Dragon Quest is a series that’s been going strong since the mid eighties. Considered the Father or Jrpgs, is now up to its eleventh release to date. In this review we´ll take a look at Dragon Quest XI, if its any good, should you play it? if its worth your time and money.

Gameplay

Dragon Quest 11 still maintains the winning formula, you move around your character from a 3rd person perspective on a three dimensional plane with the left stick of the controller, Interacting with the things in your proximity, like climbing ladders or opening chests, talking to NPCs as well. You get your mini map to navigate and you get your world map to learn the layout of the land, pinpointing your next destination.

The Menu screen offers up variety of things such as your character status screen, items, skills, equipment, etc. Everything long time dragon quest fans long for.

Music

A marvelous pleasure to the ear. As mentioned on our Octopath Traveler review; Link to that HERE; music score is the foundation of not just any jrpg, but any game at all! in the case of dragon quest XI, the moment you boot up the game, the title screens greets you with the all time classic dragon quest theme, link to that HERE

A great Musical score brings every type of emotion to the table, Happy go lucky music (cobblestone theme), melancholic sad themes (like Serena’s harp, oh we love this one), Light through the leaves of love, Determination, like the world map theme, first AND most specially the second theme. and then, the EPIC nostalgic badass Final Boss theme which is a tribute Dragon Quest IIIs Final Boss.

L’Academie de Notre Maitre des Medailles And Nautica themes are especially enthralling. here are those:

Battle for Glory
Battle theme; Unflinchable Courage of course! what an exquisite piece!
Adventure (from Dragon Quest III)

You know what?… there isn´t a single track in this entire game that is not liked. For the soundtrack Alone we urge you to enjoy this game. But, let´s move on…

Cast of Characters

As first time Dragon Quest players, we already knew what we were getting ourselves into. Dragon Quest has a strong influence by characters designed by Akira Toriyama; a name that needs no introduction, if you are into videogames, then most likely you must have seen an anime or three, and our guess is that you have come across dragon ball. So, every character youll see in this series will totally remind you of Dragon Ball, which we think adds to the whole experience.

The luminary: this is the hero or the Player. he reminds us of trunks from dragon ball. He is non speaking. has a blue eyes and a purple coat
Erick , the Thief, is the first ally you encounter when you go to prison. has blue hair like super saiyan blue, blue eyes and a green garb. uses a knife and steal Ability.

Serena and Veronica: Twins hailing from the town of Arboria.

Serena is sweet and compassionate, has long blonde hair, blue eyes and a green dress. Shes a healer. She plays the Harp. Waifu material right there hahahaha.

Veronica is Serenas´ Twin. and even though shes half serenas´ size, shes got double the spunk. Shes the “Black Mage” of the party. The caster. Her attack All Spells can wipe out a group of enemies in an instant! very helpful! we found ourselves her using up one slot of our front party most of the time! Shes also blonde with blue eyes, is small and wears a red dress with a hood, like link. UNlike serena, she´s got a fiery spirit and a sharp tongue..She loves her sister.

Rab A mysterious old man that has a large backpack and fights with high level magic and martial arts. his weapon of choice is the claws. Has a funny accent and plays a key role in the story.

Jade has long black hair in a ponytail and blue eyes. wears a green outfit. Staff user, maybe she should duke it out with Estelle Bright. Shes also a very good kicker and user of charm skills, yes you literally blow kisses at enemies to charm them. cool!

Sylvando A very exotic gentleman. hes a lot of fun. has more dance moves than we can count. He seems to be in his thirthies allthough this isnt confirmed. has black hair blue eyes and his outfit appears to be that of a jester, an entertainer.

Hendrick is a a tall guy standing at 6´7″. has purple hair and blue eyes. A warrior swordsman. a Castle Knight. for the first half of the game, he´s our enemy. But with some twists of fate he joins your party. Straight as an arrow when it comes to loyalty, and has a mean frown most of the time.

All characters are well thought out and interesting. whether you stick to the same 4 when doing battle, the game invites you to explore the rest of the cast.
A special Mention for Serena about half way through the game, a tragedy occurs and its time for the feely feels.

Story

In the series´ Timeline, this appears to be the very first game. Yes ,even though its the eleventh game, chronologically speaking, It is the first game in the series that you should play, after all, we all want to play our games in order of story events right?

Before Dragon Quest XI, the right way to play the original trilogy was Dragon Quest III, where you play as the hero Erdrick, then Dragon Quest 1 (Dragon Warrior in the US) followed by its sequel Dragon quest II. Now that Dragon Quest XI dropped, it seems XI events take place before the events of III, making XI a prequel since it pretty much created to legend of the Hero Erdrick. The titles of the first trilogy confirms it.

