exactly I wrote down lol)
Please enjoy the rambles of a madman fighting with his heart as he falls victim to yet another flawed JRPG 🙂
The first thing I’d like to talk about is the world, more specifically the map. The world designs are pretty great, they’re all grand and diverse like in the first game, maybe even more so to be honest, but my god do they not want you to traverse it. The [map is dogshit]. The player icon on the minimap uses the pointy end to indicate the way you're facing, but the main map always has the pointy end at the bottom, so everytime I check to see which way I need to go I think I'm facing south. It's also really bad at indicating paths to higher/lower levels, honestly just awful to navigate in general. You’re given nothing but a waypoint and a compass but if the way there requires going through a building to the West or an underground cave or even up over a tree, good luck finding that without looking it up online :) This is significantly worse in 2 or 3 areas with most of them being bad but not completely awful, but when I cross a bridge and the compass says “go straight” and there are stairs directly in front of me, I don’t expect to have to go around the stairs to an unmarked path.
The second thing is interesting because I’ve done such a 180 on it. In my notes I wrote down [combat is a step down from the first game] - At the time I didn't understand it very well and was just pushing the prompts when they lit up, even saying that it “feels like I'm player 2 or something, I can't strategize at all bc I don't even know why I'm winning”-- This is partly on me, but I can’t forgive the game for doing such an abysmal job with the tutorials. It’ll teach you how to do something once, and then you may not even be able to set up the execution again for hours, and there’s no way to check how exactly the combat works. The closest thing to a reminder is a control scheme which doesn’t explain how to use the combat effectively. However, after looking up a tutorial online on how to use blade combos and chain attacks, the combat in XC2, for me, now surpasses that of the first. There’s a lot to it, but once you get your head around it you really can win just about any fight by tweaking your team a little, making grinding much less necessary than previously. It’s great fun, it’s flashy, I love it.
Another complete 180 I pulled: [Characters are great, not quite XC1 level] – I can only assume that at this point in the game I was spending 90% of my time lost, and 10% of my time watching the party talk about something I’d forgotten we were doing. By the end of the game I can safely say that I fucking love the cast of XC2. I loved XC1’s group as well, but 2’s party all feel a bit more genuine and memorable to me. I have fond memories of almost every member for their own reasons and they all shine and grow in different ways. Comparatively, when I think of XC1, I remember Shulk, Reyn and Sharla fondly, but everyone else is a blur. I think this is largely due to the Heart-to-Heart scenes not being locked behind ridiculous requirements. A much needed change that makes 2 feel a lot more like a journey with friends than a journey with a couple friends and then people that tag along. (That’s a bit harsh/extreme but you get my point lol)
One thing that I have surprisingly little to say about, is the story. The characters and the world
‘Got’ me so much that even though I followed and enjoyed the story a lot I can’t really find anything to say about it. It’s a story of people and existence, tackles some really big questions about why different species exist, what purpose they serve, and most importantly it’s about perspective. What happens when an open question can have wildly conflicting answers? How could you ever know who is doing the right thing? If you are doing the right thing… This game has such a strong optimism through Rex that all people have the potential to be good, and even those who are doing wrong are simply misguided, and idk it’s not exactly a new concept but it’s executed so well that the entire game is brimming with hope, and that’s pretty amazing.
(For consistency, my note said [story good so far] lol)
I’ll try to wrap it up because I’ve hit the major beats by now, the rest of my notes were petty nitpicks or things that annoyed me to great length at that one time lol. To quickfire a few positives I’d like to say that the Blade system is really cool and I love how many rare blades have their own designs and even characters/side quests – it’s just a shame how unlucky I got with pulling them, at least 10 legendary cores gave me common blades and about 20 rare ones did the same :(
Furthermore, Nia’s voice is my favourite, maybe ever. (In contrast, Rex’s outfit is literally the ugliest thing I’ve ever laid eyes upon). The side quests are still not really worth doing imo, and the only one I made a point of doing was for a Poppi upgrade which I really wanted.. Man this quest nearly broke me. I had to go to 3 areas that I’d never been to before and bc the map is so ass I needed to follow videos for them all, and run past level 86 enemies that killed me instantly. All so I could run up to a glowing spot, press A to pick up a stick, fast travel back and do it again… What a boring fucking quest to do something so important. Sending mercs on a 30 minute mission and going to pick up dirt while I wait for them to get back. That quest took me like 2 hours and I fought 1 enemy during it, I was so pissed lol.
One final gripe, the characters and blades all talk soooo much during combat, and normally this doesn’t bother me at all (especially when Nia😌) but at some points a boss will speak to you about plot stuff during combat and you can’t fkn hear them over your party going “We can get them if we fight as one!” and shit lmao
Alright, I’m done. If you can’t tell by now, my relationship with this game has been hot and cold, but I can confidently say that I am truly grateful I stuck with it and in spite of it all will retain the good a lot stronger than the bad. Sure some of it is a huge slog, and it doesn’t explain anything very well, you will probably need youtube guides just to find where you’re going. But once you get there? Man. This game is fantastic.
It has a reputation of being horny and silly, and it definitely is at times, but there is so much more to it than that it’s almost a shame that it’s reputation almost encourages people to skip it. If you liked XC1, or even if you’ve played XC3 already, please give XC2 a chance.
This has run on far, far too long at this point but, well you knew what you were getting into lol.
Thanks for sticking it out this far guys, I hope you’re all having a great January. You’ll be glad to know my next JRPG completion won’t be for a good while, so only shorter reviews until then :p
Until next time :)
Dragon Quest XI is a phenomenal game. It stands firm as one of the greatest JRPGs I’ve personally ever experienced, and I expect is among the greatest titles within the genre of all time.
I have a lot to say about this title so for those of you who may not want to read 158 hours’ worth of thoughts, I’ll summarise it briefly here: The gameplay, polish and presentation of Dragon Quest XI is off the charts. Everything works and looks exactly as it should, there are basically no instances where you’ll find yourself against impossible odds or hit a wall of “bullshit”, it just works. It’s also incredibly accessible to players of all preferences and skill-levels, this game was made to be enjoyed by anyone and in my honest opinion, it succeeds. So, let’s get into it a little deeper.
It's worth mentioning that I will not be discussing major spoilers in this review, however if you’re familiar with JRPG or anime tropes/cliches there will be allusions to those which may reveal some minor or incredibly “standard”/expected beats.
Starting off with the first and perhaps most important thing the DQ XI experience offers:
ACCESSIBILTY.
Dragon Quest XI does not come with traditional difficulty options, much like the majority of more classic JRPGs. What it does do, however, is give players several ways to make it easier or harder to fit their own preference. The biggest of these are the “Draconian Quest” options presented upon starting a new game, a list of settings that you can decide before playing if you’d prefer to enable or disable. These include certain challenge modes like No Shopping or No Armour, Reduced Experience, Shypox – a randomly triggered status ailment that embarrasses you/your allies -, and my personal favourite: “Party Wiped Out if Protagonist Perishes”
That’s right. You can disable one of the most frustrating and often merciless features of classic JRPGs. Thank the Gods.
The caveat with these modifiers is that if you disable all of them then you can’t adjust them once you’re in the game, however I believe that anything you enable can be later disabled via a save point without consequence.
This isn’t the only way that DQ XI makes itself more accessible to suit your play style though, oh no. One of the most impressive features of this title is one that honestly didn’t really hit me fully until I’d tried it myself: 2D Mode. The entire game, start to finish, can be played in either a modern 3D style, complete with interactive combat where you can move around the battlefield and watch gorgeous attack animations, or a classic 2D mode, returning to the use of flashing sprites and screen shakes instead. Both modes have redesigned locations to accommodate the dimensions available in each, and my favourite difference between the two: random encounters - or more importantly – lack thereof.
If you prefer the old school 2D sprite-based, synthesised, random-encounter-ridden experience of old JRPGs, you can have that. If you’d rather see the world in beautiful 3D, run around the overworld yourself and be able to actively avoid enemies roaming the lands, you can have that too! The entire. Fecking. Game. Honestly who does that?! Square went above and beyond making the whole game twice just to make sure EVERYONE could enjoy it, it’s absurd and I cannot respect this decision enough.
You can switch between 2D and 3D mode at any time, and if your save file in 3D mode is further along than in 2D, you can select which chapter of the game to pick up from in 2D and just keep going, meaning there is (once again) no consequence for playing around and trying both out. [I’m not certain if the same applies going from 2D to 3D but I would expect so?]
Believe it or not, I’m not done. I mentioned the Draconian Quest difficulty modifiers earlier, and how they can be used to adjust the difficulty of the game from the start/at any time if enabled. But another, more subtle, thing that DQ XI does to ensure no-one gets left behind is giving the player freedom for 99%, if not all, of the game. Let me explain.
I’m sure we’ve all hit walls in games where we get stuck, the boss is simply too hard, our party are under-levelled, poorly equipped, we weren’t prepared to face a challenge and our last save was x amount of time ago. With no other choice, we’re forced to lose progress to train harder and make push any further. This will not happen in Dragon Quest XI, I can guarantee it. You may find a boss you can’t beat, absolutely (although in all honesty this will most likely only be late into Act III when the difficulty is amped up and more things become optional than not,) but you will never be in a position where you can’t just load to right before the fight, go away and prepare to return stronger.
