Look at that title. Seriously goddamn look at it. That title says everything you need to know about DQ11.

It tells you it’s Dragon Quest. That alone means you know what you’re walking into. It’s going to be a ridiculously big game full of archaic systems and the same 20 creatures since 1986. You know it’s going to have a plot where you’re the CHOSEN HERO OF DESTINY and there’s a big bad and the world’s in trouble. You know it’s going to be swords and sorcery.

XI, ok, so it’s new. DQ8 was pretty, and now we’re 3 full console generations past DQ8 so it’s going to be enormous and 4k60 and pretty and everything. Check.

And then everything else. S tells you oh no this is an expanded version of an already giganto game. The rest of it tells you this is absolutely going to be overwrought, and . . yeah. There’s definitely that.

This game just keeps going. I don’t remember DQ8 or 9 being nearly this long. It just kept going. It ends, then no that’s just halfway through the game. Then it ends for realsies, which was probably where the original edition ends, but only after basically making you revisit the whole ass game. The postgame just. keeps. going. And it has time travel. It sends you through the game one direction, then sends you back the other direction, then literally time travels you to earlier in the game to make you re-do the whole last third of the game again, and THEN in the middle of that, it sends you through dungeons that are just earlier maps except now the enemies eyes are red.

As I write this I’m rewatching the Tim Rogers reviews and apparently the original release was significantly worse. A lot of the weirdness like the needlessly interactive campsite stuff was weird and unnecessary because things like the Portable Forge were added as a quality of life change. They didn’t remove the objectively worse system, they just added another one.

In 50 some odd hours I got deep into the post-game. I reached the point where there’s nothing but boss-rush crap ahead of me, and everything completely obliterates me. What do guides say? Guides say go slam your face into some metal slimes for another 20 hours and then you’ll be allowed to play the game. I value my time too much, sorry.

Is it good? Sorta? If you’re into that kind of game? If you want to grind endlessly? I’m just over it at this point. I just don’t have any interest in grinding.