March 27: Dragon Quest XI

Since I pretty much finished everything possible in Breath of the Wild (BOTW), the new Legends of Zelda game (I say "pretty much" because there are still hundreds of korok seeds for me to find, and one final quest that is near impossible to finish), I decided to start a new video game.  I did research looking for another RPG to play and narrowed it down to two: Xenoblade Chronicles and Dragon Quest XI. After reading lots of reviews, I decided on Dragon Quest XI, and I am so glad I did. It is an absolutely delightful game so far, for many reasons. Here are just a few:

-My favorite town that I have visited in the game so far is "Hotto", where everyone speaks in Haiku! It was amazingly creative and clever. Seriously, every single villager, had one, two, three, or sometimes more, haikus as their dialogue. That takes a lot of work, and I delighted in counting the syllables of everything that was said just to check if they were haikus--- and they were! These villagers ONLY speak in Haiku! And I wonder, does that mean the dialogue was written in Haiku in both English and Japanese? That means the dialogue was not only translated, but also rewritten to be in Haiku! That makes it even more amazing. 

-You can play in 2D or 3D mode, and switch back and forth between the two at any save point. I can't believe they designed the entire game in two different modes-- again, that's a LOT of work! Both modes are beautiful, but I prefer playing in 3D (mostly because I can see the monsters in the world and decide whether or not to fight then, unlike in 2D where all fights are random encounters). 

-It is super self-aware and hilariously meta at times. In one of the first scenes, it starts raining and one of the characters, Gemma, says, "Typical! It would have to go and start raining, wouldn't it!" I said that ALL the time during BOTW because I swear it always started raining when I needed to climb a mountain. 

-It has elements of a bunch of different games I've played. You can set up "Tactics" during battles, just like "Gambits" in Final Fantasy XII. There's a "Character Builder", just like the "Sphere Grid" in Final Fantasy X. There's a "Fun-Sized Forge" where you can learn recipes to build different things, just like in My Time at Portia. Every time you meet a new enemy, it is added to your collection of known enemies, and reminds me of the "Compendium" in BOTW. And there are tons of "accolades" to obtain, just like all the "achievements" you can earn in Stardew Valley. 

I've already played over 8 delightful hours in the game, and look forward to many many more. 

With delight,

♥Jamie