I almost beat all of Drunstan's Trials, except for one, since I'm still deciding who I want to be married to.
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Dragon Quest XI S: Echoes of an Elusive Age – Definitive Edition |OT| 2D, or not 2D, that is the question (now available on PS4/XB1/PC)
- Thread starter Deleted member 10737
- Start date
I just beat this game and I think it's a total masterpiece. So charming, so fun, so well-written. I think it might actually be my favourite DQ at this point (was formerly DQ V).
The arc of each act, and the twist of what Act III has you do is total genius and made me so happy.
I have started this game at the end of last month, and yesterday I completed Act 1 after around 27 hours - I thought it would have taken longer, I did all the side quests with except of two. The end of Act 1 and the beginning of Act 2 were amazing. Honestly I didn't expected that all the world would go broke, and that we would have the possibility to visit different regions with the other characters of the party. I have just finished Sylvain's story, now Jade's one started. So far, I am enjoying this game so much. And, despite I have visited already so many regions in the game, read very good and emotional side stories (e.g., the mermaid), I am sure much more is still awaiting for me.
I bought the Switch version last year for the QoL improvements and have every intention of getting to the game in the near future (one of the many games part of my huge backlog!).
But with the new port being released this coming December, I understand that it will have an increased resolution and frame rate. Frame rate is self-explanatory (60 FPS?). But with increased resolution, how will that affect the visuals exactly? The FAQ is extremely vague, 'differences in spec may result in graphical quality'.
I mean will the higher resolution make the rocks and foliage more sharp and defined, more similar to the original PS4/PC version? Or will it being a port from the Switch still keep it them from being a bit blurred/undefined?
What will a higher resolution (1080p/(4K upscale if playing on Pro) do for you? Will the graphical difference for the Switch port still be quite noticeable?
But with the new port being released this coming December, I understand that it will have an increased resolution and frame rate. Frame rate is self-explanatory (60 FPS?). But with increased resolution, how will that affect the visuals exactly? The FAQ is extremely vague, 'differences in spec may result in graphical quality'.
I mean will the higher resolution make the rocks and foliage more sharp and defined, more similar to the original PS4/PC version? Or will it being a port from the Switch still keep it them from being a bit blurred/undefined?
What will a higher resolution (1080p/(4K upscale if playing on Pro) do for you? Will the graphical difference for the Switch port still be quite noticeable?
The textures and assets of the Nintendo Switch version of Dragon Quest XI S are ported over to the Xbox One, Xbox Game Pass, PlayStation 4, and Steam versions of Dragon Quest XI S. So even at higher resolution(s), the textures and assets will still be of lower quality in comparison to the original PlayStation 4 and Steam versions of Dragon Quest XI. Of course, modders might work on a mod to use the same texture and assets of the original Steam version of Dragon Quest XI for the Steam version of Dragon Quest XI S.
Higher resolution(s) would probably make Dragon Quest XI S look less blurry.
Most likely you'll see higher resolution, less jaggies, and a overall sharper image.
It won't match the original DQ11 release, but the higher resolution should improve image quality nicely.
That's just it, not really sure what 'higher resolution' will mean in regards to image quality. So basically just less jaggies and overall sharper image?
I guess I will need to see comparison shots further down the road. Hopefully Digital Foundry will do a comparison.
I have never played a DQ game before apart from a brief play of the DQ Builders Switch demo. However, as part of culling my backlog of Switch demos, I gave the demo for this game a go last night and was knocked out by it. It was utterly charming and visually delightful and I have the full game downloading to my Switch as I type this. I am excited to get stuck into it this afternoon and evening.
Have a good time! I've suggested it before, but I hghly recommend starting on Harder Monsters as a Draconian setting.
These make the game harder or trickier in ways, and if you are confident in your RPG playing skill, it won't be much of a problem. It balances the difficutly to basically always be a little challenging throughout, and it's the preferred way to play.
