 Hi, do you know what you're watching right now? Well, it ain't just a review of the brand new definitive edition of Dragon Quest XI-S for Nintendo Switch. In fact, it's barely even a review. It's just a bunch of randing ramblings. I'm about to spit out of my mouth in a second here. But it's so much more than that. Not only am I going to be taking a look at this game because, whoa, boy, howdy am I having a great time playing it. I'm also going to be taking a look at the brand new Dragon Quest-themed Nintendo Switch console, as well as this brand new Nintendo Switch Dragon Quest Slime controller. That's right, ladies and gentlemen. This is a controller for the Nintendo Switch. Oh boy. And finally, I am also able to review the food from Dragon Quest XI-S. Because while I was in Japan, I was lucky enough to eat the food from the game. You tell me where else on YouTube you can find a more comprehensive review of Dragon Quest XI-S definitive edition for Nintendo Switch. You could even say this is the definitive review of the definitive edition of Dragon Quest XI-S on Nintendo Switch. It's a mouthful, but you could say it. I knew there was a reason why you guys watched me. It's because sometimes I actually do put effort into my videos. Sometimes. And hey, if you like what you see here today, make sure you smash that like button, have a flip on that subscribe button. And if not for me, then for this really cool Zelda sweater that I'm wearing. Link's awakening, y'all. First up, let's waste no time and actually talk about the game itself, since that's probably the reason most of you are here. The game itself, Dragon Quest XI-S on Switch, it's fantastic. Yeah, I guess that's it. Let me go find that slime controller. Okay, so full disclosure, I have never played a Dragon Quest game before. At least not a main series title anyway. So I went into this game really not knowing what to expect. And I have to say that every single element of Dragon Quest XI hits me hard in the best way. There's so many similarities in this game to games like Zelda or Final Fantasy games. It's hard not to draw those correlations and compare them, but again, in the best of ways. The story begins with you playing as the hero, a young man who is told he's destined for greater things and must head off to the royal kingdom and seek the king. This is where things of course start to fall apart and you set out on a quest, a Dragon Quest, to save the world. However, a huge difference in Dragon Quest is that you actually get quite a bit of help along the way from a huge cast of characters. Along your travel, you meet a bunch of other peeps who are more than happy to lend a hand. And I really enjoyed meeting these characters and their personalities they brought to the team. The way this game is set out reminds me of some of my favorite books and stories I read as a kid. Where essentially a group of kids are in way over their head traveling across the land trying to battle evil magic and bad guys. I've always had a soft spot in my heart for stories like this and I love being able to play that story and see it come to life. Eric is one of my favorite characters. He sounds like Peterman from Seinfeld and how does that work exactly? How does you opening this place and lining your pockets while I rot in jail help me? I know what you're going through. I too once fell under the spell of opium. It was 1979. I was traveling the Yangtze in search of a Mongolian horse head vest. Actually on that note, Serena kind of sounds like Tahani from The Good Place. Is that really you? What in the world has happened to you? No, you need to stand up for yourself. And the Sultan sounds very much like Pete from Disney. Truly it is the most able who are the most humble, but you cannot hide your true feelings. I've had it with this stupid treasure hunt. Every box we found has been nothing but a bust. For me while I was playing and comparing a lot of these voices to other voices I have heard in other media was a little distracting from time to time. I think it does still go to show how bold and different the personalities and voice acting is between all these characters. And if it's too distracting and you don't like any of the English voice acting, you can switch it to the Japanese voice acting, which is a brand new addition to this Nintendo Switch version. So let's talk about being out and about and kicking enemy, but you might realize that a lot of these enemies are freaking adorable. And I would easily contribute the amazing character design, enemy design, art design in general to Akira Toriyama, this game's artist. And if that name rings a bell and it really should, he's also the artist for pretty much everything Dragon Ball. Which would explain why the main hero in this game looks so much like Trunks. But I'm not complaining. It's easily one of the best franchises for merch. I mean, the slime itself is freaking everywhere, especially in Japan. But you could literally take any of these adorable enemies and just turn it into a figure and someone would buy it. Especially the kitty cats, they're my favorite. Like, I honestly really do end up feeling bad killing some of these enemies. I mean, look at these little calamari kids and their little baby rattles they're shaking all over the place. More like fried calamari, am I right? No, but seriously, all of these enemies are adorable, okay? Not all of them. Yeesh, get your big lips away from me. While you're out there slaughtering your way through waves of cute bugs, bees and oogie boogie's children, you