Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age

 PC
User Score
8.6

Generally favorable reviews- based on 350 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 292 out of 350
  2. Mixed: 28 out of 350
  3. Negative: 30 out of 350

Review this game

  1. Your Score
    0 out of 10
    Rate this:
    • 10
    • 9
    • 8
    • 7
    • 6
    • 5
    • 4
    • 3
    • 2
    • 1
    • 0
    • 0
  1. Submit
  2. Check Spelling
view
per page
  1. waveathon
    Dec 14, 2018
    10
    This is my first Dragon quest game. It was a beautiful experience for me. It is the JRPG of the year for me. I really love it. When I first arrived to a town other than the MC's hometown I said to my self this is the best town in all of the game I swear it. But that was I kept going to another town to another. Every town has a beauty of it's own.

    Gameplay on the other hand was turn    This is my first Dragon quest game. It was a beautiful experience for me. It is the JRPG of the year for me. I really love it. When I first arrived to a town other than the MC's hometown I said to my self this is the best town in all of the game I swear it. But that was I kept going to another town to another. Every town has a beauty of it's own.

    Gameplay on the other hand was turn based and I loved it. No complain there.

    The music on the other hand. I never skipped the opening everytime I boot the game. It is basicallyh the national anthem for a video game.

    ALl in all it is a game for JRPG fans. Now I know why Japan loved this game.

    Sad thing is I have that feeling again that a unfillable void in my heart. I wish there was a DLC for this but it looks like they already included everything on this game. It really has a lot of content.    … Expand
  2. pariz
    Mar 17, 2019
    9
    Straightfoward, beautiful scenaries and funny cute looking enemies, classic rpg gameplay, emotional story and lovable characters.
    Totally recommended if you are a fan of the genre.
  3. Cougargames
    Nov 1, 2019
    9
    Im not that big of a fan of most of the jrpgs ive played,

    But man holy s*** did this game blow me away!

    By far the best jrpg ive ever played great story, believable companions, a big world to explore and absolutely incredible soundtrack!

    ( Besides the fact the soundtrack is in midi)

    This game is in my top 5 games of all time, and is a must buy for everyone that plays videogames.
  4. kalas5119
    Feb 19, 2019
    9
    Excelente juego de rol.
    Buen sistema de combates con bastante profundidad y versatilidad entre los 8 personajes diferentes.
    Historia bastante normal, sin grandes giros argumentales ni sorpresas magnas. Enorme duración. Solo la historia principal te puede llevar alrededor de 70 horas. Muy recomendado para gente que busca experiencias de rol con combates por turnos, y perder la tarde    Excelente juego de rol.
    Buen sistema de combates con bastante profundidad y versatilidad entre los 8 personajes diferentes.
    Historia bastante normal, sin grandes giros argumentales ni sorpresas magnas.
    Enorme duración. Solo la historia principal te puede llevar alrededor de 70 horas.
    Muy recomendado para gente que busca experiencias de rol con combates por turnos, y perder la tarde leveando porque hay un boss que te cuesta. Ofrece exactamente lo que esperas de él.

    9/10    … Expand
  5. Kamikazeshocki
    Apr 20, 2020
    8
    This was my first Dragon Quest (I play jrpg since snes times, I just skipped the whole Dragonquest franchise.) and allthough it's 'good' it will be my last. Don't get the fascination about this series. This game is so traditional it's both 'refreshing again' and 0815 close to borderline boring, sometimes.
    Level design is average, the fighting system is good but nothing new at all.    This was my first Dragon Quest (I play jrpg since snes times, I just skipped the whole Dragonquest franchise.) and allthough it's 'good' it will be my last. Don't get the fascination about this series. This game is so traditional it's both 'refreshing again' and 0815 close to borderline boring, sometimes.
    Level design is average, the fighting system is good but nothing new at all.
    Characters are lovely, the story is boring.
    Had to stop playing for some weeks after 30 hours to get my motivation back. Did beat it at 74 hours.

    Graphics 9/10 (1440p60p on max details).
    Soundtrack 8/10 with orchestra mod.
    Story 6/10
    Characters 8/10
    Gameplay 8/10

    So if you are fed up with modern JRPG, e.g. Final Fantasy then this might be a nice change.
    I can recommend 3 better current gen jrpgs on the spot, in that order. 1: FF7 Remake, 2. Xenoblade Chronicles 2, 3: Persona 5    … Expand
  6. Kilowog
    Jan 5, 2019
    9
    Dragon Quest VIII: 2004. Se guardaba la partida en la iglesia.
    Dragon Quest XI: 2018. Se guarda la partida en la iglesia.