If it ends up too tough, you can always deactivate it at a Church, but you won't be able to put it back on, so give it a good try!
If you need advice or anything, I'm here for ya! Dragon Quest is a legendary series for a reason, and this one is one of the best!
I envy you. I wish I could experience this again for the first time. This is my favorite RPG series, and I'd say DQXI is in the top three easy.
I've been playing on Harder Monsters since I got the game last year and totally agree that's the way to go. Absolutely love this game and have currently picked it back up and am now focusing on completing what will be my first playthrough on the main story quest (previous DQ games completed are DQ V DS and VII 3DS).
Do you or anyone else here have any tips on how to approach the Tentacular boss (sea fight during the Mermaid-fiancé storyline)? I've been trying defeat him for weeks. Such a cheap, and at times infuriating boss between his tentacle blocking moves and getting three cheap attacks in a row. I've tried multiple character combos (my party is in early-mid 20s overall), Hero attacks + occasional healing support + Falcon Slash + brute force moves with Jade (Thunder Thrust/Hip Drop/Harvest Moon), attacks + hustle dance with Sylvando, Kabuff/Dazzle/healing with Serena, Right as Rain healing & Snooze w/Rabb + Persecutter with Erick and no matter what I try he always eventually wears my party down. Veronica is too weak, Serena's Kabuff helps a lot but her Hymn of Ice seems to do almost nothing against his icy breath multi hit. Disabling his tentacles seems like a waste of time so I've been focusing on trying to land critical hits on his head when he's not blocking. Also using the cannon from Lonalulu but that barely gives you time for one sneak attack. Anyways, apologies for the long reply, thanks in advance for any advice if you have time. =)
No problem, glad to help out!
One thing that slips a ton of old-school RPG players is the idea that status ailments actually work on bosses, and because the scaling on Physical Bosses goes really tough, you wanna be using Dazzle on them when you can.
Sylvando should basically be using Hustle Dance every turn to keep everyone healthy, and make sure he has plenty of Charm, it scales off it!
The Hero's Two Handed weapon is very powerful in this fight, the improved cutting slash can be very helpful!
and by the way, you can actually mess around with putting points into skill families in the skill board that are further into a board, and refund the previous ones to get access to your best skills earlier!
And also, if you wanna break the curve in half, you can always do some gambling at the Puerto Valor casino, save when you win big and load when you lose big, and save up to get the Platnum sword! If you have a macro and a bunch of chips, you can basically leave it on overnight spinning and make millions.
Above all, just make sure you keep your offensive buffs up and stay careful! Some bosses are really touch and go, so you wanna make each turn count! I know you can do it!
Awesome, I'll definitely take all of that into account and try some of those ideas, thanks! I've also been grinding up levels a bit by hunting Metal Slimes in the desert outside Gallopolis to see if that helps too. Don't want to over level though of course. >___<
You actually have a better place avalible with the ship, check out the island past Lonalulu, east of the world. It has plenty of slimes, and occasionally Liquid Metal Slimes, too!
Sorry, lemme give a correction, I mean the Platinum POWERsword, the two handed one. Just making sure!
I purchased the Switch version and was going to start that up, but going to see how the PS4 version looks that is coming out this December. Hopefully there will be some comparison videos/screenshots between the different versions, and would be great to see Digital Foundry do a write-up/video. Yes, I understand it is a port of the Switch version, but still want to actually (visually) see if there will be a benefit in the upcoming release.
From what I understand, the new version releasing in December will have all of the content that came out in the (Definitive) Switch version.
From what I understand, the new version releasing in December will have all of the content that came out in the (Definitive) Switch version.
In a way, they are the same, the S version made as a descaled version of the PS4 game, will be artificially UPSCALED into the PS4 and PC S version.
So it honestly only matters what platform you prefer to play it on, because it's not gonna look much better on better hardware.
I suggest the Switch version if you have one for the portability, but who knows what will happen with the PC version, and if modding support could be implimented, ether officially or otherwise.