“Should i Play Dragon Quest in order?”, YES. start like this:

Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age. (the hero is called the Luminary)
Dragon Quest III: The Seeds of Salvation (The hero Erdrick)
Dragon Quest I (Right out the gate you are a descendant of the hero Erdrick)
Dragon quest II: Luminaries of the Legendary Line (We love this title).

Without giving it away completely…if you meditate on what we just went through, XI is a Prequel to the first trilogy of Dragon Quest Games. “Echoes of an Elusive Age”, in our minds, the title foretells the coming of a legendary line of heroes to happen.

Of course, not ALL dragon quest titles have a story continuity. someone in Quora.com asked : “Are Dragon Quest Stories Connected?“

A: Much like Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest games don’t carry over the narrative, each game stands alone with its own characters and universe. They all share some common elements like monsters, skills, cheesy puns and item names but they aren’t connected in any meaningful way.
Couldn´t have said it better. from what we have played, only the first three Games alongside XI have intertwined stories. We read that IV-VI are related, but we haven´t had the chance to play them.

So, with that reason alone, if you have played any of the dragon quests games before 11, then you need to see how the legendary line came to be. Or, if its your first dragon quest like in our case, we guarantee you´´ll fall in love with the series. It´ll make you want to play the next games chronologically speaking going through I II and finally III. we understand you´d need a break after 4 JRPGs so no sweat.

Difficulty

If you aren´t an experienced jrpg player, then you just might have some problems here and there, but at the same time, don´t take our words so literal, what we mean is, even if it´s your first venture into a JRPG, as long as you win your battles, don´t neglect your training and heal when your characters are weak, you should be A Okay. That said, some bosses do pose a mild threat to your party if you don´t arrive well prepared.

The Dragon Quest games are not big numbers games, what we mean is max HPs are going to be in the three hundreds and max damage in the three digit avenue. somehow this feels tighter than dealing with large numbers like 9,999HP or 9,999 Damage. Whether this is inconsequencial to some, to us, it gives the series its own trademark, its own feel.

And let´s face it. you are reading this because you love role playing games as a whole, so it´s not how difficult it is, it´s about how difficult and challenging it could get! right? i mean you strategists out there know what we mean! Well anyway, difficulty is enjoyable.

Replayability

“Does Dragon Quest 11 have a New Game Plus?”

The game is developed so the player can experience all the game has to offer in one single playthrough. The game is loaded with post game content though, you´ll definitely be glued to it for a good 80 to 100 plus hours so you can see everything.

Now, with that said, begs the questions, would we play it again? do another playthrough? We most definitely would! Not that you´d get a different ending or something although SPOILERS++ you can get married towards the end and you can choose who you are wed to, but aside from that it would be the same game.

Super important to mention! The Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age Definitive Edition S released in 2019 incorporates the same adventure but in sprite graphics, just like your classical dragon quest titles of old. SO, there, a good enough reason to playthrough
it again! This leads us to the next topic…

Graphics

If you like Akira Toriyama’s artwork, you can´t go wrong. In the definitive Edition of Dragon Quest XI S, as mentioned above you now can choose how you want to play your adventure. The game originally came out for the PlayStation 4 with fully rendered 3D Graphics! however, if you want to enjoy the game just like the old games, in 2D mode, you also can. Whether you go Full HD 3D graphics or 2D old school, the experience you´ll take from the game is unforgettable. Enjoy it however you want. what we want to say is, the game is so good, that graphics aren’t even a thing to consider when you really enjoy a wonderful soundtrack and a captivating story in a game.

Some will say sprite graphics are old and outdated, but here in Alas de pegaso we definitely love our old Schools! Saying a game is good for it´s graphics is saying that Piña colada tasted great because of the glass it came in! well, you get the point.

Final Thoughts

We wish we could write a gazillion words to describe this masterpiece from heaven of a game, everything about it is just wonderfully crafted, but we must publish the review to keep ourselves relevant hahahaha, but well have you know, when it comes to dragon quest, an Entire country halts for a day to have a chance to play it. Its that good, its that special, its considered a cultural legacy and after our first experience with it, boy were they right!

We have come to love the series, making it one of our TOP 5 Jrpgs of ALL TIME in our humble list, maybe well write an article about our top 10 someday, who knows? lets us know by dropping a comment.

So you made it this far… we hope we made you want to at least try out the game, and you try it and like it and become a dragon quest fan, then that’s payment Enough for us. And if you’re an old school die hard fan of dragon Quest and just wanted to read another review on the internet, then we think you for reading through. We´d appreciate some thoughts, commentary to know how we´re doing.
We are eagerly awaiting the release of Dragon Quest XII, when that day comes we will burst with joy.

To all you Dragon Quest Fans out there, we salute you! peace out.

Liked this review? Read our other reviews here.