At one point in Act II, there is a part where you need to defend an area from a large-scale attack. “Oh shit.” I thought, “This is where I may well meet my first roadblock. I hope I saved recently just in case I’m too weak for this.” – Arriving at the front line, I saw an NPC with a marker on the mini-map, speaking to him, well it made me laugh honestly. He essentially told me “If the enemies prove too strong, try going into that cave there and honing your skills while we hold them off” … I’m sorry, what? The front lines of this story-locked battle offer a save point and a dungeon specifically to grind in? Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if I was able to rest/heal and go back to the nearest store as well, I couldn’t believe it.
This game was made so that it can be played by everyone. And it absolutely can. I would confidently say that the only thing less-experienced players might struggle with is the final-final boss (and the optional post-game bosses ofc, but assuming they’re not here for those anyway), but the final boss of the game can be significantly weakened in 1 turn using a trick that the game teaches you, urges you to do and makes it impossible to miss, so even that battle I’d wager you can manage.
Just to finish up, the game also has settings to adjust the battle speed, whether the score is symphonic or synthetic, the DQ VIII OST is available as well and every single thing I’ve mentioned here can be adjusted at any time, without consequence. (Besides enabling the Draconian Quest modifiers if they’re all disabled at the start)
With all that said, let’s talk about the game itself:
WHAT IS DRAGON QUEST XI S: ECHOES OF AN ELUSIVE AGE?
Dragon Quest XI – as I’m sure you know by now – is a grand open world JRPG adventure, following our Hero in his journey from the small town of Cobblestone as he learns of and fulfils his destiny as the Luminary of Legend. It’s a tale as old as time, and the heads up I gave at the start about common tropes is because, at its very core, the A-plot of the game is somewhat… generic. But with a world this rich of diverse locations, captivating characters and a plethora of really good B-plots and mini-arcs, the main story doesn’t need to be anything else. It’s a vessel. It’s what drives us on our way through the game and provides us all the experiences along the way. That’s not to say that the A-plot doesn’t have its own surprises, some of the biggest story beats left me utterly bewildered. But if you were to summarise it to its most basic form; it’s good guy goes to stop bad guy, init.
So what sets it apart from every other JRPG with this cliché, “fabled hero” premise?
THE PACING.
The pacing of this game, particularly in Act I, is superb. Everything that happens does so at a reasonable scale, every new development that sounds like it may drag proves that expectation wrong, I can’t think of a single moment in Act I where a setting or arc overstayed its welcome. Now this doesn’t mean that it’s rushed either. There are absolutely a couple parts where the task at hand feels like it should have taken longer than it does, or where something that’s needed is just conveniently discovered, but honestly in a game that runs most players around 100 hours or more I really struggle to criticise there being a handful of these moments across all 3 Acts. There are times in Act II or III where an arc or dungeon runs on a little longer than it maybe should, but with these the option to run by enemies and get through them more quickly is available to you anyway (in 3D) so again this is more a comment than a complaint.
THE COMBAT.
The combat system in DQ XI, while simple, is one of the most fun systems I’ve played in a standard turn-based RPG to date. It’s hard to put into words why exactly it feels so good, but the things I think that warrant the most attention are the control you have over the party and just how dynamic everything is (again, in 3D. 2D battles lose a lot of this flare and in my opinion are vastly inferior – but for those who long for the days of old, have at it!) The combat in DQ XI see the party and enemies facing off in a battlefield fitting to the location it was initiated, a ring surrounding them on the ground within which the controlled member can move freely or exit the ring to attempt an escape.
The party can be controlled using either by direct commands or via ‘tactics’, anyone familiar with turn-based combat is surely familiar with these, and the behaviour of any member on the team can be set to anything from the list independently – including the Hero. When playing in 3D, the turns are visually demonstrated in real-time, in that if your party attacks 1 thru 4, you will select and perform the action for each member in that order. If the turn order is Hero > Enemy > Party Member 3 > PM 2 > Enemy > PM 4, you will select the action for each party member on their turn, making it possible to react to the battle as it happens.
(In 2D mode, the actions are all selected at the start of the round, and play out as selected using the turn order, which is obviously harder as it removes this reactive option)
Each party member comes with a variety of skills enabling them to perform actions and wield different weapons to suit, and the beauty of this is that all your equipment can be changed mid-battle on that person’s turn without consequence. Went into a tough fight without a shield? Pop that on as soon as it’s your turn and it won’t cost you a damn thing. Accessibility once again, you can adjust your party on the fly in real time – want to equip a greatsword to use a certain ability and then swap back to a shield while you buff – you can do that!
The combat, like everything else in this game, gives you the tools to play the game the way that you want to. And guess what, those skill points you spent to unlock abilities and strengthen certain branches in an ally’s skill tree? Yeah, you can reset those at any time for so cheap you won’t even notice. Spent 20 levels kitting out Hero as a sword & shield guy but just found a super strong greatsword – refund those skills and get the greatsword branch of the tree filled out, son! This was so useful in helping me adjust my playstyle to certain areas or enemies, or even just to mix up my playstyle and try new things. I’m telling you man the game is for everyone, make it yours.
I would be remiss to discuss the combat without touching on the Pep Powers at least a little. I’ve mentioned briefly how dynamic the combat is in 3D, every attack has an appropriate animation, the characters leap toward the enemy before swinging and leap back after if you’re standing further away, this offers no tactical advantage, but it looks good y’know? It’s so much more engaging than the 2D alternative where you see a flash or a flutter of sparkles across the screen and the enemy sprites flicker. Pep Powers take this to another level, basically being super-moves that can be used when a party member becomes “pepped up”, a status effect that buffs their stats and unlocks said skills. This effect is typically unlocked when taking damage and is most easily acquired by just blocking for a few rounds and tanking a couple blows at reduced damage.
The Pep Powers themselves function similarly to things in other games, the Showtime! Events in Persona 5 Royal for example, or All Out Attacks from the same franchise. They use 2, 3 or 4 members of the party to come together and perform something spectacular. There are LOADS of these skills, bespoke to different characters and combinations of such. Some require only the user to be pepped up while others require all participants to be, it’s insane how much variety there is. Some of them utilise unlocked skills to put enemies to sleep before whacking them, others form great shields around the party, turn a member to steel before launching them at the enemy like a cannonball (and most importantly for those of you hoping to grind levels) massively boost the exp gained from a battle and change the enemies into metal slimes, the rarest monster that reward insane exp even without the previous boost. These all look superb and there are so many I doubt I’ve even seen half of them. In short, the combat just feels amazing and even after 158 hours I could happily spend another 100 fighting with this system. That said, fighting isn’t the only thing you’ll be doing, maybe you’d prefer to get lost in the world and spend more of your time exploring, so how’s that?
THE WORLD.
The world of Dragon Quest XI is just that, a World. In layman’s terms: it’s fucking massive. To put it more poetically: it succeeds in broadening your horizons consistently for the first 2 acts without at any point feeling overwhelming. You start out in a small village, what I like to dub Tutorial Town, it has just enough to teach you the ropes and familiarise you with the game/backstory without overstaying it’s welcome. The first stretch of your journey is to venture out to a major city, a huge deal for you and those around you at the time. The fact you receive a horse to journey on is a ‘wow moment’ for young Hero, horses aren’t needed to get around in Tutorial Village, just how big is the rest of the world? A horse is not the only means of transport you will acquire throughout this game. I wasn’t expecting any of what I got, and each time new places opened up to me I felt a similar sense of awe as in those early moments. “I can go where!?” In hindsight my JRPG knowledge should have prepared me for this, but that’s just how immersed I became in my travels. Hero is – unfortunately – a silent protagonist, but the game often makes up for this by succeeding in making you, the player, fill his shoes. More on this later.
Every new location you explore in Dragon Quest XI feels different to the last. Every town or city has a unique design and architecture, inspired by places in our own world and beautifully crafted and populated just enough to feel alive. There are stalls being tended, children playing hide and seek, men standing on piers contemplating their wasted potential. You’re there, man. You’re in Erdrea, it’s hard not to take it all in. Excitedly searching every house for chests, “reading” the books dotted around to unlock new recipes, searching wardrobes for items or mysterious Mini Medals, what are they for and why do they seem to be locked in so many bedrooms? You’ll find out. Dragon Quest does a fantastic job of creating a world in which the story is occurring, as opposed to creating a world to accommodate the story. The locations are all significant and have their own arcs, but they don’t feel as though they are only there so that the plot can happen, rather the plot is happening around/to them. All this talk of plot and arcs brings me nicely to the next important topic.
THE STORY.
I mentioned earlier that the A-plot in this game, when boiled to bare bones, is somewhat generic. And it is. But the story told throughout, and the smaller stories encountered along the way are what really keep this game interesting (besides the characters of course, but we’ll get to that.)
