Dragon Quest IX

SlimeBeherit

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Dragon Quest IX's release in the US is just under 2 weeks from now, for those of you who don't know DQIX is a turn-based RPG which recently did away with random battles. You can customize your main character as well as 3 other companions, it also has 4 player multi-player, where you can invite a friend with the game to join your party.I'm very excited for its release and hope some of you on the forum are as well.For more info you can go here

http://www.nintendo.co.uk/NOE/en_GB/games/nds/dragon_quest_ix_sentinels_of_the_starry_skies_17296.html

Here's a commercial Nintendo of America will be running on TV and theaters: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrjU4WZeaSk

And the latest trailer featuring SkullKnight: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mN6Phj4CmIo

And if there are some people on the fence on wether or not to get the game...It's Lil' Jon approved! :badbone: YEEEIIIIAAAAH!!!

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Aazealh

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Slime_Beherit said:
which recently did away with random battles.

You have piqued my interest. I task you with convincing me to buy this game! :SK:

Slime_Beherit said:
You can customize your main character as well as 3 other companions

Can we recruit enemies? I ask because they looked cooler than the main characters in the trailer. :iva:
 

SlimeBeherit

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Aazealh said:
Can we recruit enemies? I ask because they looked cooler than the main characters in the trailer. :iva:

Sadly you can't , but you can change your characters; gender, height, hairstyle, hair color, face, skin color, and eye color. You can make new party members anytime to make a party of up to 4. Also every time you get new equipments it is visually represented. Here's some examples of characters out there.

dq1c.jpg

f63cbf68.jpg


heres the closest thing I've seen to a monster
lzHBTRNzqq1fs4wbzivbDoQgo1_400.jpg
 

Walter

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You can create 4 characters whenever you want to fill out your party? Wouldn't that result in a game with very little personal attachment to the main cast?
 
Walter said:
Wouldn't that result in a game with very little personal attachment to the main cast?

Well this has been the case with every DQ game I've played, except maybe for DQ4. Regardless of the characters having a backstory and personalities, it has never been the focus of the games, there's hardly any development or significant dialogues. They're always pretty bland.

On the last one I played, DQ5, a very good friend of the Hero reaches his hometown and is like "Aight man. I've put my equips in your bag." And that's it, he leaves the party for good, just like that. Asshole. :azan:
 

Walter

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Eluvei said:
Well this has been the case with every DQ game I've played, except maybe for DQ4. Regardless of the characters having a backstory and personalities, it has never been the focus of the games, there's hardly any development or significant dialogues. They're always pretty bland.
That's not entirely true. As you say, I got very attached to the characters in DQ4, particularly that merchant guy. Each chapter focuses on a character, then brings them all together for a big hurrah. And in DQ5, your party consists of your family members for a large chunk of the game. I haven't played DQ8, but as I've read it, the party characters are generally well done.

On the last one I played, DQ5, a very good friend of the Hero reaches his hometown and is like "Aight man. I've put my equips in your bag." And that's it, he leaves the party for good, just like that. Asshole. :azan:
At least he had the courtesy to dump his equip in your bag. I remember some Final Fantasy games not doing that for you automatically. So you had to reload your game, strip them to their ass, then let them leave/die cold and alone. But hey, that's what friends are for!

I always enjoy stripping characters I don't like of any equipment and letting them die. Only, in DQ, they haunt you until you revive them...
 

SlimeBeherit

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Walter said:
You can create 4 characters whenever you want to fill out your party? Wouldn't that result in a game with very little personal attachment to the main cast?
Yea that's the one complaint of heard about this game.I mean the main character has a backstory but not the rest your party members, but that's where I will build your own fiction :troll: , I dunno why but I feel like I'm going try to play the game with just 2 characters... Though I will probably feel to the pressure and add another part member
 
Here's the rundown

Dragon Quest 1: It's just you running around on your own
Dragon Quest 2: 3 heroes, they don't really say or do much at all
Dragon Quest 3: You make party members from a guild, can make as many as you want but can only have 4 at a time. You can honestly go solo the whole game if you want, but created characters have no personality
Dragon Quest 4: Very plot heavy, every character has a backstory and personality, in fact the entire game involves playing through 5 chapters, each chapter you play as a different party member until they all meet up for the huge final chapter. Something like 9-12 characters and you can use them all in battle interchangeably which is cool.
Dragon Quest 5: Party members change out, eventually you pick a wife out of three candidates and then even further your children join your party, then it opens up even more and you can bring random characters with you fairly late in the game. Also throughout the game you can recruit monsters and have them fight on your party, so yeah, a good mix between characters with... character... and random members.
Dragon Quest 6: I personally haven't played it (Never picked up the fan translation and they're being slow on releasing the DS version in the US), but it looks like you get static party members with backstory who you can change jobs as you see fit. More monster recruiting in this one as well I believe. (Looks like the DS version you can only recruit slimes) Looks like... 9 characters?
Dragon Quest 7: Own but never played ( :sad: ), characters with backstory with another class system available for flexibility. (I hear this game is extremely long) Again, something like 9-10 characters.
Dragon Quest 8: Four party members, all with their own personalities.

So really, only Dragon Quest 3 had completely self-created characters, though in every game the hero is silent.
 
Walter said:
That's not entirely true. As you say, I got very attached to the characters in DQ4, particularly that merchant guy. Each chapter focuses on a character, then brings them all together for a big hurrah. And in DQ5, your party consists of your family members for a large chunk of the game.

I agree about DQ4, but I couldn't care less about my family on DQ5, honestly. Maybe I'm an asshole, I don't know, but my wife started boring me to tears as soon as I picked her. I'll try again with another girl if I have the chance. Not that it can be compared to the total abscence of personality Slime Beherit mentioned, though.
 

