After years of teasing, Square Enix has announced that the next big Dragon Quest will be out in Japan on July 29. What’s fascinating about Dragon Quest XI isn’t just that it’s got a PS4/3DS special bundle. It’s that you can play the game in one of three different aesthetic styles.
On PS4, Dragon Quest XI will have high-fidelity 3D models (the pretty ones in the GIF above). On 3DS, you’ll be able to swap between two different styles: cel-shaded and an old-school, 16-bit look. You can see both of those in the above GIF as well. It’s an unusual, fascinating way to approach a series that has always bridged the new- and old-schools.
Square Enix has also announced DQXI for Switch, so presumably that version is coming later. Hopefully it adds an entirely new fourth graphical style, just for kicks. New trailer here:
It will be interesting to see how the Western release is handled, if it ever actually happens. (2024?) In recent years, Nintendo has been publishing the North American and European versions of the Dragon Quest games on 3DS and DS, but it’s likely they won’t publish a PS4 game. Will Nintendo bring over the 3DS version and let Square Enix publish Dragon Quest XI on PS4? Or will we only get one version in the West? STAY TUNED.
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5 responses to “Dragon Quest XI Has Three Different Graphical Styles”
At least with the Switch being region-free, importing a copy would be relatively easy. That English translation though…
You mean 8 bit look. 16 bit is 65535 colours. You should really learn the difference if you are writing about technology.
That is not 8 bit, the NES was 8 bit and no game ever looked that good on the NES. That style is reminiscent of the SNES’s graphical fidelity, a 16 bit console, and also the likely connection Schreier was making.
Maybe don’t be condescending if you’re offering a criticism.
Noted. The image shown has fairly large steps in the greens and browns. It looks like a 256 colour image to me. Didn’t consider the console architecture was the point of reference the author was using rather than the specific graphical fidelity. Ive seen much better than that on a 286, which is a 16 bit machine. I was thinking of 16 bit colour depth since the whole point of the article is the graphics. So I rudely disagreed with the description. High color was a huge step upward at the time, we had so much range we could dispense with the double handling of pallette look up tables. Learn some history before calling out the rude old bastard, now get off my damn lawn.
Learn some history? Any time graphical styles are described anywhere in regards to gaming the 8bit/16bit description is always referencing the same thing. Nobody ever (seemingly except for yourself) thinks it is talking about how many shades of brown might be displayed on screen.
Im dying to play this on my PS4. I’ll die if it doesnt get release in the west soon after Japan. Why wouldnt they? Im sure there are tons of people like me.