Every location across Erdrea has its own conflict, each acting as an arc that must be completed before it is possible to proceed to the next. While not all stellar, they all do exactly what they need to in terms of introducing new characters or allies and establishing the “vibe” of the new area and its enemies. The majority of them have ties to party members, giving them a more personal feel, and even those that don’t are able to tell deeply personal stories of characters we barely know and that have no relation to the A-plot, resulting in every step of this long journey feeling fresh and worth caring about. I won’t go into too much detail on this for obvious reasons, but some examples include a prince who has been faking his capabilities, a village using a mural to attract tourists that has a dark turn, and an openly (albeit it isn’t explicitly stated) gay man returning to his hometown and facing someone from his childhood, whom he has been avoiding due to his sexuality. Like I said, this world is real, and so are the people in it.
THE CHARACTERS.
You can’t have a great game without great characters. If a game expects you to spend dozens of hours with its cast, then it’s only fair that you expect said cast to be enjoyable to be around. Given that Dragon Quest follows a typical party structure, how exactly does it make that interesting? Well.
The stand-out in the cast by far is Sylvando, who takes the role of Performer. This court jester-esque circus veteran has enough charm and personality for the whole group. He’s flamboyant, he’s talented, strong, emotional, empathetic, funny and his sense of justice is admirable to say the least. DQ XI would not be the same without him and he’s got two – yes, two - of the most interesting arcs within the game, each wildly different from the other. (Also him being gay isn’t played for laughs and he’s well respected. He is not a caricature.)
The rest of the cast are similarly unique with their own personalities shining through in all the right ways. Veronica is my personal favourite, a bratty know-it-all who’s got more sass than 2B has ass and will make sure everyone you meet knows it. The others vary between being a little close to cliché and really interesting, if only for certain arcs, but I won’t get into those because a lot of what makes these people who they are is related to their arcs and stories. There it is again, right? The characters are real, they’re made of their experiences with the world.
And it doesn’t stop there either, every city or town has its named side characters, even side quests can pump a heavy dose of personality and backstory into a random nobody who just wants you to help them find their son or fix their marriage. There is even a whole-ass town where everyone talks in haiku for…some reason. There are inns being run by kids while their parents are sick, why? I don’t know but I remember it don’t I? It’s the little things.
The characters – bar those who serve only to populate the towns of course – are all, people… Except for Hero, sadly. Almost every step this game suffers from the usual “another party member has announced what to do” or has someone look at you and say “Hm? You’re thinking of doing this, aren’t you?” … Hero works as a great self-insert for the exploration elements of this game, but this whole silent protagonist thing is dated. It’s not the end of the world, I wouldn’t say that it ruins anything per se, but it’s the weakest part of the writing by far, and with characters like Sylv and Veronica by his side it sticks out like a sore thumb.
THE THREE ACT STRUCTURE.
Initially, I had planned to structure this review in the same way as the game, getting the main points out of the way first, and then covering each act for what it is separately without giving away why or how they’re so different. But I’ve talked enough, by this point you’re either sold and are willing to give DQ XI a try, or you hate JRPGs and stopped reading 3,000 words ago – I won’t judge.
Instead, I’d like to summarise how I felt about the Acts briefly and give my thoughts on why I think all three hold up:
This will have the most spoiler-y content, but will still be as vague as humanly possible so that at worst the ‘cliché’ story beats may become apparent
ACT I – The first act is very much an adventure; discovering new places, meeting new people, and learning about what exactly the Luminary of Legend is and what you’re going to need to do. Banish a Dark power to maintain or restore light? Got it. Step 1 is getting to Yggdrasil, lesgo. You reach it, stuff happens, that’s Act I.
ACT II – The second act is also an adventure of sorts but is less about finding the world and more about finding the inner strength of the party. Until now they’d all known the legend and wanted to help, but how exactly will they become what is required to complete such a feat? Act II is the training arc, if you will, but it goes deeper than just punching some slimes and telling yourself you can do this. It’s the slowest of the Acts, but it’s necessary.
ACT III – The final act is the one in which you’ll be doing the most free-roaming, optional quests and bosses and ultimately ‘grinding’ for that super boss at the end. In a way, the world is almost different now, so returning to locations rewards you with new mini-arcs to be done, generally related to the ones before it but met in a new light (poetic, right?) Initially I wasn’t the biggest fan of what this Act serves to do, but by the end I am wholly satisfied by the experience all the same.
Of the three, Act I was my favourite in terms of pacing and discovery, Act II was my favourite in terms of story and characters, and Act III was my favourite in terms of freedom and gameplay. The world is yours to play with, go ham!
THE VERDICT.
Dragon Quest XI is a game like no other. When looked at as a complete package, everything together as one, you can both see and feel the ungodly amount of thought and care than went into creating it. It’s polished beyond belief and literally everything it does just works. As intended. As described.
If you’ve read all this and you still aren’t sure if the game is for you – although honestly, how? lmao - the best thing I can suggest is trying it for yourself because guess what? The game has a free demo on Switch and Playstation, and I believe is available on Gamepass. Just go play it!
I put this title off for years because I couldn’t get over how ridiculous Toriyama’s art style looked to me. I was never into DBZ and the fact half the villagers are just blobs with eyes physically put me off. I persevered and would now go so far as to call this game beautiful. The cutscenes especially are gorgeous. Trust me whatever is putting you off just give it a try. It’s free!
I don’t know if I’ll ever get an experience like this again. I don’t speak lightly when I say that this is far and away one of the best JRPGs I’ve ever played. No other game has had me excitedly spam “!!!! The game has [this]!!” or “omg you can do [that]!?” so many times to my girlfriend while playing. Every gripe I take with JRPGs is acknowledged and addressed – with the sole exception being the silent protagonist. It’s amazing. The only reason this game only made #4 in my Top Rated is because FF7R is in a league of its own; with characters, writing and a combat system that are unrivalled to me personally. And because Persona has had such an impossible impact on me with its music, charm, characters, and calendar system that I couldn’t rightfully consider DQ XI to be “more significant” to me personally. But as a game? Oh it’s #2 baby, dare I say it could take #1 if we look at it strictly from a mechanical level.
If you’re a fan of JRPGs, just play it, seriously. You read all this you could’ve been out of Tutorial Village by name, socks blown off already!
And with all that said, thank you for reading this. I hope you got something out of it and look forward to being called a Jade simp in the comments 😊
MISC COMMENTS AND HONOURABLE MENTIONS.
That’s right bitches, I have even more to say!
I’ve rambled enough so I’ll make this more of a list:
- Some armour changes your appearance, appearance can be set without equipping the matching armour, pog.
- The music could definitely afford to be better. I’ve seen complaints that it’s “bad” and idk that I’d go that far but it could use some more unique tracks and more than one combat theme
- The voice acting is great, love me some British and Scottish accents as always. There are some scenes with “singing” that aren’t dubbed which is weird but eh, drop in the pond.
- I experienced no glitches or bugs in my 158 hours of playtime.
- The 2D Tickington side quests are mostly short and pretty easy. They’re related to the previous games and while I haven’t played those to recognise places/people I still enjoyed doing them.
- The platinum requirements for this are not nearly as daunting as they appear, and the final costume for Jade can be cheesed using 2D level select instead of beating the ultra mega fuck-you secret post-game boss.
- That boss can suck my dick.
- Jade is hot.
I love you all thank you for coming to my TED Talk, stay safe and have fun! I’ll see you at the Dragon Quest XII premiere <3
I have a lot to say about this title so for those of you who may not want to read 158 hours’ worth of thoughts, I’ll summarise it briefly here: The gameplay, polish and presentation of Dragon Quest XI is off the charts. Everything works and looks exactly as it should, there are basically no instances where you’ll find yourself against impossible odds or hit a wall of “bullshit”, it just works. It’s also incredibly accessible to players of all preferences and skill-levels, this game was made to be enjoyed by anyone and in my honest opinion, it succeeds. So, let’s get into it a little deeper.
It's worth mentioning that I will not be discussing major spoilers in this review, however if you’re familiar with JRPG or anime tropes/cliches there will be allusions to those which may reveal some minor or incredibly “standard”/expected beats.
Starting off with the first and perhaps most important thing the DQ XI experience offers:
ACCESSIBILTY.
Dragon Quest XI does not come with traditional difficulty options, much like the majority of more classic JRPGs. What it does do, however, is give players several ways to make it easier or harder to fit their own preference. The biggest of these are the “Draconian Quest” options presented upon starting a new game, a list of settings that you can decide before playing if you’d prefer to enable or disable. These include certain challenge modes like No Shopping or No Armour, Reduced Experience, Shypox – a randomly triggered status ailment that embarrasses you/your allies -, and my personal favourite: “Party Wiped Out if Protagonist Perishes”
That’s right. You can disable one of the most frustrating and often merciless features of classic JRPGs. Thank the Gods.
The caveat with these modifiers is that if you disable all of them then you can’t adjust them once you’re in the game, however I believe that anything you enable can be later disabled via a save point without consequence.
This isn’t the only way that DQ XI makes itself more accessible to suit your play style though, oh no. One of the most impressive features of this title is one that honestly didn’t really hit me fully until I’d tried it myself: 2D Mode. The entire game, start to finish, can be played in either a modern 3D style, complete with interactive combat where you can move around the battlefield and watch gorgeous attack animations, or a classic 2D mode, returning to the use of flashing sprites and screen shakes instead. Both modes have redesigned locations to accommodate the dimensions available in each, and my favourite difference between the two: random encounters - or more importantly – lack thereof.
