Getting (back) into Dragon Quest

Dragon Quest XI S: Echoes of an Elusive Age – Definitive Edition was the first Dragon Quest game I ever played and it was only because of the very generous demo that Square-Enix released for the Switch that prompted me to give it a go.

I ended up receiving the game for Christmas later that year and did get another 15 hours into it. But, as can be the case with long turn based RPGs, other things come up and you struggle to find the "right time" to get back into it.

This month Dragon Quest VII Reimagined was released, and it too had a pretty generous demo. I really enjoyed my time with it, but I'm not quite ready to pay full price for it. Yet, I was itching to play more Dragon Quest, so I thought, why not go back to the Dragon Quest game I do have.

Thankfully I was at a pretty good point in the game to jump back in and I'm now another 8-10 hours in. What's more, I'm doing better with both the combat and the general flow of the game. It helped that VII Reimagined is very overt with how it is structured. XI is a bit more open (although still mostly "linear") but essentially it's go place to place, and each one has a unique personality and often utilises a recognisable real world accent.

Because I have it on the Switch (although playing on Switch 2), in the instance where I did need to grind a little bit as I was way too underpowered for one of the bosses, I stuck on a TV show I've seen before but wanted to watch again casually and played this at the same time to reduce the tedium. My party is now in a much better place and I hopefully won't need to grind quite as much next time.

I'll see how far I get, as outside of Pokémon I've never been great at persevering with turn based RPGs. At the moment though, this might be the one.