    Consejo: Acordaros de guardar en la iglesia.
  7. Red_Spectre
    Jun 3, 2019
    9
    A terrific tale rich in story. I had fun the entire way through and loved every minute of it. Plenty of content, fun turn base fighting, lots of abilities. The crafting anvil was a terrifically innovative way to craft new gear. The casino in game made me laugh. They put so much effort into it..

    A great traditional turn based RPG.
  8. UglierOrlock
    Feb 19, 2020
    9
    love the game, graphics, music, gameplay, storyline everything is brilliant, only one thing should be fixed, more gears and more options to customise theme and your character.
  9. DarkFireUmad
    Nov 16, 2020
    8
    Está bien, es un juego sólido que no hace nada extremadamente mal, pero tampoco destaca en nada en especial. Lo único que me ha molestado del juego es que su "postgame" canon me sobra bastante.
  10. JKballing
    Jun 10, 2020
    10
    A masterpiece. Beautiful visuals. Amazing story with twist and turns. Exellent attention to detail. 80 hour+ massive contents, Classic 90's Rpg vibe. great music (orchestral mod). lovely characters. Difficulty was just right for me who is not a heavy gamer.

    I am definitely gifting dq12 to my nieces and nephews once it comes out.
  11. AliasAndrew
    Nov 17, 2020
    8
    The classic JRPG experience. If you have ever played a Dragon Quest game and liked it, you will like this. Guaranteed since it's essentially the same game as the ones who came before, albeit more polished and lengthier. I liked it a lot but I believe it's time to let the younger people inside square enix to take over this franchise. New ideas are desperately needed.
  12. Camer6
    Jan 3, 2019
    9
    El mejor JRPG de 2018.

    Mantiene la esencia de los JRPG de antes, combates por turnos exploración etc
  13. KingBruiser
    Feb 3, 2020
    9
    The only thing keeping this game from getting a perfect 10 is the soundtrack. They butchered it on the PC and PS4 releases.

    Other than that this game is a masterpiece of JRPGs. If you enjoy the genre do yourself a favor and play this game!
  14. DinoBeam
    Mar 27, 2022
    5
    WARNING! This game is too easy, and the only other option is Very Hard mode, and you can't change difficulty after starting. This is a huge core flaw that really sucks, and is hard to understand the existence of. I don't know why this isn't talked about more, though it is talked about. I'm over half way through the game and I have to stop. While at first the characters were charming andWARNING! This game is too easy, and the only other option is Very Hard mode, and you can't change difficulty after starting. This is a huge core flaw that really sucks, and is hard to understand the existence of. I don't know why this isn't talked about more, though it is talked about. I'm over half way through the game and I have to stop. While at first the characters were charming and the quest fairly interesting, the story is just meandering from reason for it to keep going to reason for it to keep going using anime power up tricks and such. In addition, Akira Toriyama's art design of monsters is extremely hit or miss here, with half or more of the monsters looking like off-brand toys for very young children.

    The game also feels very cheap in a number of other ways, for instance you get to a cool new area only to hear the same exact music for every other area, then you go in a cave and hear the exact same music for every other cave and dungeon. This game is doing as little as it can to make a profit, making sure to extend the playtime so people don't complain. This game is very disappointing, and I am appalled at the praise it has received by players and critics alike.

    If you are looking for a good JRPG experience, I recommend these;

