Waited a while for this game. I'd say it was worth the wait. Surreal RPG with horror and deep themes. Faraway Town (real world) segments kind of felt like they dragged a little at times. Combat was really interesting at first, and overall pretty good. However, it felt a little too shallow. Most encounters could be cleared with no trouble using a combination of early game skills. Didn't feel like even bothering with some late game skills I got because the early game skills worked so well. Good music and art.

I've gotten some enjoyment out of this game via playing with friends, but even still the criticisms about this game are warranted. Most of the quests in the game are very boring. They mostly involve you reading a terminal, note, or listening to a holotape and then travelling to a different location and doing the same thing until you get something that resembles a short story. There are so many issues with the core loop of the game, that I'm not even going to bother describing them all. Anything I would have to say has already been said anyway. The game is at its best when discovering interesting locations while wandering, and stumbling across powerful monsters and cryptids.

Dragon Quest is a game about adventure in its purest form. You play as the Luminary, Yggdrasil's chosen one, on a quest to defeat the Lord of Shadows. If that sounds familiar, it's probably because it is. On paper the story sounds exactly like every other RPG you've ever played, but what sets DQXI apart from the others is the characters and overall polish of the gameplay.
DQXI is paced nearly perfectly every step of the way, although my interest in exploring every nook and cranny faltered a little ways into the second half of the main story. All of the supporting characters are colorful and expertly written. The voice performances for each and every character are phenomenal and ooze personality. The character and monster designs of Akira Toriyama look beautiful and animate fluidly. The combat was mostly great, although the second half of the game can be entirely trivialized by a very simple combination of skills.
It also goes without saying that the orchestral score of Dragon Quest is remarkable, with heroic tunes that force you to hum and whistle along as you march along on your adventure.
The game isn't perfect, but I give it a 5 as a testament to its achievement as one of the greater JRPGs of recent years.

The feeling of exploring this game for the first time is unforgettable. I kept a journal to keep track of progress and where NPCs were going and still missed plenty on my first playthrough. The variety in playstyles that this game has is staggering, there are so many more weapons and abilities than past Souls games.
This game isn't without negatives however. Some bosses are just awful to fight, and many of them will show up several times throughout the world. I think this is a game that suffers from being too big. I tried to do 2nd and 3rd playthroughs of the game like I usually do with Souls games, but ended up losing motivation on several different characters because of how spread out everything is. There are tons of catacombs that either lead to an important item or Spirit Ashes, and it's hard to know where all the fluff is in order to avoid it. Despite that, this game is one of a kind for a first, blind playthrough.