I wouldn't listen to him, because it doesn't get better, it only gets worse. Plot thread after plot threat gets horribly mishmashed with other events that coherence isn't there. Plot "twists" are spoiled long before the "twists" even happen, there is no payoff to be had because it's all just very lazy, predictable writing that's been done a hundred times before. There isn't a single event in the entire story that happens without you already knowing in advance that it would happen. It plays on common tropes and sticks to them like glue, because it's Dragon Quest. DQ games are known for this, playing it super safe, never experimenting with anything, never exploring outside the boundaries of it's basic storytelling aspects, and gearing it for kids. It doesn't help that many aspects of its writing are very weak, and poorly told. Many conversations are forced on you without any dynamic or natural flow to them, or any respect to events that precede them. The seams are constantly exposed in the writing, inconsistencies constantly pop up everywhere, big "plot points" are massively overblown in act 2 and carry no consequence or importance.
None of it gets better, this game is an exercise in a lot of mediocrity and poor execution, even 150+ hours in there is nothing that isn't played super safe, for kids. That's what it is, that's DQ games. Super basic, vanilla JRPG tropes with no deviations or experimentations.
This is not the case. Dragon Quest VII was an adventure game disguised as a JRPG involving multi-generational storytelling, who did that ? It then changed into a massive open world in DQ8, DQ9 was a local coop JRPG experience with full customization, DQX is a MMO. In the same timeframe Persona barely budged since 3, Dragon Quest had reinvented itself three times. Name
one (1) JRPG series who did that in the same timeframe other than Final Fantasy.
And the writing is great, it has almost always been great in the series. You just have to see how other games handled apocalypse the way they did like FF15, who only uses it as a backdrop for emotional payoff, compared to DQXI who actually uses it in a similar way that Final Fantasy VI with the World of Ruin, that makes use of its cyclical design to focus on worldbuilding and making it a lively world based on movement. The way you explore and re-explore the world of Erdrea allows for great stories to be told in a way that is engaging and has weight because you don't just get thrown new stories your way, you get genuine follow-ups to what you've experienced before, and a way to see them to their conclusion as well as a way to change the outcome based on your experiences. The Hotto story of the
town leader living with the pain of her son being the calamity of the town is very well executed, the origin story of Hero through the lens of
his vengeful father still sticking on to this world with incredible visual design
It is even the first time that I really feel Dragon Quest is coming on its own as a collection of universes where actors are used and repurposed in the same way it is done in comic book superhero universes. There's so much to unpack in this game. It is a mistake to think of the game only for the plot twists, the game excels about what it does with those twists to drive the story even further in the three acts and how it recontextualizes the story and the world of Erdrea.
Which one of his criticisms is flipped on its end after the 20 hour mark?
Obviously all of them when you are 15-20% into a massive game. There are so many challenges ahead and the battle system obviously opens up significantly through the game. The story has so many remaining beats, there isn't a single vignette that has seen its resolution, characters haven't had their backgrounds and resolution, there is still a major key character waiting to be recruited,
20 hours of DQXI is this. Do you really think it has nothing to offer in the future ?
No, you're conflating engagement with gratification. Gratification is indeed, as you mention, payoff. The gratification is the climax, the point and end of the journey. Engagement is that the player is willing to undergo the journey itself, to be part of the story, to be a willing participant and happy to be there until the eventual payoff.
I'm not saying that if the payoff takes 20 hours or more the game is automatically bad. I'm saying if the journey is bad - and for the OP it clearly was - that is a very bad start. And imho, a game would need one hell of a payoff for me to play 20 hours if I hate every one of those hours playing and coming out as worth it.
Now I don't hate DQXI, I enjoyed it, but disliked many things about it that caused this to be my least favorite DQ game (including spin offs). And this game does not start of slow, it's not that the OP played for 20 hours and stopped before he got to the good part. He played the good part and did not enjoy it.
The DQXI story is a bad story because it offers up only an illusion of change, there's lip-service to a world in motion but it all falls flat, the world proves to be as static and without consequence as can be. It slaps you in the face with it's ridiculousness to such an extent that you'll lose any absorption the story had on you.
For example, the end of act 1, at the moment where you expect success, you suffer a big defeat. It would have been a lot better if the game would have been able to make me feel if I was somehow at fault in this, that I could or should have done differently to prevent this, but still, it's easy to see where they are going with this: You do the classic hero stuff, and in doing so you destroy the world.
The start of act 2 hammers this home, you see the destruction both on a large scale, and in smaller scale with scared kids left alone to go hungry. You are presented an insurmountable task in a desperate world,... for one story beat. After that you lean that nothing has changed, that the world is all as you left it, that every town is still there. That people that asked you for a bunny costume before the end of time, are still there doing nothing else but waiting for you to bring said costume.
And this continues throughout the story, whatever happens you'll quickly learn there's no consequences at all, like in act 3 when suddenly there's some magic and don't look now but we can do stuff we couldn't do before, o whatever.
This is again something that I dislike, if it only looks like I'm given options but am forced into the direction anyway. It's not so bad if they do it in such a way that you'd really want to give the correct answer, but here for example I did not want to help that prince with cheating so I meant to say no. When the game did not allow it, it was a slap in the face.
I remember the first game, where the final boss also asked me a question, at the time I felt he made a very reasonable offer and I accepted it. And instead of a victorious ending where I ruled half the world, I got a game-over screen, but at least it made me make my choice.
How is it that nothing has changed just because you can keep doing sidequests ? Vignettes are all about this, you even get to feel the loss at a personal level, and it is a moment where your party has to rely on their strength to become better and the sight of the world makes them realize that they need to put out their regrets behind them before it is too late. The characters you come back to see all deal with grief and loss at some level and how it has impacted their lives.
And again, it is not my mission to push him to play further. I didn't feel that the game wasn't good for the first 20 hours, that he drops the game is entirely fine. I do not agree with the premise that the game is bad or that one has to push through and I am not arguing on this point, I'm arguing that the game has much more to offer than it already does. What happens several hours later is not what the same than what happens at the 20 hours mark, which is entirely expected of a JRPG and DQXI does it better than most at offering new things and changing itself constantly. DQXI is not bound by a rigid structure.
20 hours isn't enough to experience what the game has to offer, this is not a ridiculous claim.
Stopping after 20 hours is entirely fine, this is not a ridiculous claim.
Both of these statements can coexist in my opinion.
