So, I found Dragon Quest IX on sale at Target on Black Friday, and even though I know that’s when you’re supposed to start buying gifts for other people, I couldn’t resist getting it for myself. I haven’t played that much of it, but I have to say I quite like it. Mind you, if you didn’t enjoy the other Dragon Quest/Warrior games, you probably won’t like this one either, because it’s very much along the same lines. A small group of characters wanders around the world, building up experience by fighting monsters in turn-based combat, gathering items, and performing side quests before finally having to defeat an evil demon lord. There’s a legendary hero and an epic battle between the forces of good and evil, and a lot of the same monsters and items show up in every game. I think the familiarity is part of what makes the series great, though. If you’ve ever played a DQ game, you can get into another one without a whole lot of adjustment, because with a few minor exceptions you know what you’re supposed to do. At the same time, however, there are enough differences in the characters and story to make exploring each new game fun and intriguing despite all the similarities. Also, as the series has progressed, there have been a lot of minor adjustments that really help to make things more fun. Even the decision to not make your characters use the “Stairs” command in the second game was a significant improvement. With DQ9, you’re back to designing characters yourself, rather than just playing the ones who are necessary to the story. Even the appearances are customizable. Whether this is good or bad depends on your point of view; I like to design my own characters, but I also think that video games often benefit from having set character traits, because characters who don’t often don’t show any personality. On the other hand, a video game where the characters and events are TOO rigidly defined gives less control to the player, and comes close to just being a movie with some minimal interaction during battles and such. Your main character in DQ9 is an angel that has fallen to Earth and lost its halo. I chose to have a female character named Villina, a name that was in my head because it’s the Russian name for the Good Witch of the North. Strangely, it turns out that the character has a companion named Stella, the Russian name for Glinda’s equivalent. I swear I didn’t plan it that way. For my other party members, though, I just used the default ones.
As far as graphics go, they look a bit primitive compared to what a lot of modern video game systems are capable of, but they’re distinctively DQ graphics. The series has never had the best graphics from a technical standpoint, yet there’s a recognizable look to them that I find quite appealing. And there are a few welcome adjustments, like animated battles and close-ups for important conversations.
I admit I’ve never played DQ8, so I don’t know how many of these improvements are holdovers from that game, but I do know that even as late as DQ7 you didn’t actually see your party members fight. I’m also quite interested in how the characters’ equipment is now actually shown. They sort of did that way back in the original DQ, which would show the hero with a sword and shield when he obtained these items, but that was the extent of it. In DQ9, if you change a character’s armor from leather to bronze, you’re going to see it.
Stuff I wish I knew:
Save your seeds! They’re not only hard to get, but they also – and I didn’t know this until it was too late – only apply to the vocation they were used in (except for skill seeds, of course).
Connect to DQVC every day. That’s easier to do later when it’s easier to have money. But you really don’t want to miss anything. You can also sometimes get some pretty decent alchemy items.
I wouldn’t waste too much time grinding before beating the main story. You get much better ability to travel afterwards. One of the best spots to grind (if you don’t have a treasure map for a high-level grotto with frequent encounters with the advanced kinds of metal slimes) is a little ridge near Angel Falls… but you won’t be able to get up onto it for a long, long time.
Then again, you get different accolades depending on how you perform during the main story (even if it ends up being, in my case, less than an eighth of the time I’ve spend on the game), and since there’s only one save slot, you might want to consider it carefully. I haven’t looked into it, though.
I’m generally more interested in finishing the game than in finding absolutely everything there is to do, but thanks for the advice.
Any puff-puff girls in this one yet? :)
This game sounds pretty fun and I want to try it out, as well as the rest of the series that’s still available in stores/online for a reasonable price. (No thanks on a DQ1 that costs over $100, for example.)
The Persona series of the meta-series Shin Megami Tensei by Atlus are interesting because, at least in 3 and 4, you have a set appearance for your lead character but you can name them anything you want as long as it fits in the textbox. The games have an interesting way of using your name in dialogue as little as possible; in 4, you’re usually referred to as senpai (student with seniority to your grade level) or Big Bro (your 5yo cousin’s nickname for you because she never had any older siblings). Anyway, the Persona games (and Megaten in general) are really interesting cases in that you’re choices in how to act will affect a major part of the ending and you can also choose who out of the available girls you would like to date (playable team members included). And making “Social Links” with many characters affects the outcome of the game, your stat levels, and which demons you’re able to fuse. The new version of Persona 3 let’s you choose to be a girl rather than a guy, and there are some minor changes because of your gender, but it’s interesting that some of the female dating choices are available along with new male dating choices.
I haven’t seen any puff-puff girls. Apparently FF8 has one of them as an actual party member, but like I said, I’ve never played that one.
FF8 as in the eighth main title in the Final Fantasy franchise that came out for the PS1 starring Squall (an angsty Cloud palette swap but with no reason before the first action sequence of the game to be a whiner) and Rinoa (the girl in line to become the next Sorceress, which should mean we’d finally get a playable character who knows every time of magic ever invented in FF but specializing in Time magic, …and right when she gets enough magical power to become a strong mage instead of a swapped-out healer, she’s taken hostage by some vampire queen of the future)? I think you meant to say Dragon Quarter 8. :)
Did I mention Final Fantasy in the post? If so, I can’t find where I did.
After Cloud and Squall, I’m surprised the hero of FF9 wasn’t called Storm or Maelstrom.
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