Beginning of the second act:
The quest “A Dark New World“, and then some individual companion quests before the party reunites.

The game changes after the dramatic first act ending. Monsters become “Malicious“, become tougher, and now have glowing green eyes. The world turns on its head with some seriously bold story-telling…

Crafting is a little different this time, although the aim is the same: to create new weapons, armour and other special items by combining items and materials together. Instead of a steaming pot, this time you use a device called the “Fun-Sized Forge“, which is given to you relatively early on in the game. To forge a new item you must first find the Recipe Book; then combine the ingredients in the Fun-Sized Forge; then hammer them into shape with a puzzle-like minigame. You can also re-work the items you made, to perfect them, and should you be missing any items to make something, you can buy them from within the crafting UI (although they are expensive).

Other new additions worth mentioning: horse riding allows you to get around the vast world more quickly. You get given a horse near the start of the game, and if you lose it you can easily summon the horse back by ringing a bell found at key points on the adventure. You can also gallop through enemies on your horse to avoid battles… Even more fun than horse-riding are “Monster Mounts“. These are enemies that will – when beaten – allow you to ‘ride’ them (some, like the Eggsoskeleton, you actually get inside and operate). If an enemy is sparkling yellow when you encounter it, it is possible to ride it!

Called simply “Sparkly Things” in the game, these twinkling items are found on the ground in certain places. They provide useful items for crafting. The good thing is: they re-generate over time (usually within 24 in-game hours), so are useful for farming.

The enemies in Dragon Quest XI have new features, like monsters who only appear under certain weather conditions (you can forecast the weather in a region by speaking to any of the lone, grazing cows you encounter while travelling). There are “Rarified” versions of monsters, that only appear very occasionally, and these can sometimes be very challenging to cross off the Defeated Monsters List. Defeated monsters (and most bosses) have both regular drops and gold-drops, which have a percentage chance of dropping after each battle. We’ve seen this before in DQ8 and DQ10, except this time you can significantly boost your chances of getting rare item drops by wearing certain items.

There a number of excellent minigames in Dragon Quest XI. All the casino games (slots, cards, roulette etc.), plus some challenging horse racing. There are two large casinos in the game, each with different (and important) prizes.

At a specific point in the story the game changes to 2D mode. Basically, when you first talk to a ‘Tockle‘ (those small, blue, ghost-like blobs you see walking around in the game), you are transported to “Tockington“, where the Tockles live, which is all shown as 2D pixel art.

You can, in fact, play the entire game in 2D if you like, by switching at a church. I wouldn’t recommend it though. While the pixel art is great, and the ability to switch is welcomed, the actual 2D game itself is slow compared to the 3D version. I mean: in terms of waiting for messages to appear and disappear. Yes, you can customise this, but it still feels a bit sluggish directly after playing in 3D for hours. Which is a pity because the 2D mode is a good idea. It just hasn’t been tuned to match the fast pace of the 3D version, which it should have been. Plus: in 2D the turn system is different, which makes certain strategies that work in 3D become confusing or not work at all in 2D.

Dragon Quest XI does have some seriously funny, laugh-out-loud moments, like the priest who joins Sylvando‘s band of merry men at the start of act two, who delivers a sermon in battle that puts enemies to sleep… That had me giggling.

The game has some exceptionally good emotional moments as well… The mermaid’s tale, in act one, is just a taste of what’s to come, and some characters will die during the course of your adventure (although it’s not a spoiler to say that because you won’t know who). There are also some very dramatic moments too. Like the ending to act one, which is simply stunning, and really surprised me. The drama persists throughout the game and the ideas behind it are solid, resulting in some very poignant and epic events.

End of the second act:
Defeating The Lord of Shadows in The Fortress of Fear.

Next: Part 3 – Third Act

More: Dragon Quest XI on Wikipedia
Steam: Dragon Quest XI on Steam