Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies Review

It will be impossible to please everybody with a review of any current Dragon Quest game. It is, in effect, the Sean Connery of video games, ageless, classic, and massively entertaining. However, for every James Bond or The Rock, there is a League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Dragon Quest 8 for the PS2 was a huge step forward for the legendary franchise and , in my opinion, one of the greatest rpg's of all time. Dragon Quest 9, the first in the series to be released initially on a hand held system, feels a bit like a step backward.

You got to hand it to Square-Enix. When you have a franchise that has been cherished since the 8-bit gaming days, and is so popular, especially in Japan, that it's soundtrack was performed by a live orchestra in concert, there is not much motivation to mess with the formula. However, tweak the formula is exactly what they have done in an attempt to make the already legendary series more appealing to the western audience. Besides being released on the DS, the two new major additions to the series are the character creation and customization elements, and it's new focus on multiplayer. While Square-Enix should be commended for taking risks with a tried and true formula, the results are a bit off.

The story centers around you as a celestrion, a guardian angel race who seek the path to God's kingdom by protecting humanity and harvesting their gratitude and prayers in the form of "star auras" which is used to coax a magical fruit from "Yggdrasil" the world tree. Wow. The premise is certainly catchy. And it gets better. Once your people finally obtain the ultra rare fruit and are on the path to its ultimate goal, a cataclysm occurs which causes your character to fall down to Earth. When you awaken, you find yourself without your wings or halo and quite mortal. You are forced to wander the world seeking answers to what caused the cataclysm and find your way back home. Never let it be said that Square-Enix is lacking in the story department.

The true shame is that the story is never truly explored as well as it could be, and ironically enough the blame lies squarely, no pun intended, on the very features that were added to make it a better game. In this case, I'm talking about multiplayer. One of the new features with this installation of the series is 4 player co-op. Friends can explore the world at will, or stick around and assist you in battles. While this sounds cool, and in practice actually is, the drawback is that your AI companions in single player who are replaced when multiplayer is active, stand as little more than an extra pair of mute hands in combat. That's right, gone are the interesting back stories, witty repartee, and hilarious accents of companion characters found in Dragon Warrior 8. As a result, I found myself not as invested in my companions existence, or even deaths where combat is concerned.

Speaking of deaths, you will die in this game. A lot. Dragon Warrior has always been unforgiving in its difficulty, even the vaunted DW8 sent me to my local Gamestop three times for controller replacement after particularly frustrating sections. DW9 however, is an entirely different animal. The worse part is that it wasn't because of terribly difficult encounters, though there are some bosses that will take your most powerful attack and sprinkle it on their breakfast cereal. No, the difficulty was a matter of scaling. Because the game focuses on multiplayer, and actually gives you double XP for encounters when joined by a friend, when playing solo you will find that the game expects you to be much higher leveled then you might currently be at the time.

Which means that solo play can turn into a massive grind quest. Make no mistake. DQ9 is as traditional an RPG as you're likely to find. There is grinding, fetch quests, and the ever popular dungeon crawl. I had long ago turned my back on these staples of Japanese role playing games, however one concession has been made that made me overlook these game slowing yawn fests. The elimination of random encounters.

One of my favorite games of all time is Final Fantasy VII. Yet as much as I cherish this classic, I won't play it anymore because of the sudden and jarring transitions between exploring and combat. There is nothing worse than finding yourself lost in a cave maze and knowing that every step is just a countdown to another drawn out battle with five armored skeletons that take upwards of 3 minutes to defeat, and then when finally allowed to explore again, taking 4 steps and being drawn right back in to the same scenario.

DQ9, thankfully avoids this by allowing you to see encounters while you explore. This allows you to pick and choose your encounters or avoid them altogether if you like. I wouldn't recommend avoiding too many though, as I said previously this game will own you.

Graphically, the game is quite impressive on Nintendo's little system, allowing for colorful sprites and surprising detail for the characters. Apparently it took a lot of resources to make the characters so beautiful however, because locations can look a little on the bland side. Speaking of locales, you will find it all standard fare here. Sprawling grasslands, check. Dry desserts, check. Floating city in the clouds, uh, check. I understand the limitations forced on developers when working on handhelds, but it would have been nice to see more diversity in locations.

Dragon Quest games have never been for everybody. There are two types of Role Playing Gamers. Those that love long quests through interesting locales and epic story lines, and the mmorpg crowd that have more fun in large groups exploring and looting than they do in the story. This game tries admirably to appease both crowds, but ultimately comes up a little short. That's not to say that it isn't worth your time and money. If you're looking for hours of adventure and story or even a little multiplayer interactivity on the go, Dragon Quest 9 might be just what the doctor ordered.