If you prefer the old school 2D sprite-based, synthesised, random-encounter-ridden experience of old JRPGs, you can have that. If you’d rather see the world in beautiful 3D, run around the overworld yourself and be able to actively avoid enemies roaming the lands, you can have that too! The entire. Fecking. Game. Honestly who does that?! Square went above and beyond making the whole game twice just to make sure EVERYONE could enjoy it, it’s absurd and I cannot respect this decision enough.
You can switch between 2D and 3D mode at any time, and if your save file in 3D mode is further along than in 2D, you can select which chapter of the game to pick up from in 2D and just keep going, meaning there is (once again) no consequence for playing around and trying both out. [I’m not certain if the same applies going from 2D to 3D but I would expect so?]
Believe it or not, I’m not done. I mentioned the Draconian Quest difficulty modifiers earlier, and how they can be used to adjust the difficulty of the game from the start/at any time if enabled. But another, more subtle, thing that DQ XI does to ensure no-one gets left behind is giving the player freedom for 99%, if not all, of the game. Let me explain.
I’m sure we’ve all hit walls in games where we get stuck, the boss is simply too hard, our party are under-levelled, poorly equipped, we weren’t prepared to face a challenge and our last save was x amount of time ago. With no other choice, we’re forced to lose progress to train harder and make push any further. This will not happen in Dragon Quest XI, I can guarantee it. You may find a boss you can’t beat, absolutely (although in all honesty this will most likely only be late into Act III when the difficulty is amped up and more things become optional than not,) but you will never be in a position where you can’t just load to right before the fight, go away and prepare to return stronger.
At one point in Act II, there is a part where you need to defend an area from a large-scale attack. “Oh shit.” I thought, “This is where I may well meet my first roadblock. I hope I saved recently just in case I’m too weak for this.” – Arriving at the front line, I saw an NPC with a marker on the mini-map, speaking to him, well it made me laugh honestly. He essentially told me “If the enemies prove too strong, try going into that cave there and honing your skills while we hold them off” … I’m sorry, what? The front lines of this story-locked battle offer a save point and a dungeon specifically to grind in? Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if I was able to rest/heal and go back to the nearest store as well, I couldn’t believe it.
This game was made so that it can be played by everyone. And it absolutely can. I would confidently say that the only thing less-experienced players might struggle with is the final-final boss (and the optional post-game bosses ofc, but assuming they’re not here for those anyway), but the final boss of the game can be significantly weakened in 1 turn using a trick that the game teaches you, urges you to do and makes it impossible to miss, so even that battle I’d wager you can manage.
Just to finish up, the game also has settings to adjust the battle speed, whether the score is symphonic or synthetic, the DQ VIII OST is available as well and every single thing I’ve mentioned here can be adjusted at any time, without consequence. (Besides enabling the Draconian Quest modifiers if they’re all disabled at the start)
With all that said, let’s talk about the game itself:
WHAT IS DRAGON QUEST XI S: ECHOES OF AN ELUSIVE AGE?
Dragon Quest XI – as I’m sure you know by now – is a grand open world JRPG adventure, following our Hero in his journey from the small town of Cobblestone as he learns of and fulfils his destiny as the Luminary of Legend. It’s a tale as old as time, and the heads up I gave at the start about common tropes is because, at its very core, the A-plot of the game is somewhat… generic. But with a world this rich of diverse locations, captivating characters and a plethora of really good B-plots and mini-arcs, the main story doesn’t need to be anything else. It’s a vessel. It’s what drives us on our way through the game and provides us all the experiences along the way. That’s not to say that the A-plot doesn’t have its own surprises, some of the biggest story beats left me utterly bewildered. But if you were to summarise it to its most basic form; it’s good guy goes to stop bad guy, init.
So what sets it apart from every other JRPG with this cliché, “fabled hero” premise?
THE PACING.
The pacing of this game, particularly in Act I, is superb. Everything that happens does so at a reasonable scale, every new development that sounds like it may drag proves that expectation wrong, I can’t think of a single moment in Act I where a setting or arc overstayed its welcome. Now this doesn’t mean that it’s rushed either. There are absolutely a couple parts where the task at hand feels like it should have taken longer than it does, or where something that’s needed is just conveniently discovered, but honestly in a game that runs most players around 100 hours or more I really struggle to criticise there being a handful of these moments across all 3 Acts. There are times in Act II or III where an arc or dungeon runs on a little longer than it maybe should, but with these the option to run by enemies and get through them more quickly is available to you anyway (in 3D) so again this is more a comment than a complaint.
THE COMBAT.
The combat system in DQ XI, while simple, is one of the most fun systems I’ve played in a standard turn-based RPG to date. It’s hard to put into words why exactly it feels so good, but the things I think that warrant the most attention are the control you have over the party and just how dynamic everything is (again, in 3D. 2D battles lose a lot of this flare and in my opinion are vastly inferior – but for those who long for the days of old, have at it!) The combat in DQ XI see the party and enemies facing off in a battlefield fitting to the location it was initiated, a ring surrounding them on the ground within which the controlled member can move freely or exit the ring to attempt an escape.
The party can be controlled using either by direct commands or via ‘tactics’, anyone familiar with turn-based combat is surely familiar with these, and the behaviour of any member on the team can be set to anything from the list independently – including the Hero. When playing in 3D, the turns are visually demonstrated in real-time, in that if your party attacks 1 thru 4, you will select and perform the action for each member in that order. If the turn order is Hero > Enemy > Party Member 3 > PM 2 > Enemy > PM 4, you will select the action for each party member on their turn, making it possible to react to the battle as it happens.
(In 2D mode, the actions are all selected at the start of the round, and play out as selected using the turn order, which is obviously harder as it removes this reactive option)
Each party member comes with a variety of skills enabling them to perform actions and wield different weapons to suit, and the beauty of this is that all your equipment can be changed mid-battle on that person’s turn without consequence. Went into a tough fight without a shield? Pop that on as soon as it’s your turn and it won’t cost you a damn thing. Accessibility once again, you can adjust your party on the fly in real time – want to equip a greatsword to use a certain ability and then swap back to a shield while you buff – you can do that!
The combat, like everything else in this game, gives you the tools to play the game the way that you want to. And guess what, those skill points you spent to unlock abilities and strengthen certain branches in an ally’s skill tree? Yeah, you can reset those at any time for so cheap you won’t even notice. Spent 20 levels kitting out Hero as a sword & shield guy but just found a super strong greatsword – refund those skills and get the greatsword branch of the tree filled out, son! This was so useful in helping me adjust my playstyle to certain areas or enemies, or even just to mix up my playstyle and try new things. I’m telling you man the game is for everyone, make it yours.
I would be remiss to discuss the combat without touching on the Pep Powers at least a little. I’ve mentioned briefly how dynamic the combat is in 3D, every attack has an appropriate animation, the characters leap toward the enemy before swinging and leap back after if you’re standing further away, this offers no tactical advantage, but it looks good y’know? It’s so much more engaging than the 2D alternative where you see a flash or a flutter of sparkles across the screen and the enemy sprites flicker. Pep Powers take this to another level, basically being super-moves that can be used when a party member becomes “pepped up”, a status effect that buffs their stats and unlocks said skills. This effect is typically unlocked when taking damage and is most easily acquired by just blocking for a few rounds and tanking a couple blows at reduced damage.
The Pep Powers themselves function similarly to things in other games, the Showtime! Events in Persona 5 Royal for example, or All Out Attacks from the same franchise. They use 2, 3 or 4 members of the party to come together and perform something spectacular. There are LOADS of these skills, bespoke to different characters and combinations of such. Some require only the user to be pepped up while others require all participants to be, it’s insane how much variety there is. Some of them utilise unlocked skills to put enemies to sleep before whacking them, others form great shields around the party, turn a member to steel before launching them at the enemy like a cannonball (and most importantly for those of you hoping to grind levels) massively boost the exp gained from a battle and change the enemies into metal slimes, the rarest monster that reward insane exp even without the previous boost. These all look superb and there are so many I doubt I’ve even seen half of them. In short, the combat just feels amazing and even after 158 hours I could happily spend another 100 fighting with this system. That said, fighting isn’t the only thing you’ll be doing, maybe you’d prefer to get lost in the world and spend more of your time exploring, so how’s that?
THE WORLD.
The world of Dragon Quest XI is just that, a World. In layman’s terms: it’s fucking massive. To put it more poetically: it succeeds in broadening your horizons consistently for the first 2 acts without at any point feeling overwhelming. You start out in a small village, what I like to dub Tutorial Town, it has just enough to teach you the ropes and familiarise you with the game/backstory without overstaying it’s welcome. The first stretch of your journey is to venture out to a major city, a huge deal for you and those around you at the time. The fact you receive a horse to journey on is a ‘wow moment’ for young Hero, horses aren’t needed to get around in Tutorial Village, just how big is the rest of the world? A horse is not the only means of transport you will acquire throughout this game. I wasn’t expecting any of what I got, and each time new places opened up to me I felt a similar sense of awe as in those early moments. “I can go where!?” In hindsight my JRPG knowledge should have prepared me for this, but that’s just how immersed I became in my travels. Hero is – unfortunately – a silent protagonist, but the game often makes up for this by succeeding in making you, the player, fill his shoes. More on this later.
