Detractors note that Dragon Quest XI is a JRPG about JRPGs which makes it very much a JRPG, which, yes? The story so fastidiously adheres to readymade fantasy that it is impossible to care about anything other than the joy of here and now, and before long the game's subversion of its own telics: the moment things 'almost come together' is but another opportunity for a tortuous route though colourful idiots and their absurdist affairs that we, the ones tasked with stopping the apocalypse, are very very much invested in. The battle system is fine, the unplatformable body that is occasionally tasked with platforming is confusing, but again the central joy in this is the sense of incoming novelty. Here the sugar rush of videogame fatigue is prevented in that, rather than lightshows, it's all Toriyama's infinite genius for character models and locations.
I am just fucking around on a grand tour of the world, and not enough games work through allowing you to fuck around. Stealth games encourage micro fucking around within clockwork environments, and Rockstar games allow you to fuck around before 'getting to work', but I have never felt as though I am achieving so much fucking around as I have playing Dragon Quest XI. The only two locations I need in fiction — games or otherwise — are beachside towns and ones further inland with hot pools and saunas. This has those AND lakes AND peninsulas with soft pink sand, which I am just like, I am getting emotional about how grateful I am. Like Final Fantasy XII, is this even a game? Games can be many things, and the ones I like or way I play them often bears little similarity to the way games are described by critics and fans. This one like that one is a game of spaces, of watching and exploring the idea of being in spaces, of considering how architecture and light patterns and proximity and colours and settings affect a sense of belonging that's both affirmative and flexible, always open to change.
I keep thinking 'Asterix x Dragon Ball' because I feel like I'm a child, when as a child every drawing or photograph you see is supercharged with a sense of aliveness that you have to rise to and imagine being in, and Dragon Quest XI feels like living inside Dragon Ball all morning only to turn to that stack of Asterix, to read it not movement by movement or word to word but most importantly image by image. It's just profoundly a lot. The way the game returns you to familiar spaces but revokes your fast travel privileges is really moving, as it forces you to pay attention to what's around you and what had become a blur. I'm personally not so big on it, but the game's call to 'break time' after the second half evidently works for others because it sends the game sprawling in so many new directions. Fair enough, it's hard to see things this good end.
I am just fucking around on a grand tour of the world, and not enough games work through allowing you to fuck around. Stealth games encourage micro fucking around within clockwork environments, and Rockstar games allow you to fuck around before 'getting to work', but I have never felt as though I am achieving so much fucking around as I have playing Dragon Quest XI. The only two locations I need in fiction — games or otherwise — are beachside towns and ones further inland with hot pools and saunas. This has those AND lakes AND peninsulas with soft pink sand, which I am just like, I am getting emotional about how grateful I am. Like Final Fantasy XII, is this even a game? Games can be many things, and the ones I like or way I play them often bears little similarity to the way games are described by critics and fans. This one like that one is a game of spaces, of watching and exploring the idea of being in spaces, of considering how architecture and light patterns and proximity and colours and settings affect a sense of belonging that's both affirmative and flexible, always open to change.
I keep thinking 'Asterix x Dragon Ball' because I feel like I'm a child, when as a child every drawing or photograph you see is supercharged with a sense of aliveness that you have to rise to and imagine being in, and Dragon Quest XI feels like living inside Dragon Ball all morning only to turn to that stack of Asterix, to read it not movement by movement or word to word but most importantly image by image. It's just profoundly a lot. The way the game returns you to familiar spaces but revokes your fast travel privileges is really moving, as it forces you to pay attention to what's around you and what had become a blur. I'm personally not so big on it, but the game's call to 'break time' after the second half evidently works for others because it sends the game sprawling in so many new directions. Fair enough, it's hard to see things this good end.