Walter

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Eluvei said:
I agree about DQ4, but I couldn't care less about my family on DQ5, honestly. Maybe I'm an asshole, I don't know, but my wife started boring me to tears as soon as I picked her. I'll try again with another girl if I have the chance. Not that it can be compared to the total abscence of personality Slime Beherit mentioned, though.
Sounds like you picked the wrong wife :iva:

Is this game's multiplayer local only or Internet? If Internet, we should get an SKnet group started up.
 
Walter said:
Sounds like you picked the wrong wife :iva:

I couldn't help but pick the blonde lady... stupid video game guilt.

Honestly though, you actually spend very little time with your wife considering you lose her shortly after getting her and then don't get her back until near the very end.
 

Walter

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CowTip said:
I couldn't help but pick the blonde lady... stupid video game guilt.
Yeah, it was kind of ridiculous how the set you up for that choice. Do you want to marry the bitch that will scold you and demean you publicly for all eternity, the mindless placid farmer woman, or your childhood friend who you've already invested time in the game with? HMMMMMMMMMMMM.

That being said, it was a cute mechanic for so old a game. Although some players took it a little too seriously, I think. (http://www.1up.com/do/blogEntry?bId=8983724&publicUserId=5379721)
 
Not to mention the thousands of hints she drops to you during the entire game and how sad she acts if you don't pick her (I made a save and watched all 3 weddings for the heck of it). Heck, she even spends the rest of the game by herself if you don't marry her whereas the only other nice girl finds a husband (not to mention how you basically walk all over said husband who nearly sacrifices his life attempting to prove his worth and his love if you pick the blue haired lady anyway).

It definitely would have been nice to have more freedom without feeling like a jerk.
 

SlimeBeherit

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Walter said:
Is this game's multiplayer local only or Internet? If Internet, we should get an SKnet group started up.

It's local only which was something I was hoping they would change for US release but it didn't happen, the only Internet connectivity is the online shop to buy stuff that is rotated frequently and new quests that will be sent out once a week for a whole year.
 

Walter

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It's out now. If anyone gets it, let me know what you think. I'm considering buying it...
 

Begemot

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I got it.

First off, it's a Dragon Quest game, so you know what to expect from the battle system. That said, I like the ability to customize your group, but it takes a bit to open up full customization since you can't class change right away. Also, it takes a little bit to get rolling, but not unbearably so (of course, a major part of that is my compulsion to thoroughly explore every area).

There haven't been any random encounters thus far, you can see the enemies in the field and engage them as you choose, although some will chase you down.

The graphics aren't fantastic, but they're not bad either, I'd call it a charming presentation.

All in all, I'd call it a delightful game.

In short, if you like DQ, then by all means, get this game. If you don't, well it's not going to change your mind.
 

Walter

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I bit the bullet and bought it. I'm about 5 hours in. So far, it's a very refined Dragon Quest, which is about what I expected.

I actually like the battle system more than other games in the series because of the way it flows. Having on-screen characters helps make battles seem more intense too. However, I see the battle system really becoming a weak link unless the game introduces some new mechanics soon. The best way to end any fight is just to have everyone attack. You could employ spells, but most field enemies don't need you to waste MP on them. A simple attack does fine. What this amounts to is tedious battle progression, jamming on attack, or just setting the AI to all "don't use MP" and plow through everything.

When I'm able to change character classes, I'm hoping there will be additional abilities that diversify how combat plays out.

The in-game cutscenes in this game are really under-appreciated. I haven't seen much written about them, but they're really fantastically done. One key scene uses the lower screen as a first-person type view and the top screen uses cinematic angles, which is just awesome. Unfortunately, so far these types of well-conceived visuals don't match up with the mundane story elements that comprise most of the game's text.

The overall plot is great. I like the premise. But the in-town stories are excruciatingly generic, which I guess I should have expected from a DQ game.
 

Begemot

STOP UNDRESSING ME WITH YOUR EYES!
Once you really get cranking with class changes and skill distribution, Mages don't really worry about MP that much. I have a level 21 mage with 187 MP who gets 1-4 MP back each round since I've poured all her points into wands. She's free to throw down spells anytime.

One important thing to note is that you can carry unused skill points to your next class, Which means you can dip into classes you don't want your character to focus in and pull those skill points into areas you're specializing. Hence, my mage's wand skill being so high. Still, early on, Attack will be your best friend, followed by Heal and Medicinal Herbs. But the boss you have to fight to open up class changes is so much easier with access to Sap.
 
I bought this when it hit but haven't had a ton of time to play it yet. I just got to the point where you can recruit party members (which isn't very far at all, but I can make some initial impressions). It's absolutely crazy to be able to see monsters and avoid them in a Dragon Quest game... it's sort of refreshing to be able to walk around on the world map as much as you want and avoid monsters, especially if you're in a weaker area. I really dig the story so far and while the in-town quests have indeed been bland so far like Griffith said, that's indeed just a DQ thing. These games strive very-much-so to be throwbacks to early day jRPGs so it works for me. As for random encounters and mashing on the attack button, I really don't expect that to change much for you. In almost every DQ game random encounters exist primarily for grinding and not so much for thinking; mash A and move on.

My only sort of complaint at the moment is that my party members feel more like random AI dudes than actual party members (Yes I'm issuing my own commands to them in battle). It's just the way they move around and how they're represented on the map... the multi-player roots really show through. Anyhow, it seems the game opens up a lot after you get the ability to change classes so I'm looking forward to that. DQ games always seem much more interesting in the second half than the first anyway. I usually consider these games an investment. Slow start but awesome once you peel back the layers.
 

SlimeBeherit

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Some sites were saying that it's more fun multiplayer,some even suggested that the single player is a snooze :schierke:,has anyone tried it?
 
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