Genre: RPG
Developer: Square Enix
Publisher: Square Enix

This latest "Dragon Quest" is one of the oddest visual amalgamations to hit a game platform in ages: ordinarily, hyper-stylized releases like this one skimp on the technology, but in this case there are some serious chops at play: there is a pseudo-functional global illumination model in the outdoor areas, with a moving shadow line during day-night transitions; the fully 3d-modeled towns and even building interiors are so richly detailed that they look like something out of a tech demo; the Toriyama-designed characters look like they are from a CGI film; and there is even an emulated "ray-traced" torch shadow effect in an early dungeon! The game doesn't run at a particularly high resolution in either mode, but the anti-aliasing solution is as tasteful as they come, and the framerate is superb. The 2d mode's art work and menus look a bit like a cheap mobile title, but it's still a neat novelty.

In an age when many famous game composers like Yuzo Koshiro seem shuffled to the background in their fifties, video game godfather and nearly ninety year-old Koichi Sugiyama is still at it! One of the primary criticisms of the game's initial run was its too-synthy samples, similar to what were employed in the "Builders" spin-off releases-- so, an optional, fully re-orchestrated version of the songs are available in this Switch port. They are so good, even this reviewer prefers them! That said, there aren't quite enough songs-- a different theme per town would have gone a long way. The voice cast is superb, with Gunnar Cauthery's distinctive voice as "Erik", along with Shai Matheson as "Sylvando" really standing out.

If the excellent "Xenoblade Chronicles 2" JRPG development methodology could be called "futurized complexity", then this new "Dragon Quest" concept should be: "traditionalism modernized". While it's true that random encounters are out, everything else feels like a genre entry from 2003: the modern-day bloated, pointless "open world" maps? How about smaller, interconnected outdoor areas instead. Fifty battle mechanics? How about "Fight-Magic-Item-Run". So that's the "traditionalism", what about the "modernized"? Try, highly configurable combat AI automation, a superb menu system, a contemporary rotatable camera, and screens reminding the player what he was doing upon a save load.

Perhaps not thematically but in every other sense, Dragon Quest XI feels like a spiritual successor to "Skies of Arcadia"-- it's that good. Its best quality is that it feels innocent and authentic: exploring weapon shop and inn-filled towns, looking for hidden treasure chests in the interstitial regions between those towns, engaging in the occasional dungeon delve, and listening to the completely apolitical non-"woke" story just feels so right, and really captures the spirit of what video games should be. It doesn't hurt that the game perfectly marries sublime art direction with modern, Switch-pushing technological prowess. All-in-all, it's difficult to say whether this or the aforementioned "Xenoblade Chroncles 2" is the best contemporary JRPG-- they're both worth experiencing for certain.