Dragon Quest IX Catch-All

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Woohoo!

1up news story

So was I the only person who cared about this news? I was surprised no one else has posted it yet. I danced a jig when I learned it!

I actually wanted to post it, but couldn't find my original post about DQIX being on Ninty DS. Yeah, I'm lazy. But turn-based DQIX is really great news! I just loved battle system of DQVIII and now I will be carrying it around with me! Goodbye another 100 hours of my life!

NDS delivers.

<3 Dreamy!

*sigh*

Works for me!

I was extremely gratified to hear this news as well.

I love this game, so far.

So it wasn't always going to be turned based?

Was just thinking about starting a thread about this one.

So far I'm not too sure. I never played 8, is the monsters being visible on the overhead map new or was that introduced earlier? Somehow the exploration of the world doesn't seem quite as satisfying to me as in previous iterations. I'm also a bit annoyed they went more the fancy graphics route than the swiftness of combat (peple take too long to do things in combat). I always thought one of the strengths of DQ was the fast flow of its combat system.

I'm enjoying it though, am about 10 hours in and I definitely want to keep playing.

I still wish this was available on a non-handheld.

Tyrian wrote:

I still wish this was available on a non-handheld. :(

I'm in the opposite boat. Handheld is about the only way I get to play long form RPGs any more: commutes, plane flights, etc.

necroyeti wrote:
Tyrian wrote:

I still wish this was available on a non-handheld. :(

I'm in the opposite boat. Handheld is about the only way I get to play long form RPGs any more: commutes, plane flights, etc.

I wish the Wii had something like the old GBA Player. Playing the 2D metroidvanias on my regular sized TV with a wavebird was most excellent.

The Wii has usb ports, Nintendo should make it happen!

How would they implement a touch screen on the TV? I suppose they could use IR as the pointer but I'm absolutely sure that would be the worst thing ever, worse than virtual d-pads even.

Blind_Evil wrote:

How would they implement a touch screen on the TV? I suppose they could use IR as the pointer but I'm absolutely sure that would be the worst thing ever, worse than virtual d-pads even.

Stop ruining it with your practicality and your logic! It's not wanted here!

Baron Of Hell wrote:

So it wasn't always going to be turned based?

Originally it was meant to be an action-rpg (somewhat like Ys or the Seiken Densetsu games), but the fanbase was quite vocal about wanting to keep the primary DQ franchise true to its turn-based roots. I'll admit to being one of those people.

I finally got to start into this last night, and oh yeah, it's going to be a very fun ride!

I bond more with my created characters than I do typically with pre-cast roles. I'm adventuring with my two buds who I recreated in the game and I'm totally into the quest, dialogue be damned!

Mister Magnus wrote:

I bond more with my created characters than I do typically with pre-cast roles. I'm adventuring with my two buds who I recreated in the game and I'm totally into the quest, dialogue be damned!

This can have a down side. I remember going back to replay some snes era RPGs only to be embarrassed that I renamed the female characters with names of girls I had crushes on in 8th grade.

Yes, well, if I lose these friendships seeing them as characters in the game will be the least of my sorrows.

Also, IUMogg, dunno if you've played it, but swapping out, deleting and creating new party members is a breeze and you're never (at least not so far for me) locked into your party dynamics. For instance, I adventure with a party of three instead of four and the game is fine with this. So those old, failed crushes? Kick'em to the curb and adventure on without 'em.

Tyrian wrote:
Blind_Evil wrote:

How would they implement a touch screen on the TV? I suppose they could use IR as the pointer but I'm absolutely sure that would be the worst thing ever, worse than virtual d-pads even.

Stop ruining it with your practicality and your logic! It's not wanted here!

Yoink!

Oh, man. I didn't realize until getting to Alltrades Abbey (the place what lets you switch jobs; guess what the abbot is named?) that only SKILLS carry over between classes, not SPELLS. If I'd known that I would've made a lot of character-building decisions very differently. This is really hurting the OCD min-maxing part of my brain that needs to have everything just so, to the point where I'm considering starting over because there is (as far as I know) no way to respec your main character and the only way to respec a party member is to recreate them and restart their leveling from scratch.