Every new location you explore in Dragon Quest XI feels different to the last. Every town or city has a unique design and architecture, inspired by places in our own world and beautifully crafted and populated just enough to feel alive. There are stalls being tended, children playing hide and seek, men standing on piers contemplating their wasted potential. You’re there, man. You’re in Erdrea, it’s hard not to take it all in. Excitedly searching every house for chests, “reading” the books dotted around to unlock new recipes, searching wardrobes for items or mysterious Mini Medals, what are they for and why do they seem to be locked in so many bedrooms? You’ll find out. Dragon Quest does a fantastic job of creating a world in which the story is occurring, as opposed to creating a world to accommodate the story. The locations are all significant and have their own arcs, but they don’t feel as though they are only there so that the plot can happen, rather the plot is happening around/to them. All this talk of plot and arcs brings me nicely to the next important topic.
THE STORY.
I mentioned earlier that the A-plot in this game, when boiled to bare bones, is somewhat generic. And it is. But the story told throughout, and the smaller stories encountered along the way are what really keep this game interesting (besides the characters of course, but we’ll get to that.)
Every location across Erdrea has its own conflict, each acting as an arc that must be completed before it is possible to proceed to the next. While not all stellar, they all do exactly what they need to in terms of introducing new characters or allies and establishing the “vibe” of the new area and its enemies. The majority of them have ties to party members, giving them a more personal feel, and even those that don’t are able to tell deeply personal stories of characters we barely know and that have no relation to the A-plot, resulting in every step of this long journey feeling fresh and worth caring about. I won’t go into too much detail on this for obvious reasons, but some examples include a prince who has been faking his capabilities, a village using a mural to attract tourists that has a dark turn, and an openly (albeit it isn’t explicitly stated) gay man returning to his hometown and facing someone from his childhood, whom he has been avoiding due to his sexuality. Like I said, this world is real, and so are the people in it.
THE CHARACTERS.
You can’t have a great game without great characters. If a game expects you to spend dozens of hours with its cast, then it’s only fair that you expect said cast to be enjoyable to be around. Given that Dragon Quest follows a typical party structure, how exactly does it make that interesting? Well.
The stand-out in the cast by far is Sylvando, who takes the role of Performer. This court jester-esque circus veteran has enough charm and personality for the whole group. He’s flamboyant, he’s talented, strong, emotional, empathetic, funny and his sense of justice is admirable to say the least. DQ XI would not be the same without him and he’s got two – yes, two - of the most interesting arcs within the game, each wildly different from the other. (Also him being gay isn’t played for laughs and he’s well respected. He is not a caricature.)
The rest of the cast are similarly unique with their own personalities shining through in all the right ways. Veronica is my personal favourite, a bratty know-it-all who’s got more sass than 2B has ass and will make sure everyone you meet knows it. The others vary between being a little close to cliché and really interesting, if only for certain arcs, but I won’t get into those because a lot of what makes these people who they are is related to their arcs and stories. There it is again, right? The characters are real, they’re made of their experiences with the world.
And it doesn’t stop there either, every city or town has its named side characters, even side quests can pump a heavy dose of personality and backstory into a random nobody who just wants you to help them find their son or fix their marriage. There is even a whole-ass town where everyone talks in haiku for…some reason. There are inns being run by kids while their parents are sick, why? I don’t know but I remember it don’t I? It’s the little things.
The characters – bar those who serve only to populate the towns of course – are all, people… Except for Hero, sadly. Almost every step this game suffers from the usual “another party member has announced what to do” or has someone look at you and say “Hm? You’re thinking of doing this, aren’t you?” … Hero works as a great self-insert for the exploration elements of this game, but this whole silent protagonist thing is dated. It’s not the end of the world, I wouldn’t say that it ruins anything per se, but it’s the weakest part of the writing by far, and with characters like Sylv and Veronica by his side it sticks out like a sore thumb.
THE THREE ACT STRUCTURE.
Initially, I had planned to structure this review in the same way as the game, getting the main points out of the way first, and then covering each act for what it is separately without giving away why or how they’re so different. But I’ve talked enough, by this point you’re either sold and are willing to give DQ XI a try, or you hate JRPGs and stopped reading 3,000 words ago – I won’t judge.
Instead, I’d like to summarise how I felt about the Acts briefly and give my thoughts on why I think all three hold up:
This will have the most spoiler-y content, but will still be as vague as humanly possible so that at worst the ‘cliché’ story beats may become apparent
ACT I – The first act is very much an adventure; discovering new places, meeting new people, and learning about what exactly the Luminary of Legend is and what you’re going to need to do. Banish a Dark power to maintain or restore light? Got it. Step 1 is getting to Yggdrasil, lesgo. You reach it, stuff happens, that’s Act I.
ACT II – The second act is also an adventure of sorts but is less about finding the world and more about finding the inner strength of the party. Until now they’d all known the legend and wanted to help, but how exactly will they become what is required to complete such a feat? Act II is the training arc, if you will, but it goes deeper than just punching some slimes and telling yourself you can do this. It’s the slowest of the Acts, but it’s necessary.
ACT III – The final act is the one in which you’ll be doing the most free-roaming, optional quests and bosses and ultimately ‘grinding’ for that super boss at the end. In a way, the world is almost different now, so returning to locations rewards you with new mini-arcs to be done, generally related to the ones before it but met in a new light (poetic, right?) Initially I wasn’t the biggest fan of what this Act serves to do, but by the end I am wholly satisfied by the experience all the same.
Of the three, Act I was my favourite in terms of pacing and discovery, Act II was my favourite in terms of story and characters, and Act III was my favourite in terms of freedom and gameplay. The world is yours to play with, go ham!
THE VERDICT.
Dragon Quest XI is a game like no other. When looked at as a complete package, everything together as one, you can both see and feel the ungodly amount of thought and care than went into creating it. It’s polished beyond belief and literally everything it does just works. As intended. As described.
If you’ve read all this and you still aren’t sure if the game is for you – although honestly, how? lmao - the best thing I can suggest is trying it for yourself because guess what? The game has a free demo on Switch and Playstation, and I believe is available on Gamepass. Just go play it!
I put this title off for years because I couldn’t get over how ridiculous Toriyama’s art style looked to me. I was never into DBZ and the fact half the villagers are just blobs with eyes physically put me off. I persevered and would now go so far as to call this game beautiful. The cutscenes especially are gorgeous. Trust me whatever is putting you off just give it a try. It’s free!
I don’t know if I’ll ever get an experience like this again. I don’t speak lightly when I say that this is far and away one of the best JRPGs I’ve ever played. No other game has had me excitedly spam “!!!! The game has [this]!!” or “omg you can do [that]!?” so many times to my girlfriend while playing. Every gripe I take with JRPGs is acknowledged and addressed – with the sole exception being the silent protagonist. It’s amazing. The only reason this game only made #4 in my Top Rated is because FF7R is in a league of its own; with characters, writing and a combat system that are unrivalled to me personally. And because Persona has had such an impossible impact on me with its music, charm, characters, and calendar system that I couldn’t rightfully consider DQ XI to be “more significant” to me personally. But as a game? Oh it’s #2 baby, dare I say it could take #1 if we look at it strictly from a mechanical level.
If you’re a fan of JRPGs, just play it, seriously. You read all this you could’ve been out of Tutorial Village by name, socks blown off already!
And with all that said, thank you for reading this. I hope you got something out of it and look forward to being called a Jade simp in the comments 😊
MISC COMMENTS AND HONOURABLE MENTIONS.
That’s right bitches, I have even more to say!
I’ve rambled enough so I’ll make this more of a list:
- Some armour changes your appearance, appearance can be set without equipping the matching armour, pog.
- The music could definitely afford to be better. I’ve seen complaints that it’s “bad” and idk that I’d go that far but it could use some more unique tracks and more than one combat theme
- The voice acting is great, love me some British and Scottish accents as always. There are some scenes with “singing” that aren’t dubbed which is weird but eh, drop in the pond.
- I experienced no glitches or bugs in my 158 hours of playtime.
- The 2D Tickington side quests are mostly short and pretty easy. They’re related to the previous games and while I haven’t played those to recognise places/people I still enjoyed doing them.
- The platinum requirements for this are not nearly as daunting as they appear, and the final costume for Jade can be cheesed using 2D level select instead of beating the ultra mega fuck-you secret post-game boss.
- That boss can suck my dick.
- Jade is hot.
I love you all thank you for coming to my TED Talk, stay safe and have fun! I’ll see you at the Dragon Quest XII premiere <3
2020
I don't think I'm going to forget this game for a very long time. If at all.
As someone who's never really played CRPGs this game was barely on my radar right up to its release. I kept forgetting what it was and innately rejecting it as something that would be too hard to get into and demand so much time that I'd never get around to finishing it. I don't remember exactly what it was that finally sold me on trying it, but once my interest was piqued I was thoroughly "in" - (honestly, might've been an interview with the Larian head in the FPS Podcast)
I want to keep this one "short" so I won't be going into much detail, but this game is insane. The fact every conversation is mocapped adds so much to the immersion, and the writing and performances are thoroughly excellent to boot. The world designs and mechanics allow for heaps of creative freedom, so much so that the previous "obvious" GOTY contender for this year has (imo) been given a run for its money. Tears of the Kingdom looked to have it on lock, in large part due to it's player freedom... I can't believe Larian came along in the same year to one-up them in this regard, but perhaps the coveted title isn't as in-the-bag as once thought. [Especially considering the slew of flaws TOTK brought with it from BOTW... hell I still haven't finished it lol]
Anyway! I adore this game, it's been forever since I got so lost that 12-15 hours could pass without me noticing, and that's what this game has been giving me almost every day for around a month now. I'm already excited to replay it and take different paths because - while I did follow every quest as far as I could without committing to conflicting ones - I know damn well there are countless hours of content, encounters and characters that I didn't see. I'm also eager to play with a controller and see how different the third person perspective is.
