I Keep Quitting Dragon Quest XI Thanks To Its Atrocious Music

Kotaku: “Ever since my friend and Kotaku comrade in arms Tim Rogers reviewed Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age last year with glowing praise, I’ve been trying desperately to play it. The combat is snappy, the world is gorgeous, and the prospect of a sweeping story excites me. But every time I play, I stop. It’s the music. Dragon Quest XI has terrible music.”

[TheGamez100]

Lol kotaku. The musics pretty good, id recommend turning it down though, I admit its default volume is quite loud and annoying, otherwise its a great soundtrack.

[Teflon02]

Musics actually pretty bad tbh. I like 1 or 2 themes in it. It's kinda a turn off when you know you're going to be playing for hours upon hours upon hours. 60 hours of annoying music isn't pleasing lol. One thing they say that I actually agree with. Not enough from stopping me from playing. But good music definitely helps give me a reason to decide toplay something over another

[kparks]

Music definitely makes a game more enjoyable.. Just finished trails of cold steel 1 and 2 those games have a hell of a soundtrack!

[indysurfn]

Music is one of the best BOUGHT separate game sound tracks. So I think it is just a matter of this person does not like this kind of music.

um Kkpakrs bringing trails of cold steel 1 and especially 2 into the conversation is SUPER UNFAIR!
how can DQXI live up to that one? :)

I can't get enough of trails of cold steel 2 music. I think it is right up there with the Original Final Fantasy VII sound track. I cant wait until Oct 22 for trails 3.

[SegaGamer]

I would never stop playing a game because of the music, but at same time, I do think the music is the worst I have heard from any DQ game I have played so far. I downloaded the ochestral mod for the pc version and it made it so much better. Honestly, without it, I would play the game at very low volume.

The overworld and battle theme is very gratting after a while. DQ 8's overworld theme is perfect, it's so much easier on the ears.

[Jsm89k]

That’s a moronic reason to quit a game.

[Jin_Sakai]

I wouldn’t exactly quite the game over it but I have to agree that the soundtrack is horrible. The battle sequence music is the worst.

[Teflon02]

It's literally maybe the only jrpg where I absolutely hate the battle theme. It's so bad. It's been in my backlog since I played 10 hours or so and I was praying the switch music's other version of the battle theme would sound better because I'd just use a mod on my PC version lol. It's bad. They should do what Atelier games do and allow you to customize the battle themes. I like the ones in those games for the most part but some of the ones you have options for are AMAZING

[TheColbertinator]

Quirky but the music is fine. Kotaku is puking on the internet again.

[Gardenia]

The music is probably not gay enough for them

[autobotdan]

The music in the demi is awesome

[PhoenixUp]

It’s a shame they’re not releasing Dragon Quest XI S as DLC for PC & PS4 owners who already bought the game similar to how they released World of Final Fantasy Maxima DLC for owners of the original game. At least DQXI S has orchestral music compared to the original’s MIDI

[Gemmol]

It’s a shame the japan version of dragon quest 11 for ps4 never got the updates the American ps4 version have

[PiNkFaIrYbOi]

I barely even remember the music in the game, so I don't think it was anything special but it was not "atrocious" as the author of the article states and I put in like 145 hours in the game.

[pleasuretokill]

Great reason to quit the literal best JRPG since Lost Odyssey. Amazing reason. My god.

[Teflon02]

Relax with that statement lol. Definitely neither of those should have literal best jrpg title even of Gen's lol

[pietro1212]

Beat me to it. Lol

[pleasuretokill]

You are totally welcome to have that completely wrong opinion.

[Poopmist]

The music is fine. I got bored of it due to the combat though

[Segata]

Just play the Switch version. Music sounds awesome in it.

[InklingGirl]

Sounds like a you problem, find a safe space and play something that makes you feel safe.

[SegaSaturn669]

Bad music is a staple in Dragon Quest. It's really totally cheesy and grating. I remember during an interview, the creator of DQ said "Dragon Quest was like Final Fantasy, but better in every way." I never agreed with that. The ability to create your own party in FF1 combined with the Uematsu's masterwork made it shine.

[PhantomTommy]

This just isn't true at all. I've been seeing this a lot since 11 came out, people think poor sounding music is just a staple of the series. I wonder if these people have much experience with the series at all. Dragon Quest 8 has phenomenal music, 5 and 7 have great soundtracks too. The music in DQ11 is arguably Sugiyama's worst work yet but it's still decent music -- the real problem is the awful midi samples, particularly the harsh horn sounds. I don't think people would be complaining if the PS4 and PC versions launched with the Switch Orchestral soundtrack.

[SegaSaturn669]

It wasn't just DQ11. Take the boss theme from Builders/2. https://www.youtube.com/wat...

It has the atmosphere but it's painful to listen to for any length of time. There is great music in the series, I don't argue that but it has headache inducing stuff aplenty.

[AK91]

Kotaku..............That’s all

[Firebird360]

Sounds like a Rant from a safe space lbgtq-wxyz4956 kid who's mad more at the composer as a person, which affected this review.
Playing it on the switch now and think the music is good.

[bluefox755]

Stupid article, of course it's kotaku.

[Platformgamer]

dragon quest XI has a majestic soundtrack, midi or orchestral idc, so i think this kotaku guy is just a clickbaiter doofus

[pecorre]

100% agree. It's the first time in nearly 30 years of gaming that I had to turn off the music in a game. However, when I did, the game fell kind of empty without it. I wanted to put some ambiant music on Spotify, but Square was dumb enough to block it in the game.

[FlintGREY]

Who plays games for the music? Just listen to your own if it's such a problem.

[Cmoney007]

Does Kotaku have more parasites than Polygon? Could it be about the same number? 🤔

[FinalFantasyFanatic]

I wouldn't say the music was that bad that you can't stand playing the game, it certainly wasn't good and it was definitely forgettable though.