DRAGON QUEST XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age

This is a game that is hard for me to pinpoint what I didn't like. The music is legendary and screams adventure, the art is realized, the graphics are pretty, the characters are lovable, and the combat is fine. I think what really soured my experience was the large amount of grinding for the amount of story there was. I enjoyed going about the episodic adventures of the hero and his gang, but I felt as if the game developers gave too much freedom in regards to progression. Other than boss fights, I didn't feel motivated to go through the lengthy cutscenes and combat to level up. This made boss fights feel like an insurmountable villain which I then had to go back and grind enemies for a couple hours. Maybe this is me being bad at the game, but there didn't feel like there was an incentive to fight when going about the dungeons. Speaking of which, the dungeons were also lack luster. Zero puzzle solving and just aimless wandering until I found the slightly bigger room at the end. Despite presenting itself as a standard JRPG, there's a lot different with this game; especially in the story. Near the end, I felt genuine emotion towards a lot of the characters. In the end, although the story, music, and atmosphere were nice and enjoyable, the unnecessary grind and difficulty spikes made this game a chore and I can't recommend this game while knowing there are many others that to this genres so much better.