The thing is, I don't really know why I care, since the game is pretty easy thus far and it's not like I need to have anything min-maxed to succeed. But I just DO. Does anyone else have this problem with games?

occasionally. I made all sorts of charts for Oblivion to make sure I was leveling up efficiently.

But yeah, I'm not worrying about it for DQIX. I more enjoying the actual "role playing" that it offers. Crazy, I know.

Also: must... gather... new and exciting... clothes!

hbi2k wrote:

Oh, man. I didn't realize until getting to Alltrades Abbey (the place what lets you switch jobs; guess what the abbot is named?) that only SKILLS carry over between classes, not SPELLS. If I'd known that I would've made a lot of character-building decisions very differently. This is really hurting the OCD min-maxing part of my brain that needs to have everything just so, to the point where I'm considering starting over because there is (as far as I know) no way to respec your main character and the only way to respec a party member is to recreate them and restart their leveling from scratch.

I really wouldn't worry too much about this, honestly.

According to a FAQ on gamefaqs, you'll get enough points to get 24 out of the 26 skills fully maxed if you level every class to 99.

So in the long run, you'll have basically everything.

IUMogg wrote:
Mister Magnus wrote:

I bond more with my created characters than I do typically with pre-cast roles. I'm adventuring with my two buds who I recreated in the game and I'm totally into the quest, dialogue be damned!

This can have a down side. I remember going back to replay some snes era RPGs only to be embarrassed that I renamed the female characters with names of girls I had crushes on in 8th grade.

I can't say THIS strongly enough. I now name my characters' love interests after...well, the love interest of the fictional me in the book I'm writing (who is based on my ex, d'oh!).

Tyrian wrote:
Blind_Evil wrote:

How would they implement a touch screen on the TV? I suppose they could use IR as the pointer but I'm absolutely sure that would be the worst thing ever, worse than virtual d-pads even.

Stop ruining it with your practicality and your logic! It's not wanted here!

To be fair, a Wii port of this game would be completely do-able. The touch screen controls aren't critical. SquareEnix even has some porting tech between the two, as that's what they used in FFCC: Echoes of Time. Cross platform play, crazy! I was just saying that's why a DS-player for Wii wouldn't work.

Anyway, I'm about an hour into the game and liking it quite a bit more than expected. I dig how the scope doesn't feel too large. Helping the small folk is rewarding.

Also, Farscry: you should probably make this the catch-all since it's being used as such.

I'm about 10 hrs in now, and am having just the amount and type of fun I expected. Gotta love DQ for its consistency, right down to their insistence that certain sound effects remain identical to the NES original. It's especially nice since my half-complete game of DQV somehow got lost in the shuffle of my recent move.

I've always enjoyed the more freeform aspects of DQ, probably why it's one of the only JRPGs I actually like. Anyone tried the multiplayer? I'm not big on playing this kind of game with another person, but it's a bit intriguing if anyone wants to be a guinea pig.

Blind_Evil wrote:

Also, Farscry: you should probably make this the catch-all since it's being used as such.

D'oh! Good catch! (no pun intended)

I've put a little time into this so far (a bit over an hour) and on every single count, I've found myself very impressed by this game. This bodes well!

Farscry wrote:

I've put a little time into this so far (a bit over an hour) and on every single count, I've found myself very impressed by this game. This bodes well!

Same. There's a lot of self referential fun, poking wise at a lot of JRPG tropes (half the characters in the Inn-centric quest have "inn" in their name).

One thing I'm starting to notice: buying new equipment might not be the best idea. I just got to the second town and used my hard-ground gold on a whole new getup, and found a better set of gloves and equivalent shield within random baskets and casks.

Questions for those further along: About when do you get your other party members? And when can you start switching classes?

You can recruit new party members pretty soon. You'll know you're close when you get to Stornway. I takes a little longer before you can start switching classes; my party members were all in the high teens in their first class level before I got to that point. You'll know you're close when you get back to the Observatory.

