Need PC RPG/Action-adventure recommendations

Yagisama · Jul 17, 2023

Apteris said:
I would imagine. I can't concentrate on anything else when I exercise that hard. A news program could be blaring from the TV, informing me of the oncoming zombie horde, and it wouldn't register.

You wouldn't rather do your exercise outside?

LOL No. Outside I'd give up in five minutes, even if it wasn't due to the current heat.

What I meant by "2+ hours of intense high resistance paddling is tough but my love of seeing numbers go up is way tougher" is that the leveling up aspect of games like Tales of Arise makes the whole process EASY. I end up stopping at the 2 hour mark mostly because I have other stuff to do. I really wanted to play it again today but my legs are on fire from five days in a row of it.

I spend 3 to 6 months a year in Tokyo (the eastern capital in a cryptic post above) and THAT'S where I gain all the weight. I'm hoping Tales of Arise and the other games get me ready before I go back in two months.

As my MIL said last visit "Oh you've lost a lot of weight" followed by a somber "You're going to gain a lot of weight in the next few months aren't you."

Anyhow, if anyone has recommendations for games similar to Tales of Arise let me know. I'll take all the therapeutic games I can get my hands on.

Though some obvious choices are to go back in time with the BANDAI NAMCO games. But ideally something less than 3 years old, but who am I to get graphics get in the way of health.

But let's not get derailed by the exercise stuff, let's just pretend I want easy to play RPGs playable via controller from the couch.

Tales of Zestiria (2015)
Tales of Symphonia (2016)
Tales of Berseria (2017)

Maybe Dragon Quest Treasures

GloatingSwine · Jul 17, 2023

Yagisama said:
I've tried all those. The dance games, the Japanese taiko games, etc. None of them really hold my interest long. And worse, they really do feel like exercise. On the other hand, 2+ hours of the button smashing goes by before I know it.

Clearly the answer is to play Dark Souls with the dance pad

Artichoke Sap · Jul 17, 2023

How about a Musou game, like Dynasty Warriors? The latest one appears trash, but something in the DW6 to DW8 games lets you level up characters and weapons. Not quite as RPG ish, but still numbers go up, and maximal on the button mashing.

Yagisama · Jul 17, 2023

Artichoke Sap said:
How about a Musou game, like Dynasty Warriors? The latest one appears trash, but something in the DW6 to DW8 games lets you level up characters and weapons. Not quite as RPG ish, but still numbers go up, and maximal on the button mashing.

Yes! That's exactly up my alley. I played Dynasty Warriors 8 on the PS4. I may get DW7/8 on Steam. In fact, I have DW8 on my Steam wishlist.

As for KOEI TECMO, Atelier Marie Remake: The Alchemist of Salburg sounds like a relaxing RPG.

So far here's the list of the button smashers that I've gotten on Steam:

Tales of Arise
Ni no Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom
Middle-earth: Shadow of War
Horizon Zero Dawn
Mad Max

Yagisama · Aug 8, 2023

I FINALLY installed The Outer Worlds and I have to say I love it. It's definitely not a button smasher like the ones I listed in the OP.

Much like I loved New Vegas much more than Fallout 3, I also like The Outer Worlds more than Fallout 3.

Some very hilarious and well done satire regarding corporate greed, but also very fun and interesting characters to boot. Interestingly, the only faction that I had to slaughter were the anti business group and only because I failed the "satisfy both sides "option. Oh and their leader was nuts.

That said, I accidentally started a "side mission" that was really a DLC one and I went from level 25 to 32 just on that. Got a super science weapon and with my existing science weapon perks, ended up beating the big bad boss slug with 5 seconds of sustained gatling gunning.

Also in another DLC gained a level just for finding a location (was very close to the next level) and two minutes later gained another level due to massive XP for finding a more important location.

So the only downside is that normal is very easy, which is what I wanted in the OP, but that was for a relaxing button smasher. The only challeng in The Outer Worlds currently is moving the gatling gun to the next target fast enough.

