If you were to ask me 4 years ago what I thought about Dragon Quest, I would've said, "It's a generic and basic JRPG that doesn't deserve to be in Smash." If you asked me now, I would say go back in time and kick myself in the ass.

Dragon Quest XI S (DQ11S) is a masterpiece. Like most JRPG's it starts out really slow, but when it picks up, oh boy is it amazing. The turn based combat is simple enough to where it isn't overwhelming, but has enough strategy to where it doesn’t become mind-numbing. This is helped even more by the fact there’s no random encounters, and you can skip battles if you have a high enough level. The game goes for a 2D Anime art style, mimicking the promotional material the game has always had. This helps the game look and run great on most hardware. From what I’ve heard, a good chunk of the music is re-renditions from previous games. But that doesn’t matter, cause the music in this game is amazing. Every song feels like it was composed to bring a very specific emotion out of you. The orchestra compositions are beautiful to say the least. Words can’t describe just how this game's music makes me feel. The only issue I have with it is there should’ve been more tracks because they use the one main battle theme way too much. The characters all feel like real people with their own stories, their own troubles, their own battles. And you care for all of them. All the party members have an equal amount of depth to their character, No one feels blander than the other. (Sylvando is personally my favourite character in the game.) While the story is the basic “Hero of Light must defeat the Demon Lord” story that you’ve probably heard in various other pieces of fantasy media, this game does a great job with its rendition. The writing is funny when it tries to be, and serious when it needs to be. The story rarely slows down or gets boring and is always progressing. The only time it did slow down was in the begging of act 2 (you’ll know if you know).

I was recommended this game a few years ago, but only played it awhile ago due to being in a JRPG mood from Like A Dragon Infinite Wealth. And If you’re a fan of either one of the Ichiban games, I highly recommend playing this to see what Ichi was talking about.

This game is a masterpiece. If you or someone you know want’s to get into JRPG’s, tell them or yourself: Stop playing Honkai Star Rail and play this instead.

As cliche as it sounds this game changed me as a person.

I first played the original game on RPCS3 back in August of 2020 a little over 3 years ago. I didn't know anything about the game other than Joker was in Smash and one of the characters looked like an Inkling from Splatoon. 2 weeks and 100 hours later it took its place as my second favorite game of all time.

This game sucked me in with its unique half life sim, half dungeon crawler gameplay. What made it so good was each part interacted with each other. You build relationships with people to game abilities in the meta verse and complete missions in mementos to continue confidants. At the time turn based combat wasn't really my thing. I found it boring a lot of the time. But this game somehow made me enjoy it. The one more system is what made it so fun for me.

The art style was nothing like I've ever seen before with everything so flashy, stylized and quipy.

Up until this game I didn't care for stories in video games but somehow this game pulled me in like no other. I was invested in the first arc in the game and after it (and every subsequent one) I kept asking myself: "what happens next?"

The Third Semester was easily the best part of the whole game. It has the best story arc and dungeon in the whole game. It's writing even made me go through a mild existential crisis. I won't spoil it, but just know; this was the only game to have a boss fight make me cry.

After beating this game, like many others I felt hollow. All those friends I made, lives I've changed and the world I lived in and the story I was apart, it was all gone. I've had a few games leak a few years from my eyes before, but this game had me sobbing. Both from sadness and happiness of just how good this game was. Every time I hear the credits theme I remember those feelings and get goosebumps.

As mentioned at the beginning this game changed me as a person. I got to live a life as a good friend, someone who was nice, people liked, was good at things and made an impact and led others. I wanted to live that life too. Without getting into detail, I wasn't a great person when I first played Persona 5. Not a terrible person, but there was lots of room for improvement for myself. I reflected on how I acted throughout my life and made sure that I would actually become a better person. And I'd like to believe I've succeeded in that part.

For as much as this game gets a bad reputation from some of its fans I truly believe it's best to ignore that and just play the game. This game is one of the best and probably one of the most important games ever made. So if it wasn't obvious by now: PLAY. THIS. GAME! I don't care that it's upwards of 100 hours because every damn one is worth it.