To include a gripe, the biggest downside of the game is either the combat being pretty brutal at times if you're not prepared or familiar with strategies that can be game-changing (protip: you can heal multiple people with splashed potions, and if you stand on fire all you have to do is drop the pot, it's free!) In spite of this, the combat was still one of my favourite parts because there's always so much you can do and once you find your method, it's amazing.
Second point: Silent protagonist.. The narrator is amazing and I love her, and the custom MC's voicelines for certain things are a nice touch, but there are some conversations that feel kinda weird having your response just be clicking the line without audio, or watching yourself pull a face instead of saying anything. Small issue that I got used to quickly but yeah, kinda weird. I wonder if playing as the Legacy characters negates this 🤔
That's it! I've rambled enough, if you're interested please give this game a shot, yes it's long but the majority of it is also optional and you could always do things the quick and easy way if you prefer. If you can't tell this is my current GOTY, which is insane because I'll have gotten a Final Fantasy, a Resident Evil and Alan Wake 2 this year (jury's still out on that last one 👀)
Hope you've all been well, quick shoutout to Paranormasight while I'm here. Idk if I'll bother reviewing but play it blind, it's really good! Have a good September folks, next review will be God knows what. I'm onto Sea of Stars and Starfield next. Thanks for reading!😌
P.S. Quick addendum I've heard people say Act 3 is bloated but I think it's just more dense and has a lot of quest conclusions and bigger encounters and all that. Also heard people say the ending is sudden but they must've gotten less satisfying ones because mine felt very well paced. The only things it didn't immediately address either aren't important or could easily be DLC follow-ups.
As someone who's never really played CRPGs this game was barely on my radar right up to its release. I kept forgetting what it was and innately rejecting it as something that would be too hard to get into and demand so much time that I'd never get around to finishing it. I don't remember exactly what it was that finally sold me on trying it, but once my interest was piqued I was thoroughly "in" - (honestly, might've been an interview with the Larian head in the FPS Podcast)
I want to keep this one "short" so I won't be going into much detail, but this game is insane. The fact every conversation is mocapped adds so much to the immersion, and the writing and performances are thoroughly excellent to boot. The world designs and mechanics allow for heaps of creative freedom, so much so that the previous "obvious" GOTY contender for this year has (imo) been given a run for its money. Tears of the Kingdom looked to have it on lock, in large part due to it's player freedom... I can't believe Larian came along in the same year to one-up them in this regard, but perhaps the coveted title isn't as in-the-bag as once thought. [Especially considering the slew of flaws TOTK brought with it from BOTW... hell I still haven't finished it lol]
Anyway! I adore this game, it's been forever since I got so lost that 12-15 hours could pass without me noticing, and that's what this game has been giving me almost every day for around a month now. I'm already excited to replay it and take different paths because - while I did follow every quest as far as I could without committing to conflicting ones - I know damn well there are countless hours of content, encounters and characters that I didn't see. I'm also eager to play with a controller and see how different the third person perspective is.
To include a gripe, the biggest downside of the game is either the combat being pretty brutal at times if you're not prepared or familiar with strategies that can be game-changing (protip: you can heal multiple people with splashed potions, and if you stand on fire all you have to do is drop the pot, it's free!) In spite of this, the combat was still one of my favourite parts because there's always so much you can do and once you find your method, it's amazing.
Second point: Silent protagonist.. The narrator is amazing and I love her, and the custom MC's voicelines for certain things are a nice touch, but there are some conversations that feel kinda weird having your response just be clicking the line without audio, or watching yourself pull a face instead of saying anything. Small issue that I got used to quickly but yeah, kinda weird. I wonder if playing as the Legacy characters negates this 🤔
That's it! I've rambled enough, if you're interested please give this game a shot, yes it's long but the majority of it is also optional and you could always do things the quick and easy way if you prefer. If you can't tell this is my current GOTY, which is insane because I'll have gotten a Final Fantasy, a Resident Evil and Alan Wake 2 this year (jury's still out on that last one 👀)
Hope you've all been well, quick shoutout to Paranormasight while I'm here. Idk if I'll bother reviewing but play it blind, it's really good! Have a good September folks, next review will be God knows what. I'm onto Sea of Stars and Starfield next. Thanks for reading!😌
P.S. Quick addendum I've heard people say Act 3 is bloated but I think it's just more dense and has a lot of quest conclusions and bigger encounters and all that. Also heard people say the ending is sudden but they must've gotten less satisfying ones because mine felt very well paced. The only things it didn't immediately address either aren't important or could easily be DLC follow-ups.
2023
I completed this game a month ago so my review points are a little buried in my memory, but what hasn't been buried is how much I adored playing through it. The visuals in Octopath are gorgeous, and the box art for this being so nice honestly had more impact on my interest in it than I care to admit, but what I didn't expect was for the music to surpass it.
The OST for this game has got to be one of my favourites, ever. Such an amazing number of tracks with a huge range of tones and styles, all of them a joy to listen to. It's hard to overstate how pretty some of the songs are, and I think if my bottom-tier memory remembers only one thing about Octopath Traveler II, I'd like it to be that.
... However, it won't be that, because this game made the eye-watering decision to lock it's platinum trophy behind it post-game megaboss. Now I love JRPGs, but I'll be the first to admit that I'm not very good at them. I get by for sure, but any time I look up a strat or hear how someone else is running their party I realise that mine is using maybe 15% of it's full potential. This game does not allow you to buy-back equipment that you sell, so when my dumbass sold a weapon that turned out to be essential in just about every megaboss build I found online.. 🥹
It took me around 100 hours to beat the story, maybe 20 to cleanup everything else for the platinum and (I can't be certain because reloading my save meant the time wasn't tracked) I'm certain I spent no less than 20 hours grinding and throwing myself at this boss for the final trophy. Honestly it was probably closer to 40.
10 days worth of on-off grinding/attempts, sometimes for hours, sometimes just 2-4 tries. At one point I was so discouraged and quite frankly broken that I uninstalled the game to spare myself the pain of failure, only to redownload it a few days later with hopes of beating it out of spite.
I have seen people beat this boss with ease over 30 levels lower than my party were (I grinded from 50-60 range to 80-90 just for this) and despite having almost exactly the same gear (aside from stuff I'd sold) I wasn't doing nearly as much damage as they were 🥹 (I had also spammed all my stat nuts in inopportune ways without realising bc I am ranked #1 worst jrpg player)
Anyway all this to say, I finally did it. I don't know how, the numbers fell in my favour and by some miracle I actually beat it, and that's rad 😭
This "review" is unhinged but I should also say that I love the characters and the combat system was immensely fun to use the whole time, really enjoyed it. Biggest gripe with the game would be the difficulty spike but I expect that's a skill issue. Also the way the travelers meet is kinda goofy but I really don't think that affected my enjoyment at all.
Overall I would definitely recommend this to anyone even remotely interested, it's a fantastic time and a really refreshing structure in how the story was told (for me, I haven't played 1 or Live A Live) -- Just maybe don't worry about the platinum or play on Switch (which I might have to for the first game 🥹)
Thanks for reading! Hope everyone's having a good mid-year, Final Fantasy XVI is around the corner and with this being my 124th platinum I'm hoping that one isn't quite so painful to make as my milestone 125! 😌
P.S. I just remembered there was a line near the end of Temenos' story that went so fucking hard, it was like "[Your Gods] created this world, and in their folly saw fit to taint it with humans" and that's so fkn raw😩
The OST for this game has got to be one of my favourites, ever. Such an amazing number of tracks with a huge range of tones and styles, all of them a joy to listen to. It's hard to overstate how pretty some of the songs are, and I think if my bottom-tier memory remembers only one thing about Octopath Traveler II, I'd like it to be that.
... However, it won't be that, because this game made the eye-watering decision to lock it's platinum trophy behind it post-game megaboss. Now I love JRPGs, but I'll be the first to admit that I'm not very good at them. I get by for sure, but any time I look up a strat or hear how someone else is running their party I realise that mine is using maybe 15% of it's full potential. This game does not allow you to buy-back equipment that you sell, so when my dumbass sold a weapon that turned out to be essential in just about every megaboss build I found online.. 🥹
It took me around 100 hours to beat the story, maybe 20 to cleanup everything else for the platinum and (I can't be certain because reloading my save meant the time wasn't tracked) I'm certain I spent no less than 20 hours grinding and throwing myself at this boss for the final trophy. Honestly it was probably closer to 40.
10 days worth of on-off grinding/attempts, sometimes for hours, sometimes just 2-4 tries. At one point I was so discouraged and quite frankly broken that I uninstalled the game to spare myself the pain of failure, only to redownload it a few days later with hopes of beating it out of spite.
