Dragon Quest XI. This series is basically my childhood, the first game in the series I ever played was Dragon Quest IX on the DS. Later I played the VII and VIII remakes on the 3DS. And now I'm all grown up and I have a good pc to call my own, I decided to play Dragon Quest XI. This series is really nostalgic to me so I might be a bit biased, but I must say, this game is my favourite game in the series, hell my favourite game of all time. It's truly a master piece, the developers thought of everything, the music, the story, the locations, the graphics, the characters, literally everything. There are few games that make me feel so connected and involved with the characters as this one, it made me cry several times. Personal things aside though, to who would I recommend this game and how do I rate it?

This is a game that sticks to it's roots in a time where most RPGS (and JRPGS) try something different, like action based combat. (Looking at you FF.) So this is quite different from most modern RPGS/ JRPGS you might have played. So I do think you shouldn't go into this expecting an action game. But if you're a fan of RPGS and/ or JRPGS then this game is a must have. I also recommend it to people who want to try getting into the genre or this series. The Dragon Quest games are all stand alone adventures (except 1-3) and this is probably the easiest to start with from the bunch. Though, if you have a switch then I would strongly recommend you get Dragon Quest XI on that console. Because you're getting a bit of extra content in that version, however it's not worth picking up a switch for instead of getting it on pc.

Now I'll rate some aspects of the game;
*The game takes about 100-120 hours to fully complete the story. (10/10)
*The graphics are crisp and the textures are great too, just look at a few screenshots online. (10/10)
*The story is quite good but if you look at it on paper, it might seem a bit generic to you. But the smaller story arcs is where this game shines, between the characters and in the towns. (10/10)
*The content, there is a ton you can explore, characters to speak to which tell you different things each time you progress through the story, (which also makes the story better in my opinion.) and things you can collect. (10/10)
*The Characters, they're fledged out so well, beyond the main cast of characters you'll meet way more characters that are important to the story and that have a whole background to explore.
*The gameplay, this is probably the most important part for most players. It's turn-based, so not really an action game like I mentioned before. But the turn-based you're getting here is probably the best out there, like other Dragon Quest games, you can select from different commands like attack, spells, defend, etc. Which requires you to think sometimes. (10/10)
*The music, normally the music is really, like REALLY good in Dragon Quest games. But sadly in this version of the game (not on the switch luckily) the music isn't orchestrated. It didn't bother me as much because when I played this version, I didn't know of this fact. The music itself is still great but it not being orchestrated like on the switch is a bit of a let down. Which does affect my rating for the steam version. (8/10)
*The difficulty, I won't give the difficulty a rating since it's balanced pretty well. But I do think it's pretty easy if you've played turn-based games before. If you have then you should try the draconian difficulty setting which you can select at the start of the game, this way the game will be way more challenging! There are a few difficulty spikes if you skip too many battles, so in that case you'll have to grind a little. But that's not really something I ran into myself since I made sure to not skip every enemy I see.


All-around rating, well for me it's an easy 10/10.
This game just means so much to me and it offers so much to the player, there is no way I can't recommend it. If this review helped you and you liked the game, I'd love to hear from you personally what you thought in my dms! But I will list a few of the differences between this version and the switch version below since I've played and finished both.

DIFFERENCES BETWEEN SWITCH AND PC (some are marked in spoiler tags, open at own risk)
*The music on the switch can be set to orchestrated. (I think it is also set to that by default)
*You have a camera mode where you can take some nice in-game pictures.
*You have a few extra story chapters -> Basically, after a certain event in the story, all the characters get seperated.And the switch version adds how all your party members deal with that situation. (not just the hero like in the steam version.)
*There is a feature called tockle town, this lets you go back to certain events which took place in other games in the series. And if you clear tockle town then -> You'll unlock like 3 sets super bosses? Which then unlock another grand super boss which is really hard to beat.
*You can ride more creatures in game.
*There are new costumes for your characters.
*And finally, you're able to play the whole game in 2D.
EDIT (forgot a few new features)
*you can craft anywhere
*you can call your horse anywhere
*you can change the battle speed
*and the game is portable of course!
So yeah, it's for sure the better version.

I hope this review was of any help to you. If you have any more questions then feel free to ask me!