Oh and "Tales of Arise" is PERFECT for what I wanted. THAT'S the answer to my question in the OP. Interesting game, interesting story and characters with depth, and lots and lots of pushing buttons with zero aiming.

Ryuji · Aug 15, 2023

Yagisama said:
I don't really know how to put this concisely for the subject line. Looking for any PC games that are "easy" or rather not difficult (not souls-like). A focus more on leveling up (even grinding) and/or open world quests (with markers) than trying to figure out puzzles or even where to go / what to do next. By "Action-adventure" I'm referring to titles similar to Ghost of Tsushima or Horizon Forbidden West.

Not good examples:

FINAL FANTASY XIII-2 (most of the game is an attempt by Squares Enix to re-use assets and have to spend lots of time looking for "fragments" etc)
LIGHTNING RETURNS: FINAL FANTASY XIII (timed and not relaxing)

I know that the post is a bit old, but I recently played 13-3 so I wanted to comment on what you wrote.

Although I did FF 13 and 13-2 when they were released, I didn't buy 13-3 at the time for two reasons: 1) the huge change in gameplay, 2) the timed narration with the fact that you may have to go through the game several times to get the ending (I hate playing against a clock, and I hate repeating the same things).

On a whim a few weeks ago, I finally played that game, and was pleasantly surprised.

The gameplay is indeed very different, I'll never say that I like it (action RPG), but I got used to it, just enough to be able to ignore it and go through the game.
The "timed" structure of the game is, in practice, ignorable and I was able to finish the game on the first playthrough without following a guide.

The trick is simple: mid-game, you get a power that stops time. This power uses a resource that is very easy to replenish and that has little other use. From that point on, I ran the game with the clock constantly stopped, so on several occasions I ran out of things to do and too much time on my hands. Fortunately the game provides a time skip feature.

So if you're worried about being stressed out by the clock, then rest assured that, unless you aim at 100% completion, the clock is purely cosmetic.

This being said, is the game any good? I liked it because it does a good job building this end-of-the-world mood, in a setting where people can no longer die (consequence of the catastrophic ending of 13-2), and it provides a nice ending to the story of the Farron sisters that was developed in 13 and 13-2. But the story is also something between a Z-movie and a shonen, which may not be to everyone's taste.

Yagisama · Sep 10, 2023

Ryuji said:
I know that the post is a bit old, but I recently played 13-3 so I wanted to comment on what you wrote.

Although I did FF 13 and 13-2 when they were released, I didn't buy 13-3 at the time for two reasons: 1) the huge change in gameplay, 2) the timed narration with the fact that you may have to go through the game several times to get the ending (I hate playing against a clock, and I hate repeating the same things).

On a whim a few weeks ago, I finally played that game, and was pleasantly surprised.

The gameplay is indeed very different, I'll never say that I like it (action RPG), but I got used to it, just enough to be able to ignore it and go through the game.

The "timed" structure of the game is, in practice, ignorable and I was able to finish the game on the first playthrough without following a guide.

The trick is simple: mid-game, you get a power that stops time. This power uses a resource that is very easy to replenish and that has little other use. From that point on, I ran the game with the clock constantly stopped, so on several occasions I ran out of things to do and too much time on my hands. Fortunately the game provides a time skip feature.

So if you're worried about being stressed out by the clock, then rest assured that, unless you aim at 100% completion, the clock is purely cosmetic.

This being said, is the game any good? I liked it because it does a good job building this end-of-the-world mood, in a setting where people can no longer die (consequence of the catastrophic ending of 13-2), and it provides a nice ending to the story of the Farron sisters that was developed in 13 and 13-2. But the story is also something between a Z-movie and a shonen, which may not be to everyone's taste.

Thanks for your reply! This is the kind of discussion I was hoping for when I made the original post. I probably should have been more specific or had a better title of the post.

