Dragon Quest 11 S Turns Into A Retro JRPG At Night (and other times)

Dragon Quest 11 come out on the Nintendo Switch on Friday. I’ve been playing the game a lot and now I want to talk about the game’s most special addition: its 2D mode!

In 2D mode, Dragon Quest 11 S looks like a game from the SNES era, though with a bit more detail than those 16-bit games. Its amazing how Square Enix completely recreated this world in retro style and how fantastic it looks. The battle system is in first person mode and will be a blast from the past for long time Dragon Quest. And the world map is beautiful. Dare I say it, Dragon Quest 11 S may be a better game in 2D than 3D.

Don’t get me wrong, DQ11 looks great in 3D on the Switch. And if you ever want to switch between 2D and 3D, you can. Beware though that you may have to repeat things you’ve done before if you decide to switch. The 2D/3D switch is done by chapters, not by moments nor a one-to-one transfer. This is a little disappointing but honestly you’ll probably want to stick to one visual style while playing the game then later go back and play the other style.

I think its also disappointing that some moments in the 2D mode were left in 3D, like the opening of the game. I wish these moments had been recreated in 2D instead of watching a 3D segment and then being transferred to 2D. Having 3D in the 2D mode takes away a little bit from the 2D modes’ SNES feel. This isn’t a deal breaker for the 2D mode though. If you love retro jrpgs, you must play Dragon Quest 11 S in 2D mode! Its amazing.

Dragon Quest 11 was already a great game on the Playstation 4. On the Switch, the game is taken to the next level. With the 2D mode, the player is basically getting two games for the price of one!

Oh and if you’re a long time Dragon Quest fan, you’ll get a kick out of Tickington! I’ll talk about that in my review.

I will have a full review of Dragon Quest 11 S on Wednesday. I’ll talk more about the 3D mode, the 2D mode, and all the extra bells and whistles that have been added to this game.

Have you played Dragon Quest 11 S? What do you think of it? Is this the Definitive Edition of the game?