And just like that, I’m back into a 200+ hour japaense role-playing game (JRPG). The irony of this is not lost on me when I was waxing poetic about not having time for games like this just last week and how I had settled on Roguelikes as my preferred gaming genre. And while that still holds true for the most part (just last night I took a break from DQXI to complete a few BoI challenges), there’s something about this genre that finds a way into my heart and soul.
DQXI is one of the most traditional JRPGs ever made. The Dragon Quest series is more popular than Final Fantasy in Japan. I tend to lean more towards DQ than I do FF. And this isn’t shade at the FF series, I’m a big fan. It’s just that I think DQ feels more like my kind of game. I like that the stories are a bit more reliant on fairy tale conventions and Dungeons & Dragons style party members. It just satisfies a different itch.
I’m about 15 hours into DQXI and I cannot recommend this game highly enough. I don’t feel like I could write a proper review, so I’m going to just recommend you read this one by Tim Rogers of Kotaku. He says everything I want to say, only better:
Dragon Quest XI is hugely long and chill as heck. It took me about 80 chill as heck hours to finish the main quest my first time. I would recommend this game to anyone who likes chill characters, colorful aesthetics, Akira Toriyama’s art, extremely old-school role-playing games, fairy tale stories, or ridiculously detailed video game towns.
What are you waiting for. Go play. 🙂
Glass Cannon 