Game Reviews: Dragon Quest 9

“Finally, the DRAGON and the QUEST makes sense now...”- domodragon53

Story-8/10

You are a Celestrain, an angel that watches over people, that collects the “happiness” of the people you protect. The “happiness” you obtain is given to the World Tree, located in the Observatory where the Celestrains are from. As the golden fruits that the World Tree comes to, called a fygg, the Observatory is attacked by an unknown force that knocks you out of the sky, along with the 7 fyggs. Thus the story begins with you, the hero, having to find the 7 fyggs to restore peace.

The story of Dragon Quest 9 has been criticized for being too similar to Dragon Ball. Go into a new area, find out what is wrong, fix the problem, and repeat. This formula becomes way too noticeable after the 3^rd you get into. However, the problems of each town are unique but the stories that each town provides can be predictable. There is no character development at all. Some characters can become too annoying, such as the fairy that joins you, which is equivalent as the fairy from Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.

Overall, Dragon Quest 9’s story is really simple, but too repetitive for my standards. The story pulls you in from time to time, but most of the time, you forget what your purpose really is.

Gameplay-10/10

The game play of Dragon Quest 9 is superb for an RPG on the DS. The battle mechanics are simple. The party system is similar to Dragon Quest 3. The class/jobs are more innovative, now with the point system.

The battle system is still your regular RPG turn-based battles. Like the previous Dragon Quest games on the DS, you can set your party members to attack the enemy, heal, or just use magic by themselves without you selecting them to. It takes a lot of time out of your hands. Now you can chain your attacks to become stronger by attacking the same enemy consecutively with each member from your party. Your damage will be multiplied by 1.2-->1.5-->2.0, depending how many people attacked. The tension system is still intact from previous Dragon Quest games. Similar to the other Dragon Quest games, only with a twist here and there.

Just like Dragon Quest 3, in this game, you are able to create your own party members. Each member is unique because you can customize how they look. You are able to give them a class/job, like Dragon Quest 3. In Dragon Quest 9, the party members you make never talk, and they are never in the cut scenes. Only in Dragon Quest 3, I think the party members were able to talk to you at one point.

 The customizable party members...

The class/job returns again in the Dragon Quest series. You can go to a certain town to change your class/job. 6 classes/jobs are giving to you in the start of the game, but a few more can be unlocked through doing quests. Like Dragon Quest 8, this game allows you to allocate points to different skills in your class/job. The skills you learn can be carried over to another class/job, but not the spells.

Multiplayer is a major plus. Unlike the other Dragon Quest games on the DS, Dragon Quest 9 allows the player to take their hero and go help out other players. If a player was in a battle, it does not affect the other players in the game. The other players have a choice to go into the battle, or just stay in the over world. Only the storyline of the hosting player will go forward, and the guest players have certain limits they can do in the game.

Presentation-10/10

The previous Dragon Quest on the DS cannot compare to Dragon Quest 9 in terms of graphics. The hero, party members, and important people to the storyline are in 3D, where as everyone else is 2D. The camera can be turned 360 degrees around the player, like the previous Dragon Quest, but the buildings in Dragon Quest 9 are in 3D instead of 2D. The battles surprised me at first. In Dragon Quest 4 and 5, the battles only allow you to see the enemy. But in Dragon Quest 9, the player is able to see the hero walk around the enemy and strike the enemy. Wearing equipments is a bigger factor in this game. Any equipment you wear can be seen in battles and the over world. This allows players to choose between fashion and stats.

 

Equipment affecting the looks of the character.

Replay Values-10/10

After the game is finished, there are still more to do. The player is able to do the hundreds of quest that is given to them. The player can collect items and try to complete the alchemy book. There are “Grotto Maps” that allows the player to find new randomly generate dungeons, each with a boss that is harder than the final storyline boss.

Analysis: Dragon Quest 9 is one of the best games for the DS. It brings back formulas from the previous Dragon Quest games and improves it. The storyline is not too bad, but could have been more engaging. But the game play makes up for that. The game play is one of the main reasons that kept me into the game. The graphics of this game surprised me because it looked different from the Dragon Quest games on the DS. Even after I finished the game, I still had more things to do, such as exploring the Grotto Dungeons, and completing the quests. Dragon Quest 9 is one of the best RPGs for a handheld.

The Good:

-Class/Job and skill point system that has been brought back from DQ3 and 8

- Character Customization

-Replayabilities

-Multiplayer

-Great Cutscenes and Graphics

The Bad:

-The storyline may get under your skin, due to the “repeating” formula, but it can be looked over…

Final Score: 10/10