    Dragon Quest IV for the Nintendo DS
    Pokemon Blue or the updated Leaf Green version
    Dragon Warrior/Dragon Quest 1
    Radiata Stories    … Expand
  15. Nikkie
    Sep 9, 2018
    10
    Das Spiel ist einfach Hübsch es ist mal wieder ein RPG der alten Schule , mit sehr schönen Charakteren toller Snychro, der Grafik Style ist einzigartig und Hübsch man hat oft das verlangen in den Monitor zu fassen um Monster und Co zu berühren.
    Einzig der Midi Soundtrack geht nach einigen stunden etwas auf den nerv.
  16. jackstormrage
    Oct 29, 2018
    10
    perfect. a masterpiece of JRPGs the best game ever, aventures, emotions and fights! 100% recomend
  17. NaotaChanel
    Sep 10, 2018
    10
    One of the best JRPGs ever made
    Is that a bold statement ? Yeah - but it's also the truth
    This takes everything that made Dragon Quest VIII an awesome game , and cranks it up to . . you guessed it . . . 11.
  18. Ferrocianeto
    Sep 7, 2018
    10
    An absolutely essential game from one of the most beloved JRPG franchises of all time. Finally on PC. Go buy it right now.
  19. Rafairin
    Sep 9, 2018
    10
    This game is incredible, it is perfect in everything. I loved every second I played it. It has no bad points, I love it with all my heart
  20. jugadorhardcore
    Sep 6, 2018
    10
    finally a Dragon Quest! great game. a masterpiece! this genre is difficult to come by
  21. LieberB
    Sep 12, 2018
    10
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Otima jogabilidade, gráficos e designe muito bonito, exploração interessante, e uma historia pontual, simples e bem direta, sem duvida um titulo obrigatório para os amantes de rpg, tava esperando algo assim pra atual geração. Otima oportunidade para os gamers novos verem como funciona um jogo onde o estilo tornou uma geração em aficionados por JRPG.… Expand
  22. JonsGone
    Jul 10, 2020
    7
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Great game.
    Soundtrack is horrible, just turn it off.
    Voice acting ranges from great (Rab) to atrocious (Gemma).
    Lacks critical information on monsters.
    Great story, picks up after act 1.
    Most of the character development is undone by the transition to act 3.
    Meh character design.
    What even is the point of having a timeskip if you're not gonna change up the designs a little.
    Serena's hair does not count.
    Fantastic monster design.
    They actually look like old school 2d sprites.
    Game looks beautiful even if the landscapes tend to be a little bland.
    Does not let you figure things out for yourself which can get a little annoying.
    40+ duration for main story (acts 1/2)
    Large amounts of postgame content.    … Expand
  23. timeslider
    Jan 3, 2019
    7
    This is the first Dragon Quest game I've played so I'm not looking at this game with nostalgic eyes. I am a big fan JRPGs in general and this game was decent but not the best and it suffers from some horrible design decisions.

    Pros. * Graphics are top notch for a JRPG. The style is very beautiful. I found myself stopping and looking around in first person view a lot. Cons. There's    This is the first Dragon Quest game I've played so I'm not looking at this game with nostalgic eyes. I am a big fan JRPGs in general and this game was decent but not the best and it suffers from some horrible design decisions.

    Pros.
    * Graphics are top notch for a JRPG. The style is very beautiful. I found myself stopping and looking around in first person view a lot.

    Cons.
    There's a lot listed here but they are minor inconveniences. Overall the game is very good.

