Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age

2017

Audio: English · Subtitles: Spanish, French, English, Italian, German

role-playing (rpg)
turn-based strategy (tbs)
adventure
fantasy
open world
single player

The story

Dragon Quest XI continues the gameplay of previous games in the series, in which players explore worlds and fight against various monsters, including the ability to explore high areas. Before entering battle, players can also toggle between the 3D and 2D graphical styles. The game features the series' traditional turn-based battle system.

What it’s like

Bright, storybook-warm overworlds painted in saturated greens and sun-yellow fields, with a deliberate choice to shift between lush 3D rendering and a flat, sprite-based 2D look that recalls the series' 8-bit roots. The soundtrack is a full orchestral score of brass, strings and chiming bells, often lilting and nostalgic, and the roaming encounters arrive with the familiar cheerful sting. Combat is slow, readable and turn-based, with monsters bobbing and clustering across a clean battle stage, and the pace is unhurried, built around wandering villages, sidequests and long walks between towns rather than tension. Its mood is gentle, earnest and warm, with an overall low-stakes comfort that still carries a hopeful quest about a young hero coming into his own and a band of companions who grow fond of one another. Violence is cartoonish: monsters are defeated with bright flashes and no gore, and the tone stays family-friendly, with light peril and no sexual content. It suits a lazy weekend, a comfort replay, or a long evening with a controller, and is aimed at players who love classic RPG journeys, gentle humor and the pleasure of steady, satisfying progression.

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