I avoided FF 13-3 for the same exact reason you mentioned. I hate playing against a clock. I like the option to do ALL the side quests and don't want to feel like I have to ignore stuff just meet a deadline. Also, I like to power up and level and feel super powerful.

As for replaying levels, that was very common in FF 13-2 too. I read that Square Enix made FF 13-2 and FF 13-3 to get some income using existing game assets so the repeating nature isn't too surprising.

Still FF 13-2 was fun and it was nice to re-visit some of the characters. Also, capturing various monsters and complementing your team was a nice touch. I think the style of FF 13-3 was a segue into FF15 (which I really liked).

What you say about FF 13-3 (being able to stop time) makes it into something that I would want to try. Honestly, I'm not too concerned with 100% completion so that's good enough for me. I do like the world setting and the sisters' story.

Anyhow, thanks for the heads up. I will definitely try FF 13-3!

Quarthinos · Sep 14, 2023

When I played Lightning Returns, I dug around in GameFaqs and found a guide that lets you 100% the game in one play through. It's basically a 100% glitchless speedrun guide. And I agree that the clock wasn't much of an impediment. I dimly remember that the timing on the first few days was a bit tight when I followed the 100% walkthrough, but if you're not going to 100% it, it's not important. I think I got to day three or four and had fallen behind the 100% timing and restarted, but that was maybe ten hours of play. And the combat and story were interesting enough that I didn't mind too much.

I didn't read the entire thread, but I haven't seen any of the Yakuza games mentioned. They're semi-open world RPGish games with a very distinctive Japanese twist. Yakuza 0 is as good as place to start as anywhere else. Y0 is more RPGish than 1 and 2.

puppies · Sep 15, 2023

Quarthinos said:
When I played Lightning Returns, I dug around in GameFaqs and found a guide that lets you 100% the game in one play through. It's basically a 100% glitchless speedrun guide. And I agree that the clock wasn't much of an impediment. I dimly remember that the timing on the first few days was a bit tight when I followed the 100% walkthrough, but if you're not going to 100% it, it's not important. I think I got to day three or four and had fallen behind the 100% timing and restarted, but that was maybe ten hours of play. And the combat and story were interesting enough that I didn't mind too much.

I didn't read the entire thread, but I haven't seen any of the Yakuza games mentioned. They're semi-open world RPGish games with a very distinctive Japanese twist. Yakuza 0 is as good as place to start as anywhere else. Y0 is more RPGish than 1 and 2.

I just saw this thread and coincidentally thought of the Yakuza series too. Yakuza 0 is definitely my favorite of the bunch and probably the best starting point, but Like a Dragon would be good too if we're in the mood for more of a JRPG than an action RPG.

grommit! · Sep 16, 2023

puppies said:
Like a Dragon would be good too if we're in the mood for more of a JRPG than an action RPG.

This is my first JRPG, and I'm not a fan of how grindy it became half-way through the campaign. Sounds perfect for the OP though.

Otherwise, the story is full of fun twists, likable characters, and the turn-based fights are dynamic and engaging.

puppies · Sep 17, 2023

grommit! said:
This is my first JRPG, and I'm not a fan of how grindy it became half-way through the campaign. Sounds perfect for the OP though.

Otherwise, the story is full of fun twists, likable characters, and the turn-based fights are dynamic and engaging.

Yeah I think know the exact part you're talking about, the boss scene was epic if you played the other Yakuza games, but the absurd difficulty spike made me run through that stupid grind dungeon a few times.

That said I think it's genuinely one of my favorite JRPGs overall. There's a lot that's worse in terms of grind in the genre. I'm also pretty bored with yet another quest to save the world, culminating with yet another fight against a literal god. Helping a dim-witted 40 year old ex-Yakuza work through issues from his past? Sign me up.

quarlie · Sep 17, 2023

puppies said:
Yeah I think know the exact part you're talking about, the boss scene was epic if you played the other Yakuza games, but the absurd difficulty spike made me run through that stupid grind dungeon a few times.

