The Dragon Quest series may have sold over 50 million copies worldwide but in the West its profile is much more humble than in its native Japan, where it even manages to out-do Final Fantasy in the popularity stakes. However, Square Enix is attempting to rectify this disparity with Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies, which has been designed with a Western audience in mind. Has the company succeeded? Read on to find out in our full Dragon Quest IX review.
Read the rest of our Dragon Quest IX review
Dragon Quest IX review: Storyline
Dragon Quest IX review: Multiplayer
Dragon Quest IX review: Gameplay
On the surface Dragon Quest IX appears to be a fairly traditional Japanese role-playing title: you guide a party of adventurers around a gaily-coloured fantasy world engaging in turn-based battle with a wide range of cute-looking enemies. You acquire items and weapons, upgrade your stats and make regular visits to the local church to save your progress.
However, deeper investigation reveals that on some levels Dragon Quest IX represents a near-seismic shift from the tried-and-tested JRPG blueprint: you have much more control over the appearance of your characters than before, even down to being able to choose your haircut and eye colour. Similarly, tinkering with your inventory and equipping new items has a visual impact on how your avatar is displayed on-screen – it’s a simple change, but an important one nonetheless.
In Dragon Quest IX you can control up to four different characters at any one time, including the main hero. Surprisingly, the three other characters in your band can either be created from scratch or randomly generated when you visit the recruitment centre of your local tavern. This means that within your group there are no defined characters or personalities, and consequently there’s also no dialogue between each of them – something that RPG traditionalists will find a little disconcerting.
This is because Dragon Quest IX has been build as a multiplayer experience: it’s possible to play through the entire game with friends taking on the roles of your three other party members. Sadly it’s only possibly to connect locally – being able to quest with people all over the globe would really have made this feature truly incredible – but despite this shortcoming the social aspect of the game remains astonishing.
Other radical changes are afoot in Dragon Quest IX. The mildly-annoying random encounters – which present such a massive barrier to entry when it comes to Westerners enjoying Japanese RPGs – are gone. Instead, you can see your enemies on the field of battle and take steps to avoid them. Naturally you won’t want to circumvent combat completely otherwise your team will never improve their skills, but it’s a long-overdue feature which removes the considerable annoyance of unpredictable combat.
Elsewhere Dragon Quest IX conforms to the usual RPG stereotype. You move from one area to the next conversing with non-player characters and accepting various quests. The game quickly drops into that time-honoured pattern of “level-grinding” your characters and purchasing new items to ensure they’re able to best the next end-of-level boss monster.
However, Dragon Quest IX’s linear setup is augmented slightly by the presence of optional side missions which can be accepted and then tackled whenever you see fit. These quests are recorded in a separate menu and offer a welcome respite from the strict and regimented main story.
Visually Dragon Quest IX uses a combination of 2D and 3D. The main characters and enemies all appear as polygon-based models while minor protagonists are displayed as 2D sprites. All of the backgrounds and locations are rendered in full 3D and can be rotated using the L and R triggers to get the optimal view. This curious fusion of 2D and 3D is a little jarring – especially when you have a mixture of the two different character types in close proximity to one another – such as in a cut scene.
However, this relatively minor quibble illustrates perfectly that there’s very little to complain about with Dragon Quest IX. Granted, it’s unashamedly old-school and isn’t likely to turn the heads of the Modern Warfare 2-loving brigade, but it offers well over 40 hours of hugely enjoyable gameplay and the near-revolutionary multiplayer aspect boosts its appeal even further. If any game can help the Dragon Quest franchise gain a foothold in the West, it’s this one.
Read the rest of our Dragon Quest IX review
Dragon Quest IX review: Storyline
Dragon Quest IX review: Multiplayer
Dragon Quest IX review: Gameplay
