The recent Nintendo Direct brought the exciting news that Dragon Quest VII and Dragon Quest VIII would soon come to the West on the 3DS. I was especially ecstatic because Dragon Quest IX is one of my favorite video games in the Nintendo DS library. If you have not played this unique title then I would recommend that you do, that way you can get into the series before the release of VII and VIII next year.
Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies is an rpg developed for the Nintendo DS. The game was released in the west in 2010. Here is a little excerpt of the plot: “Dragon Quest IX begins in the Observatory, the kingdom in the sky where the angelic beings called Celestrians, including the main character, reside. The main character begins as the guardian who has just undertaken protection of Angel Falls, a human village. The Celestrians have been trying for some time to move into the Realm of the Almighty. However, before they can leave, they require a rare fruit called the Fygg. Yggdrasil, the “World Tree” that it grows on, must be empowered with benevolessence, spiritual energy that can only be obtained by helping people in the Protectorate, the world of mortals.” After your character offers some benevolessence to Yggdrasil, a surprise attack on the tree causes the fygss and you to fall down into the world below. You wake up without your wings and halo, making you no better than a mortal. To regain your Celestrian power you must obtain more benevolessence to offer to the World Tree. From there, the story gets much more complex.
Dragon Quest IX has many aspects of an rpg and it does all rpg’s justice. You can create your own protagonist but you can also create your entire party. The battle system is simple but complex enough to keep it unique; there are around a dozen vocations that you can customize your characters with. This makes it fun to experiment and play around in the game to find the perfect party that suits you. The game has a great and large world that offers many side quests to complete in addition to the already large story. You can spend hours just exploring the world, giving the player a lot of freedom.
I am actually in the process of playing Dragon Quest IX again for the second time. I am ashamed to say that the first time I beat this game I actually used cheat codes because of the games hard difficulty. I decided that I wanted to give this game a second chance and beat it with pure skill and strategy. Hopefully replaying it will help with my patience while I await the release of VII and VIII next year. You should absolutely give this title a trial.