I have seen people beat this boss with ease over 30 levels lower than my party were (I grinded from 50-60 range to 80-90 just for this) and despite having almost exactly the same gear (aside from stuff I'd sold) I wasn't doing nearly as much damage as they were 🥹 (I had also spammed all my stat nuts in inopportune ways without realising bc I am ranked #1 worst jrpg player)
Anyway all this to say, I finally did it. I don't know how, the numbers fell in my favour and by some miracle I actually beat it, and that's rad 😭
This "review" is unhinged but I should also say that I love the characters and the combat system was immensely fun to use the whole time, really enjoyed it. Biggest gripe with the game would be the difficulty spike but I expect that's a skill issue. Also the way the travelers meet is kinda goofy but I really don't think that affected my enjoyment at all.
Overall I would definitely recommend this to anyone even remotely interested, it's a fantastic time and a really refreshing structure in how the story was told (for me, I haven't played 1 or Live A Live) -- Just maybe don't worry about the platinum or play on Switch (which I might have to for the first game 🥹)
Thanks for reading! Hope everyone's having a good mid-year, Final Fantasy XVI is around the corner and with this being my 124th platinum I'm hoping that one isn't quite so painful to make as my milestone 125! 😌
P.S. I just remembered there was a line near the end of Temenos' story that went so fucking hard, it was like "[Your Gods] created this world, and in their folly saw fit to taint it with humans" and that's so fkn raw😩
2022
When I saw that Ragnarok was nominated for just about everything at the Game Awards I sorta rolled my eyes and thought "pfsh, of course it is". Now that I've completed it myself... Yeah, of course it is.
This game isn't perfect by any stretch, the combat gets a bit repetitive, there are too many optional bosses/trials/collectible whatnots, and while I've seen a lot of people praise it for being a duology instead of dragging out to a trilogy (which I agree with 100%), it still ironically drags its own runtime out with side content just a bit more than it needs to in my opinion. There's already so much game, I don't need you to ask me to travel all 9 realms looking for flowers/lizards/stags/whatever else at multiple stages throughout the game as an excuse to go back to areas I've spent 5 hours in already. I appreciate that I can access new areas within the realms now and that's great, but there's no need for an entire tab of "1 of 15" and "4 of 10" ...etc when the game is rich with fantastic content and incentive to explore without it.
That aside, the characters and the story are superb, absolutely top marks. People call this a movie game as a negative a lot, which I really don't understand because it's not a movie game in that it's lacking in game and instead just shows you the story.. It's a movie game because it feels like you're playing a movie, the direction, the tension, the whole thing is a journey that you're being taken on, yes, but that you're still in control of just as much as any other game. If the credits role and I feel like I've just finished watching The Lord of the Rings or some shit, how is that a bad thing??? I beat monsters to a pulp for 40 hours and felt fulfilled at the end, like what happened, mattered - damn what a terrible game ( -_・)?
God of War Ragnarok improves upon everything that it's predecessor does, and yeah it shares some of the same flaws but for what it's worth, I think it's blatantly unreasonable to expect them to have made a better sequel than this. Bravo, Santa Monica Studio.
This game isn't perfect by any stretch, the combat gets a bit repetitive, there are too many optional bosses/trials/collectible whatnots, and while I've seen a lot of people praise it for being a duology instead of dragging out to a trilogy (which I agree with 100%), it still ironically drags its own runtime out with side content just a bit more than it needs to in my opinion. There's already so much game, I don't need you to ask me to travel all 9 realms looking for flowers/lizards/stags/whatever else at multiple stages throughout the game as an excuse to go back to areas I've spent 5 hours in already. I appreciate that I can access new areas within the realms now and that's great, but there's no need for an entire tab of "1 of 15" and "4 of 10" ...etc when the game is rich with fantastic content and incentive to explore without it.
That aside, the characters and the story are superb, absolutely top marks. People call this a movie game as a negative a lot, which I really don't understand because it's not a movie game in that it's lacking in game and instead just shows you the story.. It's a movie game because it feels like you're playing a movie, the direction, the tension, the whole thing is a journey that you're being taken on, yes, but that you're still in control of just as much as any other game. If the credits role and I feel like I've just finished watching The Lord of the Rings or some shit, how is that a bad thing??? I beat monsters to a pulp for 40 hours and felt fulfilled at the end, like what happened, mattered - damn what a terrible game ( -_・)?
God of War Ragnarok improves upon everything that it's predecessor does, and yeah it shares some of the same flaws but for what it's worth, I think it's blatantly unreasonable to expect them to have made a better sequel than this. Bravo, Santa Monica Studio.
2021
13 years ago, Alan Wake became my favourite game of all time. Something about this game resonated with little 13 year old Jake, and much like my crush on Ramona Flowers, it's nice to know this adoration has survived through my teens and well into my adulthood.
Back then, I couldn't properly explain why I loved this game so much, and honestly I'm not even sure I can now. The closing sentence has stuck with me for half my life at this point, and my dumbass still doesn't even fully comprehend what it means 😌
Replaying this for the first time in over a decade and using the very same collectible guide as I did back on my Xbox 360 was such a great nostalgia trip, I didn't mind the jank and rust that was still ever-present from the original release.
The last time I went for a 100% run was at my old bff's house, where I played through the entire game in one long, uninterrupted sitting. A playthrough that I'm certain was my 2nd that weekend alone, I was obsessed.
This isn't much of a review I realise but my appreciation of this game is on a deeper level than it's surface. The combat may be simple and sorta clunky but I've always really liked the unique approach of using light to basically break shields. The characters are great, a lot of them are a little one-note or weird but considering the consistent Twin Peaks vibe the game gives off, everything feels much more deliberately uncanny than lazy or amateurly written. I am of course speaking with all the bias on earth, but it's my review init 😌
The core premise with the writer and the manuscript pages you find and how everything ties together is really cool too I think. I just think it's neat :)
Hoping and praying that Alan Wake II lives up to the first, I remember liking the AWE DLC for Control so I'm confident that whatever my boy Sam has cooking will be worth the time. Maybe my review of that game will actually be a review, who knows :p
Back then, I couldn't properly explain why I loved this game so much, and honestly I'm not even sure I can now. The closing sentence has stuck with me for half my life at this point, and my dumbass still doesn't even fully comprehend what it means 😌
Replaying this for the first time in over a decade and using the very same collectible guide as I did back on my Xbox 360 was such a great nostalgia trip, I didn't mind the jank and rust that was still ever-present from the original release.
The last time I went for a 100% run was at my old bff's house, where I played through the entire game in one long, uninterrupted sitting. A playthrough that I'm certain was my 2nd that weekend alone, I was obsessed.
This isn't much of a review I realise but my appreciation of this game is on a deeper level than it's surface. The combat may be simple and sorta clunky but I've always really liked the unique approach of using light to basically break shields. The characters are great, a lot of them are a little one-note or weird but considering the consistent Twin Peaks vibe the game gives off, everything feels much more deliberately uncanny than lazy or amateurly written. I am of course speaking with all the bias on earth, but it's my review init 😌
The core premise with the writer and the manuscript pages you find and how everything ties together is really cool too I think. I just think it's neat :)
Hoping and praying that Alan Wake II lives up to the first, I remember liking the AWE DLC for Control so I'm confident that whatever my boy Sam has cooking will be worth the time. Maybe my review of that game will actually be a review, who knows :p
2016
When I started playing Abzu, I was eeling a little blue, and figured "I cod sea what it's pike swimming with the fishes. Not doing anyfin else right now." And so I dove fin to the waters.
Being honest, it took a whale for me to get finto, but the only fishue was that I was dragging my tail. The gill robot chums were neat, and all the locations and fish were reel pretty. Soaking in the Seanery, going through the moceans, it was nice. (However there was one seane that nearly anchored me it was so unnecessary.)
Overall, it's sardinely a deep experience, but you only get trout of it what you put fin. Well worth a couple of squid.
Being honest, it took a whale for me to get finto, but the only fishue was that I was dragging my tail. The gill robot chums were neat, and all the locations and fish were reel pretty. Soaking in the Seanery, going through the moceans, it was nice. (However there was one seane that nearly anchored me it was so unnecessary.)
Overall, it's sardinely a deep experience, but you only get trout of it what you put fin. Well worth a couple of squid.
2019
How 'bout we make a sidescrolling samurai Hotline Miami, with a clearer and interesting plot, complete with dialogue options, charm and an in-game explanation for its mechanics? Yes, that should work.
Also my gf bought it for me so brownie points up the walls :p
Also my gf bought it for me so brownie points up the walls :p
This game is nothing short of phenomenal. It became my favourite game of all time before I'd played the original, and having replayed it again since it's almost even more powerful.
I have nothing but pure love for this title. I can't decide if I'm more excited to relive the highs of what's to come or more terrified of having to relive the lows.
Even as I write this I'm listening to the soundtrack play over the credits, watching a compilation of scenes from the game and I just feel... lucky. It feels so silly to say but holy shit man. I'm speechless.
Video Games are far and away the best form of digital media when it comes to immersive world-building and getting us to care for the characters in the story. I only hope everyone can find a game they adore as much as I do this one.
