Perhaps it seems like I am beating a dead horse here but when I buy a game I go all in. I don't abandon a game the same way that I would a netflix series that got a bit dull. I tend to treat all of my games the same way that I did when I was saving up my paper-route money as a kid and basing my game-purchasing decisions almost entirely on the box art. Even if the game sucked and was repetitive as crap, if it was possible to defeat it, I was going to do so.
I have been playing this turn-based JRPG for around 30 hours of game-time (it tracks this for you) and so far there are a lot of things I like about the game and quite a few that I don't like. The major one that I don't like should come as no surprise to anyone that reads my stuff at all and yes, I did realize that I was getting myself into this upon purchasing it.
I am not really a fan of excessive, unskippable cutscenes and this title is absolutely loaded with them. Sometimes you just recently left a cutscene and then you walk to the other side of town (required) only to be greeted with yet another cutscene. The first time you encounter any of this stuff it is not possible to skip them and they also will not proceed on their own. Therefore, i can't just go and do something else for a while and come back since it will wait you to press "X" after a couple lines of dialogue.
I admit, i have carried the controller to the kitchen to do literally anything other than watch the cutscenes and then will occasionally press x to keep the story going.
I have been "playing for 30 hours" I don't think I am exaggerating when i suggest that at least 25% of that has been watching cinematic interludes.
While you are only allowed to have 4 of them in your "active" party, you have a wealth of talent in the ranks and these people can be swapped in and out of combat at any time. It doesn't seem to have any negative affect on whose turn it is as the people you swap in normally will get to attack next.
Of course there is a major caveat here: If you are like me, you tend to focus on your favorite toons and maybe completely ignore upgrading the equipment of your lessor used characters and well, this can result in a bad situation if you hot swap in a character during a tough battle only to realize they have gear equipped that was useful 20 levels ago. So i suppose you should try to keep up with the equipment on everyone, not just the people in your current lineup.
In this game and other Squenix games finding out of the way treasure chests was actually very worthwhile. If you went well off the trail to find a hidden chest you were normally rewarded with a weapon or accessory that was a real gem. After 30 hours playing this game this has never happened - all the gear i have found is either a redundant consumable, or something used in crafting that I wasn't planning on doing anyway. Which brings me to my next point
I liked the addition of crafting into the game but the major problem is that it is really a lot easier to simply purchase the items at a shop.
Many times I have thrown my items into the pot only to later realize that there isn't any chance that I can finish said item in an acceptable fashion so I end up with a useless piece of crap that actually takes my stats down. The items that I used to attempt to make said item are consumed even when you fail, and getting them back takes a lot of random fight drops or finding an out of the way treasure chest. In other words, it just isn't worth it.
I suppose it is a decent side-quest, if you are into that sort of thing.
I have actually put this game down in order to play a game that is less cutscene-heavy. Normally, doing this would result in me returning to the game and having no idea how to play it and therefore would simply just never play it again. However, since DQ11 is so simplistic in the interface, you could walk away from this game for a year and probably be ok to pick it up again. You don't really use any of the buttons, it is simply just a strategy and time / resource management... same as all other turn-based JRPG's.
Dragon Quest XI is a massive and extremely casual JRPG. It is a throwback to "simpler times" when RPG's were the norm and First Person Shooters didn't exist because of graphical limitation of consoles.
For people that want to relive the glorious 80's and 90's of gaming with improved graphics and also don't completely devote their lives to a game (casual gamers) this could be a good choice for you. However, since it is very slow moving and has a tremendous amount of scenes that cannot be skipped I think a lot of people might end up finding this game boring.
