Absolutely fantastic collection. I struggle to think of another series so... complete? Everything that happens in each game is directly related to something in another. Every planet, race and character has lore and history. So many major conflicts and key details about things that may be discussed or learned about during a mission are built upon down the line, often tying into the story in ways far more significant than I would've expected. Rarely is something explained without later being shown, it's pretty amazing, and it makes every resolution to a conflict all that more fulfilling.

I could understand the complaint that Shepard serves as this Mary Sue of the universe, somehow becoming involved with just about everything and always at the forefront to correcting anything that can be, but honestly I can't agree with that being a negative. Commander Shepard is a hero, and I finally see now why the character is so beloved by so many.

It's strange to think that games with so much player-input and dialogue options could still have a protagonist that doesn't feel like a self-insert. Despite me choosing everything that she said, I still found myself looking at Shepard and respecting her as a character. I'm not sure how to really explain this but idk, I really love this series.

I've reviewed 1 and 2 already (although my review of 2 is p much just adrenaline-fuelled gushing bc I love it so much), I'm hoping to review 3 on its own page as well but as of right now I'm almost overwhelmed with the simple fact the journey is over. All I know for sure is that I loved it, this franchise has skyrocketed to my favourites of all time and while I understand why 3's ending is divisive I can't understand how anyone could call it bad.

That's all from me, this collection was free on PS+ recently, anyone that has that has no excuse not to experience it for themselves :p

Man, I hate how this game became the posterchild for 'any press is good press' -- I don't wanna get into the controversy but I promise I got this at a discounted price :p

Hogwarts Legacy is pretty good ngl. I completely understand how some (many) may call this a typical overpopulated open world game, filled to the brim with 603 collectibles which is at least 400 too many yada yada, but idk, it just clicked for me.
A few years ago I had a similar experience with Assassin's Creed Odyssey where I just got so sucked into the world, so addicted that spending 10 hours collecting shit went by in a flash because it just never stopped being fun, right up until I platinumed it after what was essentially a 3-week binge.

If you can't tell already, the similarities in structure between this and that had me hooked instantly. It looked overwhelming at first but once I was in it finding 10 field guide pages within seconds of each other, oh yeah, it was all coming together. [side note I did play AC Valhalla too but I dropped it bc holy shit that was too much]
Hogwarts was not too much :) In fact, it's about 1/3 the length of AC Odyssey, so honestly I'm sorry but this game was tailor made for me lol.

I've already talked too much and I've been lost in this game for so long I'm just gunna speed through the actual points I have to make.

The story is fairly safe overall, the ancient magic angle works well to explain how your lil protag can be so strong in a way that doesn't feel out of place. What does feel out of place, however, is how little the characters react to some of the things that happen. One of the first scenes in the game has someone die in front of their friend and literally 2 mins later he's just like "ahhh, so this is what he died for" -BRO!? Your boy literally just bit it right in front of you😭

The setting is pretty great in my opinion, the open world gets a bit samey but it's not humungous or anything so you can still find your way around. Hogwarts Castle though? Chefs kiss honestly. There are little hidden passageways and secrets and shit all over the place. The magic definitely wears off over time, but even when it does it's still just, neat. There's nothing annoying or whatever, no waiting 20 mins for stairs to move, very well crafted.

The nostalgia is undeniable, inevitable, it's the whole reason this game was given a Hogwarts theme at all lets be honest. It's not overdone, it's not in your face, it's (for the most part) its own thing that us millenials and older zoomers can be like "ayo, it's the thing!" but than widdle baby zoomers can just be like "lol frogs in a choir" - everybody wins :p

The combat was actually a lot better than I expected. This, again, worked similarly to AC Odyssey but the variety of spells and combinations you can do with them was fun. Enemies having shields that needed certain types of attack to break was nice and the duel challenges in every battle were a great way to keep you trying new things without being distracting or overbearing.

The characters are kinda funny in this, a lot of them are pretty stiff or seem like they're gunna be more important than they are lol. But others are pretty well fleshed out and the three relationship questlines especially were nicely done. Sebastian is sure to be a favourite due to his arc but Poppy is my child and I hope she's in every sequel until she passes the torch to Molly Weasley as sweetest bean.

I think that'll do it anyway I've already turned my short review into a short novel. Overall I think this is a genuinely decent, maybe even good game that many people can and should enjoy, even if not as much as I did :)

P.S. This game has a glitched quest that's preventing me from getting 4 trophies, and a glitched trophy that's not recognising my final merlin trial. These 5 trophies are all I have left and I'm going to cry.

Fuck J.K. Rowling.

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😩

Really glad this one turned out as good as it did, given how little I actually remember from Danganronpa - aside from loving all 3 games - I was cautiously optimistic going into this and effectively got exactly what I wanted 😌 (..almost)

Thinking back on the whole game, I think the most disappointing thing for me would be that it's a little easy, or hand-holdy (pun intended.) I'm not sure if there are difficulties but some of the questions were so guided that you didn't even have to figure it out to get the answer, which I can only assume was true for Dangan as well but as mentioned I really don't remember a whole lot from those in terms of details like that. A personal peeve more than anything and something that is of course necessary to a point, but as someone who enjoys playing detective it's a little bit underwhelming to figure something out and then basically have the answer highlighted for me - what of my pride, game!? 😩

That aside though, the cases themselves are pretty solid. There's a noticeable outlier that's weaker than the others for a number of reasons, but even that one likely seems worse than it is on account of it having to follow what I believe to be the best case in the game. Some clues are a bit obvious and clocking onto things before the characters can take you out of it a bit, but I s'pose I can't blame the game for my incredible detective skills

To the surprise of no-one the music is banging, it's very 'Danganronpa' but let's not pretend we didn't all want that anyway. The world setting is cool too, and there are some interesting ways that the game uses it's setting to further the story as well, almost making the rainy city a character itself.

Each Master Detective essentially gets a chapter or case with the protagonist, giving them all their own time in the spotlight and room to leave a lasting impression, as well as giving us a chance to see and put their different skills to use. This was a great way of making each case feel different, with even just the approach to your investigation changing drastically depending on who you're with. It helps that they're all unique too of course, with the sort of interesting designs and personalities you expect if you're familiar with that other franchise I won't name again.

The character we spend the most time with however, is our companion Shinigami. I don't know how much they were inspired by our beloved Aiba from AI: The Somnium Files, but the influence is very much there, albeit with enough diversion as to not feel like an imitation. Shinigami definitely has her moments where they maybe leaned a little too hard into one of her traits, but for the most part I found her to be charming in her own way. She learned from the best 😌

Anyway, I feel I've rambled enough - Ironically enough by trying to say as little as possible I've ended up writing a more 'review-y' review than usual lol, good job me. Definitely recommend this one if you're interested and/or enjoyed their other works. My time played in the end came out to about 60 hours but I reckon an enormous chunk of that is idle time bc I am incapable of focusing on anything even remotely visual novel-ish and will start browsing online stores the minute I hit start 🥹

Thanks for reading everyone, hope you're having a great month and enjoying whatever you're working on! Not sure what my next review will be, I'm currently being consumed by Baldur's Gate 3 so I guess we'll see how long that takes me :p

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