That said I think it's genuinely one of my favorite JRPGs overall. There's a lot that's worse in terms of grind in the genre. I'm also pretty bored with yet another quest to save the world, culminating with yet another fight against a literal god. Helping a dim-witted 40 year old ex-Yakuza work through issues from his past? Sign me up.

Yeah, I loved the game but the difficulty is really unbalanced. More than once I had to revert to an older save and level up before proceeding. It's almost mandatory to upgrade your gear, do the optional activities, and just generally take every opportunity to power up.

grommit! · Sep 17, 2023

puppies said:
Yeah I think know the exact part you're talking about, the boss scene was epic if you played the other Yakuza games, but the absurd difficulty spike made me run through that stupid grind dungeon a few times.

That said I think it's genuinely one of my favorite JRPGs overall. There's a lot that's worse in terms of grind in the genre. I'm also pretty bored with yet another quest to save the world, culminating with yet another fight against a literal god. Helping a dim-witted 40 year old ex-Yakuza work through issues from his past? Sign me up.

I just finished the campaign, and it was definitely worth pushing through for the story. I'm looking forward to the next one.

Artichoke Sap · Sep 26, 2023

Yagisama said:
Yes! That's exactly up my alley. I played Dynasty Warriors 8 on the PS4. I may get DW7/8 on Steam. In fact, I have DW8 on my Steam wishlist.

I've been playing Samurai Warriors 5 (free on PS+) with my daughter recently, and it's a good romp. In fact, the "wipe out hordes"ness of it it even more on show; everyone when running (which takes, like, 3 steps to count as "running") uses a Heavy attack instead shoots forward with a kind of suction vortex, allowing you to both plow through crowds and move faster than a usual run speed, all while upping your combo number (which is in hits, not kills, and gets up to 1000's) and kill count. Has a neat swap between a more repeatable base defense mode and the main story mode, depending on the mood you're in.

It allows you to swap to the partner character even in single player, so you can kind of co-op with yourself, though it does feel more natural in 2-player co-op, for sure.

Yagisama · Oct 6, 2023

I hit a snag with Tales of Arise with a boss fight that upped the difficulty, and then took a break with Baldur's Gate 3, Starfield, and Phantom Liberty.

But started Ni no Kuni II yesterday and it definitely is a perfect button smasher. It's funny, I put the difficulty to "expert" thinking it'd prolong the button smashing but I got some rare super items right away and I'm beating up on everything. I don't know how much this can last but it's very good so far!

I have Yakuza 0 in Steam but the hours played is completely wrong. May have been accidentally running in the background.

greatlakeexpat · Oct 7, 2023

If it's been fixed, TLOU part I has a good story (meh combat IMO), only played it on PS4. The story is downer though, as is part II, although like Forbidden West, not on PC yet. Given the state of AAA PC ports, I would not rush out and buy them first day when they do show up.

Hades? There is lots of button smashing and some action RPG elements, but I find myself dying. A lot. Some of the voice acting reminds me of Disco.

Yagisama · Mar 22, 2024

After roaming the eastern capital for three months and eating everything in sight, I've depended on these button smashers to get my health back!

Ni No Kuni 2 - Suffers from the typical Japanese stories where the characters HAVE to be really young. When I saw one of the main characters had gray hair, I was in shock. Until he transported to a magical land and became a young boyband member lookalike.

Still, characters not too annoying and a whole lot of buttons to be pressed. Endgame not too interesting though.

Tales of Arise - Interesting characters and deals with topics with more depth than standard JRPGs. Hit an annoying boss battle and put pause on it for now.

DQ9 So far some quality button smashing even with a main character that looks to be like someone in Johnny's group.

Horizon Zero Dawn - It's been a while since I finished Forbidden West on the PS4 and this is just the right balance of button smashing and aiming

I'm going to start judgement next. Of course that one has a character modeled after a boyband member.

I'll check out TLOU and Hades next.