I've messed around with the multiclassing a little more. Physical types seem easier to multiclass: you just make sure that each of the classes you want to switch between has a weapon in common and make that your primary weapon type, and then you can swap pretty freely between each. For example, I swapped my claw-specialist monk to a thief without too much trouble. Spellcasters require more planning: I swapped my whip-specialist mage to a fighter because I wanted to get the passive strength bonus so that her whips would do more damage, but I have to switch back to a mage whenever I want to actually progress the story as opposed to just training because as a fighter she loses both her spells and her whip.

stupidhaiku wrote:

I'm about 10 hrs in now, and am having just the amount and type of fun I expected. Gotta love DQ for its consistency, right down to their insistence that certain sound effects remain identical to the NES original. It's especially nice since my half-complete game of DQV somehow got lost in the shuffle of my recent move.

Incidentally, I returned to my almost-finished DQV cart yesterday and finally put down the almost final boss Bjorn, which I was trying to do for almost a year. So I expect DQV will be done in just a few commutes and I will be psyched for DQ IX.

I picked this up on a whim yesterday. Still early on, but I'm liking a lot of what I see. Thumbs down on the tak tak tak noise as words from conversations fill the box. Drives me nuts when you can't disable that.

wanderingtaoist wrote:
stupidhaiku wrote:

I'm about 10 hrs in now, and am having just the amount and type of fun I expected. Gotta love DQ for its consistency, right down to their insistence that certain sound effects remain identical to the NES original. It's especially nice since my half-complete game of DQV somehow got lost in the shuffle of my recent move.

Incidentally, I returned to my almost-finished DQV cart yesterday and finally put down the almost final boss Bjorn, which I was trying to do for almost a year. So I expect DQV will be done in just a few commutes and I will be psyched for DQ IX.

I actually had gotten sidetracked from DQV last year, so part of why it took me a while to start IX was due to me wanting to finish V first. It was well worth finishing, a very charming game and definitely one of the highlights of the DQ franchise. I see why that particular entry has so many fans now.

Played a little more IX last night, I'm not to Stornway yet, but I think I'm getting close. I LOVE having the monsters running around in the world, makes it far less frustrating when I want to explore without fighting much, and makes it equally less frustrating when I just want to find some combat. Big kudos for that change!

Blind_Evil wrote:

Questions for those further along: About when do you get your other party members? And when can you start switching classes?

I thought it was subtle. The second Inn you arrive at, one of the characters along the left of the bar will give you the option to expand your party. Seemed to me like the option was there with very little fanfare, which I liked. As I said, I still haven't expanded my party to four adventurers... although a lass named "Sexy" has asked to join our ranks. We'll see what happens (someone has to wear the legwarmers I found! "pop socks")!

Certis wrote:

I picked this up on a whim yesterday. Still early on, but I'm liking a lot of what I see. Thumbs down on the tak tak tak noise as words from conversations fill the box. Drives me nuts when you can't disable that.

I dislike that there's no option to change the text speed or manipulate how quickly I can roll through conversations. Especially conversations I've already heard or book descriptions on shelves I'd previously searched.

But at least it moves pretty quickly.

Farscry wrote:

Played a little more IX last night, I'm not to Stornway yet, but I think I'm getting close. I LOVE having the monsters running around in the world, makes it far less frustrating when I want to explore without fighting much, and makes it equally less frustrating when I just want to find some combat. Big kudos for that change!

I'm a bit ambivalent about this. I can appreciate it when exploring around and I just don't want to encounter monsters right now -- it really adds something to the flow of the game in this respect. On the other hand, I think it removes some of the tension and excitement of exploration, since in earlier games traipsing off into a side corridor meant almost certain encounters and you had to do a cost/benefit analysis. Now in many cases you can avoid most, if not all, of the encounters and run around dungeons willy-nilly. There are the ones who chase you, of course, but it still removes some of the risk of going down the unknown hallway.

And yes, the text, while still fairly fast, moves too slowly.

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