Well, I am still curious what that 'not much better' difference there will be. Portability is not a factor for me, as I want to play it on my TV.
I am in the process of a play through of all the Suikoden games right now (just started 2), so I have time before I get to DQ XI.
Thanks :). If the demo is anything to go by then I shall have a lovely time. I didn't even bother playing through all of the demo before deciding to buy it. I love it when that happens. I shall give your advice a go, thanks. I don't remember seeing monster difficulty in the settings so I shall scrub my demo save and start again. It's so charming that I won't mind redoing a few minutes of gameplay. Now to get on a get some real life stuff done so I can dig into this later, guilt free.
When I was playing the demo I couldn't help but think that I have been missing out on never having played DQ before. I see, however, that a bunch of the older games are available on Switch so I shall not lack for more DQ to play if my enthusiasm for it does not wane :).
I actually went to that island a few weeks ago, didn't find any Metal Slimes, got wrecked several times by some King Slimes. lol I'll have to try it again.
It's one of those things where they just show up with some of the encounters, regardless of which ones, so you kinda just have to beat up a bunch until they show up.
It's a good opportunity to get Jade, Erik, Sylvando and the Hero built up to Pepped Status so you can use either Electrolight (turns enemies into level appropriate Metal slimes, or sometimes Robots), or Hallelujah (doubles experience and money gain, and GUARNTEE the most rare item drops from the enemies!)
Hallelujah especially is a good thing to build up to and use right, since you can go to one of the islands (I think it's the inner island in the inner sea, don't remember), that has Spiked Hares, who will drop Bunny Tails rarely.
If you use Hallelujah to get them easy, and equip 8 to an active party, that's a FLAT 8% chance for any item from any enemy to drop, leading to a lot more item drops!
Very helpful, especially if you wanna go to the island to the West, and beat up Brownies for Strength Seeds to permenantly increase your Str.
If you wanna save those up rather then use them in case you spend them weird while you are still early, that's a good idea, they aren't necessary! Maybe stash them in your character's inventory instead of the bag for later, might come in handy there...
(Bag never loses it's stuff, don't worry, it's something else that's a spoiler, but you'll thank me later. Nothing critical, just will help out.)
I started afresh earlier, played a bunch, left the village on my epic quest and beat a load of roadside monsties. Some of the art design and animation of these is sublime. Then I died because I wasn't paying attention to my health, lol. Oh well, lesson learned until I get another healer in my party. I wish I could take the dog with me though; he's so cute! I decided not to try any higher difficulty options though. I just want to play it and have fun but it's nice to have those options for any replays. Despite my incompetence, I love the game. It's ridiculously charming.
Thanks for the detailed, additional strategies! I'm going back to the Slime island tonight and will also check out that island with the Brownies and strength seeds when I'm able to.
It's this reason I'm going to wait for switch pro to play my copy of dq11. We could get 1080p 60fps (or at least 1080p).
I would be surprised if Square Enix put up a "Nintendo Switch Pro" or "Nintendo Switch 2" (going by some people's speculation based on the Bloomberg article) patch for Dragon Quest XI S, to be honest. But if that's the case, then Dragon Quest XI S on the "Nintendo Switch Pro" or the "Nintendo Switch 2" could be on par with the base PlayStation 4 and base Xbox One versions of Dragon Quest XI S, which would be interesting.
If SE put out a patch for DQ XI for Nintendo (for a Switch Pro), it would make me wonder, and I am guessing a lot of others, why they wouldn't have done the same for the versions coming out this December (at least for the PS4).
So it makes me think they wouldn't do this for the Switch Pro.
Razorrin
Another question on the Tentacular battle, is it worth being patient and taking out both tentacles first? Looking at various guides and videos it feels like I'm getting conflicting info. Some say it's a waste of time due to regenerating and just focus on trying to land hits on his head/body while I saw one person say the tentacles don't come back after their second regeneration (is that true?) so it's better to take them out since of course in that scenario (if it's correct) he can't block anymore and then is limited to only two attacks per turn for the rest of the battle, thoughts?
