Impressions | Dragon Quest XI S: Echoes of an Elusive Age (Definitive Edition) Demo

I’ve had my eye on Dragon Quest XI, since it was announced for the Nintendo Switch, and this week Square Enix released a lengthy demo for this long-awaited release. Three hours in, I’m absolutely loving my time with the game, but so is the demo, because it shows no sign of stopping.

Just like with last year’s Octopath Traveler demo, this is pretty close to a final build of the game and progress can be carried over to the full version. Thus, what you experience in this demo is pretty much the exact same as starting a new game in the full version. The only difference is that the advertised 2D mode is not available in the demo, so you will only be able to play in the 3D mode.

As a newbie to the Dragon Quest series, I’m absolutely blown away by the quality of this entry. From the first seconds it feels like a genuine and high-quality (J)RPG and one that doesn’t want me to stop playing. From the gorgeous graphics to the memorable soundtrack and, of course, without forgetting the traditional turn-based combat, this demo alone is worth playing more than a lot of other Triple A titles.

Ok, but now let’s go one step at a time, what is making this game so good? Let’s start with the graphics and the open-world in general. To be blunt, I think this is the first game on the Nintendo Switch that can go toe-to-toe with The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild in terms of presentation in the context of an open-world. Every model is quite detailed and exploring the world in general has kept me entertained for a fair amount of those three hours. It’s also true that the graphic fidelity has the downside of seeing a lot of textures popping in as you’re ridding a horse across a prairie, but it’s a small price to pay and not really noticeable on foot. In summary, I’ve found the world in Dragon Quest XI to be stupidly populated and full of nooks and crannies to turn over, with the addition of everything looking so damn impressive. Oh, and don’t get me started on the animations. Never have I enjoyed so much interacting with destructible objects.

The story itself has also been a good part of the fun. What at first appeared to be a story about a hero receiving its “due accolades” quickly turns into the opposite and seeing him turn into a fugitive prisoner has been quite entertaining because, at least in the short term, it looks to be leading me to some entertaining moments. Plus, with the recent addition of a new party member, character interactions are more frequent, specially given that the protagonist is silent and now there’s someone to do the talking. While in the great scheme of things the macro plot is fairly straightforward, I’m super excited to watch the moment-to-moment encounters play out. At least so far, characters seem to be interesting enough and the world gives them a good starting point to present the player some memorable moments. Though, this does seem to be quite a long game, so, as usual, I’m curious to see how/if the game can keep my interest until the end of the adventure or if I will be dragging myself to the credits in the full release.

Lastly, the combat and related RPG mechanics have also done its job to keep me hooked. Combat itself follows the traditional turn-based gameplay. There are not really any ground-breaking additions, but I like the options it offers such as battle speed, camera controls and even movement during battles, instead of sticking to controlling characters through the menus. Though, I do prefer to keep my characters in-place as moving them around doesn’t affect the outcome of actions. Outside battle, there are the usual skill trees and equipment management. Speaking of equipment, characters are not affected by the armor equipped, but they do have a slot for costumes, so I am looking forward to getting my hands on some costumes. Not that the default ones are bad, but we all like to customize our characters’ appearances. And since we are still on the topic of combat and such, I do want to reference that encounters are not limited to actual battles. In these three hours, the game has already proven that it’s willing to change up the approach to tense encounters and vary the gameplay to be more than just those traditional battles.

All in all, as I have not finished the demo yet and have no idea how long it actually is, if the game is like this in its entirety, then it will definitely be one of my favorite releases this year. It definitely invokes the wonder of playing a traditional JRPG and getting lost in its world of fantasy. I have never played a Dragon Quest before, but now I’m starting to understand why people love this series so much!