DRAGON QUEST XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age

On a stormy night, demons and monsters attack a castle causing a mother to flee with her child. She has to hand off the child during the escape, and then the child is put into a basket in a river and floats away (Moses anyone?). The baby is thankfully found by a village elder and is raised as his grandchild. The child’s true past is never revealed to him until something out of the ordinary happens during his, and his best friend’s, coming of age ceremony. When questions are asked it is revealed that he is The Hero of Light, or better known as the Luminary. In this world, when the birth of the Luminary occurs it is a sign that The Lord of Shadows is once again poised to threaten the world. Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age takes you and a party of colorful characters all over the world of Erdrea in an attempt to get to the bottom of the mystery of what is causing the world to fall apart, and who is pulling the strings behind the scenes. As you might have guessed solely based on the fact that this is the eleventh game in this series (there are a ton of other DragonQuest games in the franchise, just in case someone out there wants to point out that this is not technically the 11th, it’s somewhere in the twenties) this is a well thought out and solid game. 

You will have turn based battles with up to 4 characters, at a time, battle enemies. In almost all instances you will see your enemies in the world and will know when you’re about to head into battle. These battles will give you the choice of controlling all your characters, or just the main character. If you choose not to control the other characters you can set their approach to battle (support only, attack relentlessly, somewhere in the middle, those types of options). You’ll also have spells that will unlock throughout the game. You’ll also gain skills that will allow you to accomplish special attacks (I would like to point out that some of these are weapon restricted, so you’re not going to be able to pull a spear skill if you’re using a whip). There’s even yet another option that will become available (and becomes very useful when you’re controlling all the characters) and that is Pep skills. There will be times in battle where your character(s) will power up for a short time, and during those times, and depending on who else is powered up, you can use pep skills that can cause massive damage, cause a character to absorb damage for the next couple of rounds, steal items, etc. If you are only controlling the main character you’re not going to be able to have the option of selecting the pep skills that don’t require the hero to be involved (however if the hero is pepped up you will see the pep skill option and can select a configuration that doesn’t require your hero).

I ended up putting in JUST under 60 hours into this game. There is a ton of content to get lost in. You will of course have your main storyline, but there are side quests dotted all over the map. Speaking of dotted all over the map, there are shiny spots that when you interact with them you’ll gain ingredients. Those ingredients can then be used to create weapons, armor, helmets, shields, and accessories. The recipes for those items can be obtained by searching bookcases, opening up treasure chests, and completing quests. You can also reforge items that you bought in the store, were rewarded, or had created earlier. The forging mechanic in this game can definitely take a good chunk of your time as you try to create or modify your equipment so that they all have a +3 assigned to them (which is the highest you can go).  As with most RPGs that have crafting as a component, you will find that equipment you create sells better than trying to resell equipment that you have previously bought. I’m going to be honest with you, in the beginning I was all about trying to find every single coin I could get my hands on, but by the end of the game I had so much, both on hand and in “the bank”, that I just had an inventory overflowing with items that I never used.

The thing about this game that I have to continuously come back to is that there is just so much content. I can easily see people spending closer to 80 or 90 hours on this game. There are some post-completion quests and content you can go on, but for me personally, once I crossed the finish line I made the decision to call it quits. Could I continue to play the game after the end and knock out some of the quests I had left? Absolutely, I just felt fulfilled and accomplished with beating the game. As I stated earlier there are a ton of Dragon Quest games, so you can’t go wrong with picking up this game if you are a JRPG (Japanese Roleplaying Game) fan. If you’re wanting to dive into a well created and content filled RPG for the very first time, this game might be a bit much, but if you’re willing to learn all the nuances this is a game that you can definitely get lost in.