    * The world map is not labeled. I found the world map to be completely useless. I spent more time than necessary running around because the map wasn't labeled and since this game is fairly new the information wasn't on google either.
    * Very slow menus. Some of the menus take more than 5 seconds to activate. I'm running an i7-4790K and gtx-970. I've never had a game menu take that long. It's insane. It usually happens in the same menu every time. When I first open the fun-size forge and when I activate a skill from the skill tree. This problem is compounded by the fact that the game has so many repetitive menus. Does it really need to ask me if I want to keep playing? Whenever a music jingle is playing during a menu, it won't let you advance until the music stops. Every single level gained has to be tapped through and in some less frequent places like after a quest.
    * You can only sell 9 items at a time. I don't know who thought that was a good idea but that made me slam my head on the table. On top of that, it takes about 5 button presses to sell something and with the menus being so slow, it becomes a major annoyance.
    * Giving seeds/items, in general, is so slow. I have a ton of seeds I wanted to give to a player but when I give them one it takes me all the way back to the item menu. It takes 6 button presses to give one seed. It takes about 1 minute 18 seconds to give 50 seeds. Why they don't ask how many to give? I don't know.
    * Default music is too loud. It default sound settings has everything set to 6. I had to turn the music down to 2.
    * Tabbing out of the game doesn't stop the music. A lot of times, I'll tab out of the game to watch a YouTube video but the game music keeps playing. It very annoying. There's no way to pause the music so each time I would have to go into the system settings to turn off the music.
    * Cutscenes are annoying. I wish the cutscenes would advance automatically. Instead, after a character has finished talking, I have to press a button to continue. The voice overs will sometimes have a long pause after a sentence so you think it's time to press continue but they weren't done talking and I've just missed some dialogue. Or the opposite will happen. They'll be finished talking and I won't know it. The only way to be certain is to read along with the text at the bottom but then I miss the visuals. It would have been much better if the cutscene advanced automatically and if the subtitles were optional.
    * Autorun is worthless. I used it about 5 times in 110 hours and only to see if it could be useful. Some of the maps are big but not that big.
    * Music. One of the big things I love about JRPGs is the music. Sadly, I just wasn't feeling it in this game. The overture (played during the intro) was the only song I enjoyed. I'm not even going to talk about MIDI vs orchestration. I'm talking about the melodies and repetitions. The soundtrack is very short. None of the characters had their own theme. Every theme was completely different and unrelated. Nothing tied itself together. The same music is used over and over again. It's almost comical in some areas. This music? Again? lol I can forgive bad quaily if the song is catchy but none of the songs were very catchy. In Final Fantasy and Ni No Kuni, I wouldn't leave some areas until the best part of the song was over because the songs were that good. That never happened in this game.
    * Textures. They're good but the resolutions are all over the place. Some really small objects have overly sharp textures while other really big noticeable objects have low-resolution textures.
    * Lack of graphics settings. I have a gtx-970 which is not good enough to run this game at max-settings in some areas. In those areas, my frame-rate would drop to less than 30 but those areas were rare. Even after turning down all the settings I was still dipping into the 40s.    … Expand
  24. robomartion
    Oct 22, 2019
    5
    So kid friendly it might just leave you puking. The obvious and lazy use of Unreal Engine make this a soulless experience not worthy of the title Dragon Quest.
  25. lambor
    Nov 13, 2018
    9
    Dragon Quest XI is a great JRPG, mod in the orchestral soundtrack and it becomes epic!
  26. MattStar1980
    Nov 9, 2018
    10
    One of the best JRPGs ever made. It is turned based, and I WANTED that. Some of the twist I saw coming; but, holy moly....some I didn't. It is almost 3 games in one; you will see.....
  27. baszermaszer
    Apr 15, 2019
    2
    This game is for 7 year old kids and below at kindergarten level.
    NPC's are super childish and their lame manga-wannabe design is weakly done. English voices are annoying for the intro movies, then become horrible and unbearable for NPCs. Intro is too boring.
    MUSIC IS HORRIBLY BAD, but if only little children play this game, they probably don't care about bad music. Combat is simple,    This game is for 7 year old kids and below at kindergarten level.
    NPC's are super childish and their lame manga-wannabe design is weakly done. English voices are annoying for the intro movies, then become horrible and unbearable for NPCs. Intro is too boring.
    MUSIC IS HORRIBLY BAD, but if only little children play this game, they probably don't care about bad music.
    Combat is simple, boring. First monsters - BubbleGum Blobs - were the ones that made me uninstall this game. For kids this is okay.

    There is no 5:4 monitor ratio support, only widescreen and the engine is slow. Not that it matters in this case.

    Anybody, who loves the incomparably amazing story writing of Tactics Ogre with its fantastic musical score and its world's best turn-based tactical battles ==> AVOID Dragon Quest XI AT ALL COSTS!!!!    … Expand
  28. Kamzz
    Jul 24, 2020
    0
    No free upgrade to XI S on steam, it feels so greedy from SQEX.
    Don't buy this game anymore and wait XI S if you really want it.
  29. Equiixxx
    Jan 26, 2022
    8
    All a jrpg should have. Characters are very charismatic even if they fall on some stereotypes. Those 2 points goes away because im really tired of protagonist being those dull males that wont make a face even if they are being stabbed or wont say a single word on all game. Cant relate to them. Also Pc port should not been the switch port because the graphics had a big downgrade that couldAll a jrpg should have. Characters are very charismatic even if they fall on some stereotypes. Those 2 points goes away because im really tired of protagonist being those dull males that wont make a face even if they are being stabbed or wont say a single word on all game. Cant relate to them. Also Pc port should not been the switch port because the graphics had a big downgrade that could have been easily avoided. dificulty escalation is very well executed at 50 hours more or less. before that, the game can be too much easy. You will feel like suddenly some bosses gets really hard when normal enemies were too much weak.… Expand
  30. Techiteruel
    Jun 25, 2023
    10
    This game is the best of the 10s. Should be a GOTY. It produced me some nostalgia other games can not produce
prev
Page:

Critic Reviews

All reviews »
Metascore
80

Generally favorable reviews - based on 4 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 3 out of 4
  2. Mixed: 1 out of 4
  3. Negative: 0 out of 4
  1. Riot Pixels
    Nov 5, 2018
    83
    Dragon Quest XI may delight even the staunchest opponents of JRPGs.
    Read full review
  2. GameStar
    Sep 23, 2018
    88
    Dragon Quest 11 successfully counts on traditional JRPG virtues in a contemporary look, becoming the best current title of the genre.
    Read full review
  3. PC Gamer
    Sep 11, 2018
    68
    A JRPG for people who haven’t played one in a while, basically. Well-made, but disappointingly safe.
    Read full review
See all critic reviews »