NervousEnergy · Mar 22, 2024

If you're just playing it for the action combat Tales of Arise is OK, but in terms of writing, voice acting, and plot it was a HUGE disappointment after the masterpiece that was Berseria.

Sulphur · Mar 22, 2024

I played Berseria, and I hesitate to call the VO or the plot anything near a masterpiece. It was... all right. Enjoyable, up to a point, with the usual JRPG issue of the late game deciding to throw any semblance of compelling storytelling out the window while mashing a series of plot points into a blender. I gotta say if Arise is as bad as you say it is, the rest of the game better make up for it (I played Berseria almost solely by mashing the same Artes multiple times until the end, but that's equally my fault as much as the game's).

Yagisama · Mar 22, 2024

I will definitely check out Berseria next then.

That said, besides an opportunity to smash buttons, I use these to practice Japanese listening. So I don't know if these voice acting comments were for the English or Japanese. I don't remember much from the voice acting, which probably means it was OK. Japanese voice acting tends to follow some exaggerated expectations (stoic person, jubilant person,etc). There's even a standard jubilant foreign person accent usually when dubbing on TV.

NervousEnergy · Mar 23, 2024

Sulphur said:
I played Berseria, and I hesitate to call the VO or the plot anything near a masterpiece. It was... all right. Enjoyable, up to a point, with the usual JRPG issue of the late game deciding to throw any semblance of compelling storytelling out the window while mashing a series of plot points into a blender. I gotta say if Arise is as bad as you say it is, the rest of the game better make up for it (I played Berseria almost solely by mashing the same Artes multiple times until the end, but that's equally my fault as much as the game's).

It was the usual JRPG complicated mess, but I thought it made more sense than most. I admired the fact that you played what the world would have seen as the antagonist the whole time, and she never really broke character. She was bitter and borderline evil in how she would use anyone to achieve vengeance. I also admired that the ending didn't cop out. It was a dark story all the way, and it ended the way it had to. Arise dialog and characters are right out of a 5th grade 'and they lived happily ever after!' story.

I like happy stories. I even prefer them these days to Grimdark, by quite a margin. But Arise dialog shoved it right down your throat every 5 minutes. I kept hoping for at least one or two party members to die or turn into antagonists, or something interesting like Berseria had. Nope. It was Dragon Quest without the innate charm that makes Dragon Quests relentless optimism work.

Ardax · Mar 23, 2024

I'm not sure if it's quite so button mashy, but I wonder if Evil West would be a good entry for this thread.

Sulphur · Mar 24, 2024

NervousEnergy said:
It was the usual JRPG complicated mess, but I thought it made more sense than most. I admired the fact that you played what the world would have seen as the antagonist the whole time, and she never really broke character. She was bitter and borderline evil in how she would use anyone to achieve vengeance. I also admired that the ending didn't cop out. It was a dark story all the way, and it ended the way it had to. Arise dialog and characters are right out of a 5th grade 'and they lived happily ever after!' story.

I like happy stories. I even prefer them these days to Grimdark, by quite a margin. But Arise dialog shoved it right down your throat every 5 minutes. I kept hoping for at least one or two party members to die or turn into antagonists, or something interesting like Berseria had. Nope. It was Dragon Quest without the innate charm that makes Dragon Quests relentless optimism work.

Yeah, I think Berseria did the antihero bit quite well, in terms of setting up Velvet's motivations to fuck shit up. Thing is, that lends a one-note tendency to the proceedings, not helped when the characters around her are a collection of tropes without much in the way of depth. What Berseria was dependable for was rage-outs and the occasional rambling about cheese, and that's fine for when I want to indulge my inner teenager, but I couldn't find much more than that beneath the surface.

Which is fine, not every game needs to have Dostoyevskian levels of humanity to their story, and I enjoyed Berseria for what it was. When you take a step back and look at it as a whole, the game's story is actually quite standard to the genre, the framing of it through Velvet's perspective is just a slightly different approach to it - and while that has the potential to imbue a story with far more nuance, they didn't take that road with it. And that's okay. I think the end result was fairly decent to good, just nowhere near great.