Another question on the Tentacular battle, is it worth being patient and taking out both tentacles first? Looking at various guides and videos it feels like I'm getting conflicting info. Some say it's a waste of time due to regenerating and just focus on trying to land hits on his head/body while I saw one person say the tentacles don't come back after their second regeneration (is that true?) so it's better to take them out since of course in that scenario (if it's correct) he can't block anymore and then is limited to only two attacks per turn for the rest of the battle, thoughts?
Like a lot of boss fights with Optional portions to beat up, sometimes beating both of them takes to much time and firepower, when destroying one gives you enough leeway to defeat the boss and stay healed up.
Like I said, I often just focus on smashing the face and Hustle Dancing around the damage. Maybe making sure you bring Veronica to deal some Boom damage (hits all enemies) and bring Erik for heavy damage after poisoning him.
Remember that after inflicting Poison, Erik can divide, THEN use Victimizer for MASSIVE DAMAGE, it WILL triple the hits, and they'll ALL deal weakness damage. It's a good strategy, if the poison sticks. I wouldn't recommend taking Sylvando off of healing duty too long, but his Blow Kiss move can inflict Poison, despite it's fairly low damage. (Also he has a move that will deal 300ish damage to all enemies for a measily 1000G, which is busted early on if you get it)
Erik's Divide should never be underestimated, it triples a few more things then damage. Like, if you wanna make sure poison sticks before victimizering, it can help with that too.
Thanks again for all the great info. I have used Victimizer with Eric before and have landed some great hits with that so will try to look into swapping him into my line up more (seems like I hang on a lot longer overall though with my current combo of Hero, Jade, Sylv and Serena). How do you get Divide for Eric (skill tree?) and where do you purchase that 300 + damage move for Sylvando? For Veronica I currently only have Bang.
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Divide is a Guile skill, found in one of the hidden panels, I believe it's to the top left.
Sylv's is tricky, I think it's on the bottom right of his board, but like I said before, you might need to do that tricky thing I told you about and refund the Lithness skillpoints for when you get to the bottom skills.
Thanks! How to you refund skill points? Couldn't seem to find that anywhere in the skill tree/ character builder menus.
Edit: Ah I see, Gold Rush is Sylv's move, will try to get that.
You go to a church or a goddess statue.
You can only refund in groups based on the skill group, like swords, Greatswords, Luminary, etc.
That's what I mean by the trick, you make your way deeper into one of the skill panels, and then you refund the ones on the way there. The Luminary and Sylvando are great examples of characters that can do this, you'll find out how.
Got it, thanks. I feel kinda incompetent for missing the skill refund option on the statue/church menus but it's so easy to just get into the mindset of being like "Yeah, yeah I just wanna save." :p Anyways, back to the trenches!
No worries, one of the reasons this game is so good is because it has such mechanical depth to it! Later in the game you'll see the kind of crazy strategies you can field with creative use of Pep powers and skills!
Enjoy it by your own pace, and I hope any advice I give helps!
Yeah and it really flies in the face of all the "Dragon Quest is too simplistic" chatter. Looking at the Rectification option where I'm at in the game, Sylvando would get 26 points back + 8 unused he currently has so looks like not enough to get Gold Rush. Is there a way to get extra Skill Seeds at this point in the game? I was reading about a tactic in Dundrasil when it rains but that's either post game or much later.
Main way is to make use of skill seeds that drop from chest monsters, or good old fashioned beating up High Exp Monsters.
It should be noted that Dirge of Dunsrasil, the Rab single character Pep Power (needs the Luminary to use, but only uses his Pep) can work on metal slime enemies.