have some really dynamic turn-based gameplay to mess around with. You have full control over these characters on each of their turn if you want it. You actually have to set it to that. Automatically, they will automatically attack. They will do their own thing. But I very quickly set it so I had full control over the entire team because that's how I play my turn-based RPGs. If you play it any other way, you're wrong. No, you're not wrong, but it's better this way. So you have full control over your characters. You're even able to move them around and reposition them on their turn. Then each character will have their own varying abilities, attacks, spells and more. Each character feels extremely different and will be played differently from swordsmen to healers. Again, very similar to Final Fantasy games. Even to the point where throughout the game you'll end up having several characters to choose from in your main party of four. So you can really mix and match to your play style. And going back to the Dragon Ball comparisons for a second, you know how they have like those Super Saiyan Guard transformation now? Or like a little blue hair? Well, yeah, you can go Super Saiyan Guard mode in Dragon Quest now and I love it. During the battles when your characters have had just about enough of the enemy cuteness levels, they'll get all powered up and explode in a blue flame of blue, blue, blue. They go all blue. In the game, they call it getting pepped up. And in this pepped up Super Saiyan Guard mode, they'll hit harder, better, faster and stronger. They'll even have access to all new pet powers they can activate in the battle. And if multiple characters get all god-moldy at once, you can activate joined together pet powers for a bigger punch. And those are the good ones. Like when these three characters decide to join the blue man group, you can give Veronica the ability to hit twice with her spells. Damn, does that feel good? And the cutscene animations when you activate these pet powers are the best part of the battles. You might be sat there screaming down your computer on mobile phone screen right at my stupid face, saying, ah, that's all well and good wood. But if there's one thing my Dragon Quest game needs, it's some mining and crafting and building. And without that, I ain't playing it. Well, you're in luck. Weird person you... Dragon Quest XI has all your mining, crafting and building needs met. Maybe not all of them, but some of them. You can mine and find ingredients throughout the world and use them for things like crafting new weapons and armor. It's a really great mechanic as you don't always have to rely on saving up gold to buy better stuff. You can just make it yourself and honestly, it's way more rewarding that way. It's just tricky having all the right materials at the right time. But it does help add balance to the game since when you die, you'll lose half your gold. Which isn't fun. At all. Not at all. So I do recommend when and wherever possible, cracking open that portal and piggy bank, taking out your pennies and depositing them in the nearest bank so that when you do eventually die, you can go back to the bank, withdraw your pennies and spend them the way you want to spend them. A lesson I learnt the hard way. And another comparison to Zelda games actually reminds me of Majora's Mask when you'd have to deposit your pennies in a bank before the time resets, that way you'd still have your pennies. Did someone say Zelda's? Oh, it was me. I said that. The overworld exploration is actually very similar to Zelda's as well. Each area is sectioned off with you having to move towards a point to shift into the next area. I'm sure it's set up this way due to the 3DS's restrictions, but I can't help but love how much it feels like Ocarina of Time. Even though I do hope in the next game we get is more of a Breath of the Wild open world approach, that I feel like Dragon Quest XI S would really have benefited from. However, there is a lot more going on within this world than the world of Breath of the Wild. As big as this world was, it was pretty scarce of towns to visit and even people to talk to. But Dragon Quest has towns and cities galore, teaming with life NPCs to talk to, shops to buy from, nooks and crannies to rummage around for items. You could even barge into people's houses and start smashing their pots. This lady even caught me smashing her pumpkins. To be fair, it was an accident. I don't even know why this one broke. Just kind of dominoed into the first one. Happy Halloween. Oh, and many of these towns have some really attractive scenery to look at. And then I even found this person who was willing to give me puff puff right here on the street. Okay. The turn-based combat in Dragon Quest XI S is as fun as this mechanic can possibly be. And then the rest of the game with its exploration and adventure is as exciting as a game like this can be. The story is an absolute blast with plenty of endearing characters and fun moments. And honestly, this game as a whole has made me want to go back through some previous Dragon Quest games to see what I've been missing all this time. Not to mention I'm now anxiously awaiting a future title in the franchise. And all of this I've talked about so far, all of this, can be discovered, played, and enjoyed within the first 10 hours of the game. And the reason why I did that was because you can actually download for free a demo of Dragon Quest XI S onto your Switch that will allow you to play the first 10 hours of the game. See