Dragon Quest XI: footage from the NHK documentary, more details (dragon riding, more), series tidbits

A few weeks ago, it was announced that the NHK would broadcast a documentary dedicated to the 30th Anniversary of the Dragon Quest series, with details on the development of Dragon Quest XI: Sugisarishi Toki o Motomete. If you missed it, or if you simply could not watch it, here’s a recording with the gameplay footage (NB: the video may be taken down at any time):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9aVIlHlDFc&feature=youtu.be

In the video, we can see the protagonist camping: it’s actually one of the features of the game. When camping, you can…

• rest (to get back your HP and MP);
• craft items via Mysterious Crafting. The video shows the players being presented with a list of swords to craft, complete with the list of required items for each one, a description, and an indicator for the difficulty level;
• pray to the Goddess Statue;
• patrol the area.

The footage above shows the player riding a dragon, though that’s all we know for now (we don’t know when you get a dragon to fly with, but it’s safe to assume you will not be able to do so from the beginning of the game).

But the documentary wasn’t all about Dragon Quest XI: Sugisarishi Toki o Motomete, as it was about the Dragon Quest series in general. During this documentary, Yuji Horii explained how the first game to be. Back in the day, he was a big Ultimate fan, the main programmer was a big Wizardry fan, and so they took their favorite parts from both for Dragon Quest.

The main theme, that many generations of players are familiar with, was composed in 5 mere minutes. As for the rest of the soundtrack, everything was composed within a single week, in order to make it in time for the master date.

Finally, here’s the full recording of the TV program:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QffQCJtWzyE&list=PLWua2ANRFZMYjlSghV4002d-klcl5BWwz&index=1

Dragon Quest XI: Sugisarishi Toki o Motomete (3DS, Switch) will be released next year in Japan. Make sure to check out this post for the opening movie and some footage, and this one for the second batch of direct-feed screenshots!

Via: Gematsu (Dragon Quest XI details) / Justin Epperson (Dragon Quest tidbits)