For uninitiated readers, the Dragon Quest series is by far the most popular series of RPGs in Japan. It's not uncommon for Japanese businesses to shut down when a new Dragon Quest is released because so many employees have skipped work to pick up the next installment. The fact that the newest one is exclusive to the DS is a great asset to Nintendo. Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies has some big shoes to fill, and it does not disappoint.
As is often the trend with RPGs, the protagonist is a nameless, speechless vacuum of a character without a shred of personality. However, usually the other characters in the player's party make up for it with entertaining or endearing traits. Usually. This time around the entire party is just as much a void of personality as the hero, but the folks at Square Enix aren't leaving players totally high and dry.
What replaces the series' usual voice acting and quirky comedy is a significant increase in character customization. Players can choose everything about their party: their names, their looks, their classes, and even how many members are in the party.
Players an overwhelm opponents with up to four characters or tough it out with only one, although going solo is simi-suicidal against some bosses. Except for the hero of the game, every party member can be picked up, dropped off or exchanged for someone else by visiting a single in-game shop. It's possible to have a stable of characters waiting to be used for any situation.
What's more, players can even send characters from one DS to another and play together. This way, significantly higher-level characters can help weaker ones through tougher parts of the game.
The hero of the game is a Celestrian, basically an angel, who is tasked with protecting one small area of the world from misfortune. As is par for the RPG course, the hero is soon caught up in much larger events and must travel the world helping civilians by slaughtering stuff. Ah, how holy the life of a killing machine can be.
The graphics of Dragon Quest are anime-like, due to the fact that the official artist for the series is Akira Toriyama, creator of "Dragon Ball Z." In fact, several characters look like they were copied and pasted straight out of DBZ, but that's Dragon Quest for you.
Dragon Quest IX is an exemplary RPG that lets players choose just how they want to play. The sheer number of options is staggering and enticing to players wanting to implement their own battle strategies. Looks like number nine is holding up the family name.
[This article was originally written for and published with Tiger Weekly magazine in Baton Rouge, LA]
As is often the trend with RPGs, the protagonist is a nameless, speechless vacuum of a character without a shred of personality. However, usually the other characters in the player's party make up for it with entertaining or endearing traits. Usually. This time around the entire party is just as much a void of personality as the hero, but the folks at Square Enix aren't leaving players totally high and dry.
Players an overwhelm opponents with up to four characters or tough it out with only one, although going solo is simi-suicidal against some bosses. Except for the hero of the game, every party member can be picked up, dropped off or exchanged for someone else by visiting a single in-game shop. It's possible to have a stable of characters waiting to be used for any situation.
What's more, players can even send characters from one DS to another and play together. This way, significantly higher-level characters can help weaker ones through tougher parts of the game.
The graphics of Dragon Quest are anime-like, due to the fact that the official artist for the series is Akira Toriyama, creator of "Dragon Ball Z." In fact, several characters look like they were copied and pasted straight out of DBZ, but that's Dragon Quest for you.
Dragon Quest IX is an exemplary RPG that lets players choose just how they want to play. The sheer number of options is staggering and enticing to players wanting to implement their own battle strategies. Looks like number nine is holding up the family name.
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