DragonQuest, formerly called Dragon Warrior in the west, has been a series that's had a very bumpy ride in the US. When the original entry on the Nintendo Entertainment System was introduced in America, Nintendo ended up giving away the game to subscribers of their official magazine Nintendo Power. The following three games became nothing more than cult classics in America, while the fifth and sixth installments released in Japan for the Super Famicom [Super Nintendo Entertainment System], Enix, well before they merged with Square, chose to keep the games Japanese-only releases while localizing mediocre and bland JRPGs to the west like The 7th Saga and ASCII's Linus under the name Paladin's Quest. The series would return to America with the next entry (as Dragon Warrior VII) on the original Sony PlayStation. Due to little marketing and an extremely high difficulty and required time "grinding" for experience when compared to the Final Fantasy games Americans have been used to for a while, DW7 was unable to find nearly as much success as it did in Japan, where the DragonQuest has always been the phenomenon that alone deserves its own entry. A couple of years after the merger that became Square Enix, the JRPG conglomorate decided to give the series another crack outside of Japan with the PlayStation2's DragonQuest VIII, this time, keeping the original Japanese title in tact, giving it better marketing, and packing it in with a demo of the long-awaited Final Fantasy XII over a year before its release. If Square's first fighting game, Tobal No.1, has taught us anything, it's that you can't bundle a demo with a game that has illustrations by Akira Toriyama, the artist behind every DragonQuest game as well as the creator of the hit anime/manga series DragonBall. While DQ8 is a fine game with some of the best cell-shaded graphics even to this day, it's sadly not hard to miss in the bargain bin.
SquareEnix has also tried it's hand with spinoffs and remakes of past DragonQuest games, none of which have been commercially successful. Even now, the only way to play DQ6, remade for the Nintendo DS in Japan, in English is to download a rom of it and slap a translation patch on it.
In spite of DragonQuest's bumpy history and SquareEnix's lack of faith in the series outside of Japan after losing sales with other DQ games, Nintendo of America saw something fantastic and decided to publish and heavily promote the latest and most unique entry in the series, Dragon Quest IX. When this game was first announced in Japan, many people had their doubts. First, it's a technical downgrade, going from the PS2 to the technically less powerful Nintendo DS, also making it the first original DQ game on a portable system rather than a home console. It's also the first in the series to offer multiplayer. A Japanese RPG with turn-based combat AND local wifi multiplayer? "That'll never work!"
After playing two sessions at a Nintendo promotional event for DQ9 at the Buford, GA GameStop, I'm convinced that this isn't just some gimmick. It's completely optional, but it's also a load of fun, and I hope to find more DQ9 players.
Players start off by creating a male or female character and customizing everything from hair, eyes, skin tone, and even mouth, all of which definitely has the Akira Toriyama style (yes DragonBall fans, you CAN make your own Goku, Krillin, Bulma, and Tien). A little into the game, you have the option of creating more characters to join your party. Like Dragon Quest/Warrior 3, you can choose each of their classes, but your main character's class always starts off as a Ministrel, a well-balanced class despite the fact that Ministrels and Spoony Bards have always been shunned upon in other games. Later on, you have the option changing anyone's class and also unlocking some new Advanced Classes. Much like Western RPGs, any piece of equipment you find or purchase and equip will show on your character's body. For example, when I starting off in Angel Falls, the first area of the game, I had a monster drop a pair of boxer shorts. They were actually stronger than my starting pants, so I had a crazy sword-wielding lunatic in his boxers shortening the slime population. Later on, you'll find equipment that doesn't have any real stat-boosting traits, but good for show.
Alchemy, introduced in DQ8, returns. Unlike alchemy in the previous DragonQuest, there is no time limit in concocting a recipe. The small downside is that you can only preform alchemy at one location in the game, but it's the same place that serves as your "headquarters" where you do a lot of the game's features, including the game's "home shopping network" called DQVC. Nintendo updates this store daily via wifi, and not only will you sometimes find rare items, but also new quests and sometimes even cameos from characters of past DQ/DW games who will give you their own items, such as DQ/DW4's Elena who gave me her robe.
I won't go into the story of DQ9, but I will say that like many DQ/DW games, it's a rather simplistic one. There are a few twists here and there, but a lot of it is very predictable. The main quest is rather short, but well written in mostly British dialect, with tons of puns, my favorites being the game's central hub which is an inn called Quester's Rest (a play on words on the unpopular cult NES game Fester's Quest [based on The Addam's Family franchise]) in addition to a school that transforms the name of another academy from a very popular book series about some wizard kid. If you're not trying to score the best items and explore, but instead rush through, you can finish the main story in 45 to 60 hours. On top of that, it's incredibly easy when compared to previous games in the series. Not once did I die from anything while playing any part of the main story, though there were a few close calls.
Here's the good news for the hardcore. Even after you've finished the game, rather than a still dormant "The End" screen, you pick off right where you left off to explore the world to your liking. You can do quests for NPCs (non-playable characters), some of which are needed to unlock advanced classes as well as new abilities, while others are "find x item(s)" much like MMORPG quests with rewards worth less than the items and effort put into them. Or you can try your hand at some treasure hunting.
In the main story line, you'll find a treasure map from one of the games NPCs leading to a monster-infested dungeon, and you'll obtain another map for each of these grottos you finish. Another advantage to local wifi is Tag Mode. While in Tag Mode, you leave your DS (whatever version you have) idle while it seeks for other DQ9 players that are also in Tag Mode. With it, you can share treasure maps you've uncovered. At the DQ9 event I recently attended, not only was the Nintendo representative sharing a unique map to fight Dragon Warrior 3's final boss, but I also ran into a very high leveled player sharing a map that contained experience point-wealthy Metal King Slimes. Thanks to that, my main character went from a Level 43 Gladiator (when I beat the game) to 62 in a really short time! Also, a lot of these maps can be tough. It was when I started exploring grottos that I tasted death for the first time.
If I have a complaint about this game, it's not the game itself but the lack of finding other players. By tagging a certain number of players in Tag Mode, you not only get new treasure maps, but also unlock new areas of Quester's Rest with bonus items. In Japan, where people are still playing DQ9 a year after its release, public transportation is often used and it's much easier to get tags. Depending on where you are in America, you're not likely to get many tags unless you're at one of Nintendo's events or a convention such as the Penny Arcade Expo that's loaded with video game nerds. I've had one player tell me how he was stuck in a traffic jam in Atlanta, and managed to get a couple of tags. I know this game has sold quiet well, but I've canvassed malls for DQ players and came up with nothing. You can still enjoy the game immensely if you're a fan of JRPGs, or even if you're a complete newcomer, but I'm really hoping more people dive into this.
It's my own policy not to give a score of any kind to a game. Famitsu, Japan's biggest video game magazine, gave this game a perfect score, and while I won't say it wasn't well deserved, I've yet to find "the perfect game". Distant multi-player would have made this game a lot better, and the main story could have used some work. DQ9 manages to do something different, but at the same time, sticks to its traditional mechanics as well. And I have to really respect that. While this is only August, I'm giving DragonQuest IX my vote for Game Of The Year. If you don't own a Nintendo DS, this game alone is worth buying one, even if it's not a DSi (and you can always trade it in on a 3DS next year). You can't say that about Final Fantasy XIII and the systems it's on!
TL;DR: Extremely recommended for both newcomers and hardcore RPG fans.
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