Also, while grinding out on certain foes (like after getting the bunny tails to get the drop rate higher, it's way better with them because like I said, it's additive rather then percentage based, so +8% goes a really long way in big fights), put the characters with the pep power you wanna use away when they pep up.
I would recommend getting Electrolight ready, so that'd be Sylvando, Jade and the Luminary.
Then, get into a fight after saving and use it! If you slay a few Metal Slimes after, you're sure to level up a few times! Remember thar Crit attacks will immediately end a Metal Slime's whole career, so both Jade and Serena should get Thunder Thrust to use against them. Swap Serena in after summoning the slimes, or as the fourth in the party at the start.
If you have a lot of patience, you can Hallelujah (Luminary, Jade, Erik), then stall in battle until you get Jade and the Luminary's pep back and swap Sylvando and Rab in, use Electrolight, then swap Sylvando for Serena and use Rab's Dirge of Dundrasil, and voila! Most of the slimes will be asleep and easy prey for Thunder Thrusts, and you'll get both Double Exp, and some drops from them too!
If you manage to sneak a Hallelujah in against Liquid Metal Slimes, you get the Happy Hat, a very powerful hat anyone can wear, that gives solid stats but more importantly, restores Mp while walking! Great for grinding or helping lower Mp characters like Sylv, Jade and the Luminary.
Don't take all this too seriously though, it's a lot of work to grind a little faster. If you can survive the trip you can head to the library in the Snaerfelt near Snifflheim and fight enemies there until Liquid Metal Slimes show up, though watch out because again, they can kill the crap out of you on this difficulty if you aren't careful!
At least, I'm fairly sure the Snaerfelt is avalible if you sail straight to Snifflheim...
As an aside, I love the capmpsite outside the city, it's my favorite campsite in the game and it looks so good with the city walls next to it. I would love to camp just outside a walled city like that sometime, there's something really neat and interesting about it that I can't put into words...
This was the best pic I could find...
Main way is to make use of skill seeds that drop from chest monsters, or good old fashioned beating up High Exp Monsters.
It should be noted that Dirge of Dunsrasil, the Rab single character Pep Power (needs the Luminary to use, but only uses his Pep) can work on metal slime enemies.
Also, while grinding out on certain foes (like after getting the bunny tails to get the drop rate higher, it's way better with them because like I said, it's additive rather then percentage based, so +8% goes a really long way in big fights), put the characters with the pep power you wanna use away when they pep up.
I would recommend getting Electrolight ready, so that'd be Sylvando, Jade and the Luminary.
Then, get into a fight after saving and use it! If you slay a few Metal Slimes after, you're sure to level up a few times! Remember thar Crit attacks will immediately end a Metal Slime's whole career, so both Jade and Serena should get Thunder Thrust to use against them. Swap Serena in after summoning the slimes, or as the fourth in the party at the start.
If you have a lot of patience, you can Hallelujah (Luminary, Jade, Erik), then stall in battle until you get Jade and the Luminary's pep back and swap Sylvando and Rab in, use Electrolight, then swap Sylvando for Serena and use Rab's Dirge of Dundrasil, and voila! Most of the slimes will be asleep and easy prey for Thunder Thrusts, and you'll get both Double Exp, and some drops from them too!
If you manage to sneak a Hallelujah in against Liquid Metal Slimes, you get the Happy Hat, a very powerful hat anyone can wear, that gives solid stats but more importantly, restores Mp while walking! Great for grinding or helping lower Mp characters like Sylv, Jade and the Luminary.
Don't take all this too seriously though, it's a lot of work to grind a little faster. If you can survive the trip you can head to the library in the Snaerfelt near Snifflheim and fight enemies there until Liquid Metal Slimes show up, though watch out because again, they can kill the crap out of you on this difficulty if you aren't careful!
At least, I'm fairly sure the Snaerfelt is avalible if you sail straight to Snifflheim...