if you like it or not. And then if you decide to go and pick up the game, your save file converts over to the actual game and you can pick up right where you left off for free. How fantastic is that? Not to mention the first 10 hours of the game only takes place in this little slither of an island and you still have the rest of this to explore. It's a very exciting game. I love it. Not to mention playing this game on its very own themed Nintendo Switch console. It's just about one of the coolest things I've done this year. I don't get out much. But I did go to the Square Enix cafe in Japan and tried the food from Dragon Quest. And it sucked really badly. Oh my gosh. But yeah, if this is the food in the actual game itself that the characters within the game have to eat, I feel bad for him. I really, I really do. So playing the game on the Switch itself definitely heightens the experience and makes it that much cooler. But you know what doesn't make this game or any game any better? This thing. Oh my. Obviously this thing is more for aesthetic purposes than actual practical purposes, but it is still by far the most uncomfortable controller I've ever held. It looks like a slime. It looks really cool. The design of the actual thing is perfect and I love it for what it is. I love it for its gimmick. You just kind of got to slam your hands around the donor edge of this thing because when you put it down, it sits like this. They've kind of had to recess the stick so they're almost flush. Really annoying whenever you're playing because every time you move to the left or right, your thumb is now sitting on the controller and it makes it really easy for the Joy-Cons to slip out underneath your thumb. Not to mention that the triggers feel absolutely horrible. It's so frigging big and wide that when you're sitting comfortably holding it, you kind of have to shimmy your whole hand up if you want to try touching the D-pad or any of the buttons or God forbid you try and hit the plus or minus button. And then finally, whenever your hands do start to get a little bit crampy in this position, the only other position you have to move your hands to is kind of up the shaft like this. And not only does it look incredibly wrong, but it doesn't feel any more comfortable. I honestly tried to play the game with this for as long as I could and I think I lasted about half an hour. It is in no way a controller you should seek out and buy if you actually want to use it as a controller. It's more of a hilarious talking piece when someone comes over and they see this really cool slime and then they find out that it's also a usable controller within the game. It is a gimmick and that's where it stays. I love this controller. It's hilarious and terrible. All right. I never ever, ever score video games. I just, it's just not something I do. I'm just really sweaty. Hold on. You take off this awesome Zelda sweater. I made it through the whole video with that thing and now I got to wear this awesome Zelda shirt instead. Look at that. So here's the thing about Dragon Quest 11 for Switch. They called it the definitive edition. Now they didn't just slap in one extra mode or one tiny thing and say, well, it has something over the other games. So this one is the best one. No, they actually added so much, including there's pretty much a whole nother game in this game that they just added for this release. There's a 2D mode and that's the whole extra mode they added because the 2D, it's not just switching between 3D and 2D and getting to experience the game in 2D. They've actually kind of rebuilt the game in 2D and it's a little bit different. So I wouldn't totally recommend switching from 3D to 2D throughout your playthrough while you can do it because there are so many differences like in the story and the areas that you kind of get a very different experience between the two of them. I would say have two different save files and play through the game twice, one on each mode. Effectively two different games in one and they've even added into the main game into the 3D version of the game, the world of Tickington, which is an all new part of the story that is played in the 2D world and you get to revisit previous Dragon Quest games and do missions and quests in those worlds. Look, my point is they actually have added so many things into this game that for once using the words definitive edition is actually on point and I would raise you one more on top of that and say it's not only the definitive edition because of the stuff it includes but also because playing it in handheld mode or TV mode, it looks, this game is absolutely gorgeous and you're not missing out on anything visually wise by playing it on the Switch. So I said in my Fire Emblem review that the game was probably like a 9 out of 10 but you couldn't pet any of the kiddos or doggos around the world. In fact, you just ghost walked right through them so instead I deducted six points and gave it a 3 out of 10. Sucks to be you Fire Emblem, do better next time. Still a great game. So here's the thing, Dragon Quest 11 on Switch. I'd probably give it a 9 but guess what? You can pet the doggos and... Well, you can't pet the kittens but you can talk to them and now meow at you and that's just as good. So if I took six from Fire Emblem I guess I have to give six to Dragon Quest, right? So, um... 14? Wait, that's not right. 15? That's right. My official score for Dragon Quest 11S on Switch is 15 out of 10. That's one heck of a game. Have fun, go buy it. All right, see you.