Yagisama · Jun 23, 2024

DQ11 was a good button smasher - just over 55 hours to get to game plus. Berseria is on sale so maybe that's although a good option but I still haven't finished Arise. And just installed Judgement.

Mad Max had some really horrible performance issues and Middle Earth wasn't so button smashing friendly.

Ardax · Jun 23, 2024

Yagisama said:
Mad Max had some really horrible performance issues

Really? I never ran into problems with my older laptop. That's kind of bizarre.

NervousEnergy · Jun 24, 2024

Yagisama said:
DQ11 was a good button smasher - just over 55 hours to get to game plus. Berseria is on sale so maybe that's although a good option but I still haven't finished Arise. And just installed Judgement.

In DQ11, and trying not to spoil anything, but did you get past the 'false' ending?

Quarthinos · Jun 24, 2024

NervousEnergy said:
In DQ11, and trying not to spoil anything, but did you get past the 'false' ending?

I did. It wasn't anywhere near as difficult to get to the real ending as it was in DQ 8(? The earlier one that was available on the US playstation.) On the other hand, I was playing a pretty completionist walkthrough before I got to the end, so I think for me it was essentially do the closing cut scene, load from the last save and do the real ending that was now open without too much in the way of grinding.

NervousEnergy · Jun 24, 2024

Quarthinos said:
I did. It wasn't anywhere near as difficult to get to the real ending as it was in DQ 8(? The earlier one that was available on the US playstation.) On the other hand, I was playing a pretty completionist walkthrough before I got to the end, so I think for me it was essentially do the closing cut scene, load from the last save and do the real ending that was now open without too much in the way of grinding.

Ahh. The whole 'rewind time' thing to save Veronica was almost something I missed. I thought the game was pretty much over when you beat the first bad guy. Imagine my surprise...

I enjoyed DQ11 quite a bit. Usually I'm not a fan of 'silent protagonist' games, but the characters were really well written, and pulled off 'cute without cloying' which is hard to do.

Yagisama · Jun 24, 2024

Real ending, first bad guy, save Veronica, etc? I've missed all of that.

I'm not a fan of the silent protagonist either. And not a fan of the standard Japanese trope of the hero having to be a teenager. Not a fan of the luminary character in general.

It followed a laundry list of Japanese tropes but most of the supporting characters were interesting. I thought the whole time aspect would be more prominent but after a while it just mostly went away.

Played the game with Japanese voice. The translations were interesting. "Shitty older brother" wasn't directly translated.

I've saved at the end after the (first) end boss battle at the party. Can I get to the other ending from this point?

Quarthinos · Jun 24, 2024

Yagisama said:
Real ending, first bad guy, save Veronica, etc? I've missed all of that.

I'm not a fan of the silent protagonist either. And not a fan of the standard Japanese trope of the hero having to be a teenager. Not a fan of the luminary character in general.

It followed a laundry list of Japanese tropes but most of the supporting characters were interesting. I thought the whole time aspect would be more prominent but after a while it just mostly went away.

Played the game with Japanese voice. The translations were interesting. "Shitty older brother" wasn't directly translated.

I've saved at the end after the (first) end boss battle at the party. Can I get to the other ending from this point?

I think you load the new game+ save without being in new game+ mode or something, and then you can go do the real ending. You don't have to replay the entire game, but it's been a while so I'm not sure?

NervousEnergy · Jun 24, 2024

It's been several years, but I don't remember having to load the save. Perhaps you do. The Time aspect is huge in the game, but you can miss it. You get a Game Over screen after beating Mordegon, and some players quit there, but it's not the real ending. Visit the timekeeper, and rewind time. You'll get Act 3, and another big chunk of gameplay time (20 hours or so) going through a pretty changed world (the locations/maps are all the same, though) to beat the real antagonist, and get a fantastic credit roll sequence.

