Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies Review

It always amazes me when I hear stories about how popular the Dragon Quest series is in Japan. The entire country seems to react feverishly when the game hits store shelves, similar to how college frats shut down when a new Halo is released (just on a much larger scale that doesn't involve Jagermeister). But Japan's love for the series isn't unreasonable; Dragon Quest is one of the grandfathers of the Japanese role-playing game genre, and the franchise has had great success in the United States as well.

The latest member of the series, Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies, is headed exclusively to the Nintendo DS and introduces impressive multiplayer functionality to the canonical series. The game also features character classes, item creation and -- as you might expect -- plenty of slimes to defeat. I was frustrated by certain aspects of Dragon Quest IX, as the game's by-the-books battle system is almost too traditional for its own good and the focus on multiplayer hurts Dragon Quest's otherwise enticing story. But Dragon Quest IX is ultimately a charming game with plenty to do.

In Dragon Quest IX, you begin your adventure by creating your own hero through a simple but cute creation system. This system allows you to select your character's size, face type, hair style and more through a series of straight-forward menus. Once your hero has been created, you quickly enter the world as a member of an angelic race of guardians that watch over the mortal realms. From their cloudy home known as the Observatory, the guardians protect mortals and collect the manifestation of their thankfulness and faith (glowing seeds of light) that are then offered to the great tree Yggdrasil. The guardians' goal is to coax Yggdrasil into bearing fruit, which signals their imminent ascension to the throne of the Almighty.

Unfortunately, as Yggdrasil finally bears fruit, something goes terribly wrong and the hero is cast down to the mortal realm, stripped of his wings and halo. Players are tasked with wandering the world in search of answers and a way to get back home.

Dragon Quest IX is about as traditional as it gets when it comes to JRPGs, which shouldn't surprise Dragon Quest fans. Players control a party of up to four characters and journey through towns, dungeons and all the world map forests in between. When you get into a battle, you'll issue orders to all the party members under your command (unless you have an AI pattern assigned to someone) and then the action plays out on the top screen as each combatant takes his or her turn.


Battles boil down to selecting things off of a menu on the bottom screen (Attack, Magic, Item, etc.) and managing your party's health and status. The most exciting conflicts are obviously the boss fights because your party is in a constant state of danger, but otherwise the battle system in Dragon Quest IX is a little too traditional. I imagine this won't bother the gamers out there that want to relive the text-heavy, turn-based games of the past, but there's no hook to the battle system that drew me in and kept me excited. I have no problem with turn-based games or menu-driven RPGs, but Dragon Quest IX is missing that special something that encourages you to get into every battle possible just for the fun of it.

Fortunately, the systems built around the combat are all great. There are a number of character classes (called "vocations") in Dragon Quest IX, including the Warrior, Mage, Priest, Thief, Martial Artist and Minstrel. The default class for your hero is Minstrel, but later in the game you'll be able to change vocations at Alltrades Abbey. Parties will usually consist of a Warrior who dishes out physical attacks, a Mage for magic-based attacks and a Priest for healing. For my fourth party member I created a Martial Artist, as they use abilities to power-up their attacks, which is handy in a pinch. There are also bonus vocations to unlock along the way.