As an aside, I love the capmpsite outside the city, it's my favorite campsite in the game and it looks so good with the city walls next to it. I would love to camp just outside a walled city like that sometime, there's something really neat and interesting about it that I can't put into words...
This was the best pic I could find...
Cool, thanks again for all the excellent, detailed information. I think I'm gonna buckle down on Metal hunting on the Slime island for now. My Hero has the Metal Slash move and Jade has Thunder Thrust which should help to start with.
Besides using the cannon at the start to give you an advantage & the general boss strategy of using buffs/debuffs throughout, one thing that I found really helpful in that boss battle was to spec Jade for claws. Her Hawkeye skill (5MP, about double damage compared to a normal attack) is guaranteed to hit your target even if the tentacles are trying to protect it so you can use that every turn to get reliable damage on the main boss.
Plus, after playing with spears for my first playthrough, I gave her claws the second go around, and she just gets such a crit rate boost with them, they feel way more fun to me.
Crimson Claws are likely to be your best claw option for her (and Rab) for a while, so I'd win the Silver Cup of Horseracing as soon as you are able, so you can get in on these 60 Attack, 8% (14% with skill panel) Crit, double attacking deliverers of doom! Technically speaking, Multithrust from Spears is more dependable, and the Platinum Spear from King Orcs in the Icy Forest north of the Snaerfelt is one of the best spears for that point, but I like claws.
Use Hardclaw with Claws if you want consistent damage, it can crit in all three hits.
Crimson Claws are likely to be your best claw option for her (and Rab) for a while, so I'd win the Silver Cup of Horseracing as soon as you are able, so you can get in on these 60 Attack, 8% (14% with skill panel) Crit, double attacking deliverers of doom! Technically speaking, Multithrust from Spears is more dependable, and the Platinum Spear from King Orcs in the Icy Forest north of the Snaerfelt is one of the best spears for that point, but I like claws.
Use Hardclaw with Claws if you want consistent damage, it can crit in all three hits.
I read the entire thread, this is great.
This is why I said above why I was going to wait to hear more info on what will be done with PS4 (and XBox) version(s) for the December release before I did my playthrough.
Looks like we will get the 1080p and 60fps (if you have a Pro). It sounds like it won't be exactly like the original PS4 version, some things aren't quite the same, but it appears there will be a marked improvement from the Switch version. Plan on picking this up in December.
Thanks guys! I'm going to try to get the Platinum sword for Hero from the Casino as well and last night started using the token farming trick on the ten coin bet slot machine (the one across from where you get the Tombola Ticket on the floor). Am at about 20,000 tokens now (some of which were also earned from Slime Quest aka best mini game ever), going to try to get the rest tonight.
Slime quest may be slow, but it has a ton of heart! If you savescum a little at the 10 Slots until you get plenty (I think 20,000 tokens is pretty good!), you can use some method of auto-pressing or turbo overnight to get a billion of those things.
Unlike in normal casinos, the Player always wins, rather then the house (there was an interview where the director said it's better that it skews towards the player for fun reasons), so it will continue to build eventually.
Plus, Metal Mode and Free Plays stack, so that'll lead to a ton of chips over time!
I'm playing on Switch, is there a way to do overnight auto press trick on console? Or is that only for PC?
Slime Quest is indeed great, love the art, humor and overall presentation. Bosses are tough, I think I've only beaten the Gaia/fire dragon once.
For me, I got the Daemon X Machina switch controllers because my normal joycons kept sticking on me (damn joycons, I swear nintendo really needs their butt on the fire about those), and I later found out they had Turbo and back-button assignment.
So uh, if you wanna get new controllers, that'll be a health side effect.
Ah ok, good to know, thanks. I have a friend who has the Daemon X Machina controllers and he really likes them.
They ARE Stylin, but I must have gotten unlucky because they literally started drifting in the opposite way normal miserycons do (right stick instead of left)
which means I finally have it solved by using a right Joycon and Left Daemon, haha!
Hope it doesn't take too long for ya!