@tapevulture#31657 i played the demo way back when it was first available and i know it was prerelease but i found the gameplay unengaging and the writing extremely poor! don't begrudge anyone else enjoying it of course but i felt like the substance of the thing absolutely did not live up to the audiovisual aesthetic
I liked Octopath Traveler for a while before the realization set in of just how hamstrung the story was by the game‘s structure. Such a big selling point for the whole game, it’s literally in the title, and it does nothing but make the game worse. The final secret ending makes an attempt to tie everything together but the final boss is such a massively bullshit difficulty spike compared to everything that has been expected of you up to that point, I just immediately gave up after the first attempt.
I too am pleased to see the graphical style applied to a much better game lol
i‘ve got a hunch this certainly will not be the last we’ll be seeing of this graphical style from square-enix. anyone else got that kind of hunch?
never liked so many comments in a row.
well, we all know what's the matter with video games.
I already went on my rant about the “HD-2D” aesthetic in the games thread a couple months ago when I tried the Triangle Strategy demo, but I will say it somehow feels less offensive in a remake. It probably helps that the ArtePiazza PS2/DS DQ remakes weren’t really all that far off aesthetically. Throwing a bunch of particle and bloom effects on top of pixel art to the point of obscuring visual info is still an awful look, but the trailer looks like they may be reining it in just a tiny bit and have better sprites to utilize too.
I guess this is the only way we’re getting modernized versions of _FF6_ and (shudder) _Chrono Trigger_, huh?
With the current Steam Dragon Quest 35th sale, I'm reminded, once again, as always, that I would rather just play the original DQ games on super famicom, gameboy, and playstation 1 that I would like to play a 3D dragon quest game. It distracts from my imagining too much! DQ8 is a glorious exception, and DQ11 is somewhat exceptional, although I am having some weird feelings with it.
@2501 I'm personally hoping that, with the FF6 references in FFVIIR, we may eventually get more excellent scenarios from other Square Soft classics a la FFVIIR. My initial playthrough of FFVIIR did give me slight hints of FF6 vibrations, especially with the mako tanks that were always meant to resemble magitek armor, since the beginning.
So I decided it was time, yesterday, as I lay prone with an extreme post-2nd-covid-jab headache, to finally pick up the Switch copy of DQXIs I nabbed on clearance a few months ago. I had been waiting for the right frame of mind to approach such a languid and charming experience, and in the back of my mind I recalled some overly-wordy Kotaku video guy saying it was the perfect hang-out game for when you have a cold. Anyway, he was right. Over the course of the day I eked out a couple of hours of play on a preexisting 2.5hr demo save file from a couple years back, and the whole thing finally started to click for me. I am now in love. And that's the story of how I fell for my first DQ game
Welcome!!
Dragon Quest 35th anniversary sale on steam is a great time to pick up the definitive version of DQ11 for extermely cheap!!!
Also yeah I now refer to DQ11 as “my diaper game for when I need my diaper changed after a day of hardcore gaming”. That kotaku guy sounds like he knows a thing or two! 
What are yalls favorite DQ Soundtracks?
Here‘s mine, no remakes, (gbc and sfc remakes of 1-3 slap so hard though)
The OST for the NES version of DW IV is slept on by most because of the DS remake. It's fantastic.
Mentioned elsewhere but I picked up the DQ11 demo on switch yesterday and got about an hour and half in. It’s real chill. I have convinced myself that I could never actually enjoy a big, juicy, hamburger basket 100 hour JRPG anymore. I haven’t in many years, frankly, despite this being the only sort of game I played between about 1993 and 2005. Will this be the one to break me?! I hope so, honestly.
@CidNight#31988 It finally clicked for me, even though I was aware of people playing it like this but I hadn‘t really understood, but this might be the perfect game for people who have no time to game, because it’s easily digestible in half hour chunks. Play just that much each day if possible, say before bed, and it‘s equivalent to watching an episode of a really long but really chill TV series. And now that I get that… wow it’s good
So @Nemoide touched on it a bit way back in December, but what do ya‘ll think about the “post-game” of Dragon Quest XI? I’ve been in a Dragon Quest mood lately, & I‘ve been thinking about how I stopped XI after I guess what you would call the “first” ending. At the time, I felt satisfied with it & when I poked into the post-game quest, I got the feeling that it was going to be a dumb || time travel thing that undoes the narrative’s most emotionally consequential moment – the death of Veronica. || But lately, I can't help but feel that I was probably wrong?
@tokucowboy#32268 full game spoilers follow: I really like the ||second “chapter”|| of the game but wasn‘t super duper into the story justifications for the ||third section||. I don’t mind ||time travel stuff mostly but it felt really cheap to toss my party members and their histories with you aside like that. Like I get that you wanna keep the gang together, I did too, but it felt a lot less triumphant to me than I think they were going for. All things considered it‘s a fairly minor gripe though and I was happy to play the game more and the true ending is great. So you’re not wrong necessarily. It is what you think and it is the weakest part of the game but there's a lot of good stuff after it too.||
@sabertoothalex#32310 Thanks. Well, at least I can kind of prepare myself for that being what it is. I think my next Dragon Quests will be the IV, V & VI remakes on the DS when I (finally) travel later this summer. But you have me interested in that “good stuff,” so maybe keep my XI save file around & have that bit to play before XII comes out in 2035.
Question: I get that mangaka like Akira Toriyama are severly overworked, often dying young of sickness and fatigue.
But what‘s he been doing lately? What art for Dragon Quest is actually done by him these days?
Historically, Dragon Quest has always had other illustrations in the manuals etc. by other artists, but, was the cover art for DQ11 done by him? People always complain everyone in Dragon Quest looks like Goku, but, in this latest release, the graphic direction seems like the furthest from Akira Toriyama ever, even bordering on generic. And again, I get that Dragon Quest always had somewhat of a Generic bend to it– Dragon Quest V on super famicom’s graphics had a cheekily generic feel to them imho– but …. I guess…. I mean to say…. I just want to know what is going on with this series in general??
I see so little genuine coverage of the series on the english web-- even since the release of Definitive edition, searching for anything Dragon Quest 11 related turns up the same toxic videos of "WHY DRAGON QUEST 11 MUSIC IS BAD".... Which is very ugly.
@goonbag#31707 sorry i 4got 2 reply 2 this. i did not play long enough to get to a battle so didn‘t get to see that aspect. the writing was also not to my tastes. i played the Ophelia chapter and she was having a long succession of life-affirming conversations with her adoptive father and sister re: how they really do care for and admire her despite her not being a blood relative and it’s like come on man they just happen to be letting her know this on the day we drop into the narrative? i almost always hate exposition
that said i still...want to play it
https://twitter.com/DougDinsdale/status/1403845267850358787?s=20
Special shoutout to the [samsho refs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuroko) for making it out as well
Well I beat the big bad in DQ11… you won’t believe what happens next.
I felt inclined to put DQ8 to the side after beating the big bad, and come back for all the post game content. DQ11 though… I don’t think I can stop playing now.