Tickington is great fun if, like me, you've been a Dragon Quest fan for yonks. I'll take you 'round the universe and all the other places too." | Square Enix You might be able to solve an issue right away by finding and beating a monster, but you also might be asked to fetch or find something that can only be found back on Erdrea. From there, you fix whatever needs fixing, but the solutions aren't always simple. Monsters have been messing up timelines-represented as past Dragon Quest adventures-and you're asked to set things right by entering the tomes that contain each timeline. When you travel through the realm of Erdrea, you'll uncover "pastwords" that you can take back to Tickington, the land belonging to the Guardians of Time. It's the style utilized through one of my favorite new additions to the game: The world of Tickington. It's a big ask.Īll that said, Dragon Quest 11 S's 16-bit mode is far from useless. The Dragon Quest 3 Super Famicom remake features animated sprites. Also, this is a greedy little thing to say, but I kind of wish the 16-bit enemy sprites were animated.
The 16-bit version, meanwhile, brings back old-school random battles-not my favorite hold-over from the olden days of RPGs.
The full Dragon Quest 11 experience lets you pick and choose who you want to battle though strong monsters will chase you, most will leave you alone unless you pick a fight. A great deal of work clearly went into the mode, so I initially felt a little bad when I dabbled with it and switched back. The16-bit mode lets you experience the adventure with SNES-style sprites instead of 3D polygonal characters.
Dragon Quest 11 S lets you switch back to the synthesized soundtrack, but here's a spoiler: You probably won't. The overworld theme is especially grating, which is a small problem because that particular theme is poured into your ears from hour one. Frankly, the original release's synthesized soundtrack was one of the adventure's few low points. It's an understatement to say the orchestrated soundtrack is a welcome addition. The biggest examples of Dragon Quest 11's new content are up-front: The orchestrated soundtrack and the option to switch the game to a 16-bit mode. I'm just glad they helped Square Enix put together another must-have Switch RPG. I don't want to know the names of these demons. Between Dragon Quest 11 S and the barely compromised Witcher 3 port, game developers are clearly making covenants with dark forces to bend the humble Switch to their whims. But Dragon Quest 11 S goes well beyond by offering lots of quality of life improvements before stuffing the rest of the adventure full of new content, new storylines, and new costumes.
It's a treatto have a portable version of a tremendous JRPG like Dragon Quest 11 that barely compromises the vanilla edition's visuals. Dragon Quest 11 S has seemingly been rebuilt from the ground-up to make sure the game's engine plays nice with the Switch's sometimes-troublesome hardware. This is no half-baked port cooked up to take advantage of the Switch'spopularity. If you waited because you had faith Square Enix would eventually deliver its promised pony, well, congratulations. Much as I love vanilla Dragon Quest 11, I can't deny the Switch port its "Definitive Edition" descriptor. Isn't 2019 a funny year? Not only is Final Fantasy 7 Remake a red-hot topic, but Dragon Quest 11 finally hit the Switch with an excellent port that adds a Gigantes-sized basket of new features. "Sure dad," we said before buying Dragon Quest 11 for the PlayStation 4. Fans regarded Dragon Quest 11's Switch port the same way we regarded Final Fantasy 7 Remake at the time: Like a distant father who promised he'd totally visit some day and bring us a pony and a dirtbike.
We weren't offered much proof beyond that vow, and the project went quiet for a long time.
When Dragon Quest 11 came westward to the PlayStation 4 and PC about a year ago, Square Enix promised a Switch port would follow.