I have nothing but pure love for this title. I can't decide if I'm more excited to relive the highs of what's to come or more terrified of having to relive the lows.
Even as I write this I'm listening to the soundtrack play over the credits, watching a compilation of scenes from the game and I just feel... lucky. It feels so silly to say but holy shit man. I'm speechless.
Video Games are far and away the best form of digital media when it comes to immersive world-building and getting us to care for the characters in the story. I only hope everyone can find a game they adore as much as I do this one.
2022
Everybody wants to be a cat~
This is a couple days late but it feels wrong not giving this at least something despite my internal love for it, so here's a "brief" gathering of what thoughts I have. (it was not brief, oop!)
Unfortunately, I really struggle to focus on VNs for long periods, and with these games being pretty lengthy with huge chunks of reading, the duology ended up taking me around 15 months to finish... Which as you can imagine means that thanks to my awful memory, I really don't remember all that many specifics, and therefore only the positives are left.
As such, I've simply forgotten about any gripes I took with either game, any weak or flawed case has been condensed so much that I can't recall anything negative to say, and what I'm left with is a heavily biased adoration for these games based on what I do remember: The characters.
(... and the music)
The cast of the Great Ace Attorney Chronicles is nothing short of delightful. One of the better parts of playing this in chunks with such long breaks was that each time a character came back on screen I was beaming with joy. Those with their own themes would be especially welcome, making every time I picked the game back up feel special, like reuniting with an old friend.
I can say undoubtedly that some of the witnesses in the series bothered me, be it for their designs or disgusting animations, but everyone I remember strongly, I remember fondly, and that's pretty awesome. Susato is my precious bean, of whom I will hear no criticism whatsoever. Ryunosuke is an excellent protagonist - I haven't played any of the older Ace games but I'd be surprised if old fans thought he didn't fit the bill nicely, am I wrong? - Herlock Sholmes was a hugely pleasant surprise, Iris, Gina, Gregsy, TOBY! I love them all honestly. And of course, pray forgive the discourtesy of leaving Barok Van Zieks until last, a prosecutor so good that I'm genuinely a little worried the ones from earlier in the franchise won't live up to his impeccable demeanor.
Aside from the characters, the music in these games slaps, hard. Every song is a banger and I must've spent at least 90% of my playtime bopping or humming along while I read. I also got to enjoy the music for a lot longer on account of me getting distracted and having the game serenade me while I do shit on my other screen, making this game one of few that truly benefitted from me being really bad at playing it
As for the story, there are huge chunks of my memory missing but from what's covered in 2 and what 2 recounts of 1, I really like what they did. The whole foreign student practicing law in Britain (my homeland 😌) angle fit perfectly into the overarching plot, as well as making for some really interesting relationships and scenarios between the characters, even before establishing any personal history that may have played a role.
Hell even the journey itself plays a role! When I started I had basically no idea how Ace games worked, so there were multiple times where I felt like Leo DiCaprio in that meme, snapping my fingers at the screen thinking "No way! The thing!"-- It was just really fun to play, idk how else to say it. Nothing stuck out to me as feeling forced or shoehorned in, (but ofc take that with a grain of salt bc I played it over 15 months so) it just worked, and I think that's neat :)
Overall, while my memory is foggy as hell, I am absolutely certain that I adored these games. Resolve served as both a step up from the first game as well as building on it's story and cases for what I found to be a satisfying conclusion. Maybe the very very end wrapped up a little quickly but idk, the actual ending of the game was so long already idk that I would've even wanted to spend longer getting the specifics of the outcome, so it's forgiven.
If you like the Ace Attorney games then you'd be a fool not to try these two. I believe the cases may be longer but there is so much to each of them between the trials and investigation that I don't think that's a bad thing at all. Capcom have been killing it in recent years and I'm really hoping they plan to port/remaster 4-6 of Phoenix's games as well, at least before I beat 1-3.
That's about all I have to say, leave it to me to write walls of text just to say "character and music good :)" but y'all know what you're in for by now :p
Much appreciated to anyone still reading these, regular amount of thanks to those who just like the review or gloss over a few sentences 🙏 Next review is looking likely to be Lost in Play, possibly Like a Dragon: Ishin! after, as I need to beat both before Resident Evil 4 drops. Stay tuned.
Have a great weekend!
Unfortunately, I really struggle to focus on VNs for long periods, and with these games being pretty lengthy with huge chunks of reading, the duology ended up taking me around 15 months to finish... Which as you can imagine means that thanks to my awful memory, I really don't remember all that many specifics, and therefore only the positives are left.
As such, I've simply forgotten about any gripes I took with either game, any weak or flawed case has been condensed so much that I can't recall anything negative to say, and what I'm left with is a heavily biased adoration for these games based on what I do remember: The characters.
(... and the music)
The cast of the Great Ace Attorney Chronicles is nothing short of delightful. One of the better parts of playing this in chunks with such long breaks was that each time a character came back on screen I was beaming with joy. Those with their own themes would be especially welcome, making every time I picked the game back up feel special, like reuniting with an old friend.
I can say undoubtedly that some of the witnesses in the series bothered me, be it for their designs or disgusting animations, but everyone I remember strongly, I remember fondly, and that's pretty awesome. Susato is my precious bean, of whom I will hear no criticism whatsoever. Ryunosuke is an excellent protagonist - I haven't played any of the older Ace games but I'd be surprised if old fans thought he didn't fit the bill nicely, am I wrong? - Herlock Sholmes was a hugely pleasant surprise, Iris, Gina, Gregsy, TOBY! I love them all honestly. And of course, pray forgive the discourtesy of leaving Barok Van Zieks until last, a prosecutor so good that I'm genuinely a little worried the ones from earlier in the franchise won't live up to his impeccable demeanor.
Aside from the characters, the music in these games slaps, hard. Every song is a banger and I must've spent at least 90% of my playtime bopping or humming along while I read. I also got to enjoy the music for a lot longer on account of me getting distracted and having the game serenade me while I do shit on my other screen, making this game one of few that truly benefitted from me being really bad at playing it
As for the story, there are huge chunks of my memory missing but from what's covered in 2 and what 2 recounts of 1, I really like what they did. The whole foreign student practicing law in Britain (my homeland 😌) angle fit perfectly into the overarching plot, as well as making for some really interesting relationships and scenarios between the characters, even before establishing any personal history that may have played a role.
Hell even the journey itself plays a role! When I started I had basically no idea how Ace games worked, so there were multiple times where I felt like Leo DiCaprio in that meme, snapping my fingers at the screen thinking "No way! The thing!"-- It was just really fun to play, idk how else to say it. Nothing stuck out to me as feeling forced or shoehorned in, (but ofc take that with a grain of salt bc I played it over 15 months so) it just worked, and I think that's neat :)
Overall, while my memory is foggy as hell, I am absolutely certain that I adored these games. Resolve served as both a step up from the first game as well as building on it's story and cases for what I found to be a satisfying conclusion. Maybe the very very end wrapped up a little quickly but idk, the actual ending of the game was so long already idk that I would've even wanted to spend longer getting the specifics of the outcome, so it's forgiven.
If you like the Ace Attorney games then you'd be a fool not to try these two. I believe the cases may be longer but there is so much to each of them between the trials and investigation that I don't think that's a bad thing at all. Capcom have been killing it in recent years and I'm really hoping they plan to port/remaster 4-6 of Phoenix's games as well, at least before I beat 1-3.
That's about all I have to say, leave it to me to write walls of text just to say "character and music good :)" but y'all know what you're in for by now :p
Much appreciated to anyone still reading these, regular amount of thanks to those who just like the review or gloss over a few sentences 🙏 Next review is looking likely to be Lost in Play, possibly Like a Dragon: Ishin! after, as I need to beat both before Resident Evil 4 drops. Stay tuned.
Have a great weekend!
-Beat the Super Secret Mega Ultra 'Fuck-You' Post-Game boss after around half a dozen attempts spanning a few hours and about a million revives-
Veronica: "Easy Peasy."
Veronica: "Easy Peasy."
2023
I love how every chapter in this game is "okay we need to do x" and then you get there and the ship is like "sorry nah you need to fix y first" so then you go to fix y but when you get there something is broken or whatever so you can't, and then Isaac goes "there's only one option left" and everyone else says "bruh if you do that you're gunna die" and he says "just watch me" and then you do it and that's almost every chapter.
It's amazing 😌
It's amazing 😌
2003
🥱I played this through in one painful sitting and it honestly felt like I was being fucked with the whole time.
The game is insultingly dull, the enemies are lacking for the series and the areas are both uninspired and needlessly huge or complex. Every mission has at least one part that either makes no sense or exists only to waste your time, often both. The combat felt exactly the same start to finish and every boss could be killed near instantly by activating Devil Trigger and holding square.
Seriously the reputation is deserved, just skip this entry it adds nothing to the franchise but a sour taste.
The game is insultingly dull, the enemies are lacking for the series and the areas are both uninspired and needlessly huge or complex. Every mission has at least one part that either makes no sense or exists only to waste your time, often both. The combat felt exactly the same start to finish and every boss could be killed near instantly by activating Devil Trigger and holding square.
Seriously the reputation is deserved, just skip this entry it adds nothing to the franchise but a sour taste.