If you never asked or read a guide, it's easy to miss an entire act of the game, and one with a big payoff for fans of the entire game series. Kind of a ballsy move by SE I think.

Saikaici · Jun 24, 2024

NervousEnergy said:
If you never asked or read a guide, it's easy to miss an entire act of the game, and one with a big payoff for fans of the entire game series. Kind of a ballsy move by SE I think.

I mean, I disliked that about Nier and I dislike it as a concept if it's not properly conveyed. Arguably I would have had the same problem with Nier if I didn't hear it through the grapevine, because I don't obsess over stories and I like to take things at face value.

Like I guess they already have your money but they're leaving content on the table to be easily missed. Sure it's artsy, but artsy sure doesn't rake in the sales numbers like their sales predictions are aiming for. NG+ content seems to be more and more pervasive, and I don't care for it.

Not that I played FF13, but knowing FF games they're complex and get messy in the first game of the series without a few sequels on top of the same setting convolute the plot~~holes~~ exponentially.

Yagisama · Jun 24, 2024

NervousEnergy said:
It's been several years, but I don't remember having to load the save. Perhaps you do. The Time aspect is huge in the game, but you can miss it. You get a Game Over screen after beating Mordegon, and some players quit there, but it's not the real ending. Visit the timekeeper, and rewind time. You'll get Act 3, and another big chunk of gameplay time (20 hours or so) going through a pretty changed world (the locations/maps are all the same, though) to beat the real antagonist, and get a fantastic credit roll sequence.

If you never asked or read a guide, it's easy to miss an entire act of the game, and one with a big payoff for fans of the entire game series. Kind of a ballsy move by SE I think.

Is this timekeeper/time aspect only after beating the first end boss? I don't remember the timekeeper or rewinding time in the base game.

Quarthinos · Tuesday at 10:03 AM

Yagisama said:
Is this timekeeper/time aspect only after beating the first end boss? I don't remember the timekeeper or rewinding time in the base game.

Yes. The more recent DQs have done this fairly regularly. It's not in DQ1 or 2, but at some point it became a thing that DQ does. DQ 8 had it where you could rewind multiple times and grind through ever escalating dragons until you reached the REAL end boss in the final, final, final, ... dungeon, but I gave up after the first couple. DQ 11 just has the one. I'm pretty sure you don't even need the special extended edition of DQ 11 to do it.

NervousEnergy · Tuesday at 7:24 PM

Quarthinos said:
Yes. The more recent DQs have done this fairly regularly. It's not in DQ1 or 2, but at some point it became a thing that DQ does. DQ 8 had it where you could rewind multiple times and grind through ever escalating dragons until you reached the REAL end boss in the final, final, final, ... dungeon, but I gave up after the first couple. DQ 11 just has the one. I'm pretty sure you don't even need the special extended edition of DQ 11 to do it.

You don't. I don't have that, as I got DQ11 shortly after it became available on Steam. Act 3 is just part of the game, but you have to load up after the first 'Game Over' screen to play it. I'd only played... one or two other DQs on the PS a lonnng time ago, so I didn't realize the whole 'Game Over'.... NOT REALLY!! thing was a DQ story trope when I played it, and almost took that Game Over screen at face value. I was reading a guide about anything interesting to do post credit as I enjoyed the game and the characters, and found out I was missing the entire last third. Though I will gladly admit there is a strong narrative reason for it, and the fact that I didn't know initially the game wasn't over contributed to my enjoyment when I realized it really wasn't, just like the MC would have. It was a neat accident.

You can power through Act 3 just to see the 'real' end boss and get the 'real' ending, but if you do all the quests in the revised timeline it can double the gameplay time.

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Ars Tribunus Militum

Ars Legatus Legionis

Ars Legatus Legionis

Ars Tribunus Militum

Ars Legatus Legionis

Ars Praefectus

Ars Legatus Legionis

Ars Tribunus Militum

Ars Legatus Legionis