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That was a smashing maneuver! Good show, chaps!

Hello and welcome to Randon Ncounter, Nfamous Gamers’ RPG blog where we explore the genre of Role Playing Games and how they’ve evolved over the years. I’m Dan Shadow and this week’s Random Ncounter is Dragon Quest IX for the Nintendo DS.

Released on July 11th, 2010, Dragon Quest IX: Sentinel of the Starry Skies was developed by Level-5 and published by Nintendo here in America.  That right there was kind of an interesting choice. You see, Square Enix has all the resources they need to translate, localize, and publish a game in the States. I mean, they’ve been doing it for years. This time around, however, it seems like they didn’t have enough faith in the Dragon Quest series to bring this particular title over here.

Let me take a step backwards so it’ll be easier to understand Square Enix’s choice not to publish the game here.

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Way back in the day. There was Square and there was Enix. Two different companies. Square was famous for making the Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts series while Enix had Star Ocean and Dragon Quest. In 2003, the two companies merged and formed... well... Square Enix (or Squeenix as some people call them). While the merger was equal on both halves, there ended up being more Square employees standing in the new amalgamation.

In Japan, the RPG genre is huge and Dragon Quest was just as popular as Final Fantasy. In other words the merger was a win win.  At least it was in Japan. Here in the States, however, Dragon Quest was only popular with the hardcore RP Gamers. This was mainly because while Final Fantasy is always looking to redefine the genre, Dragon Quest sticks to its roots and rarely budges from them. The two series’ split off in different directions and as time went on, it became harder and harder to find an audience here for Dragon Quest. Square Enix had to resort to bundling the demo for Final Fantasy XII in with each copy of Dragon Quest VIII to raise the sells numbers.

Then came the DS remakes.

In September of ’08, Square Enix decided to have ArtePiazza remake some of the best Dragon Quest games for the Nintendo DS.  First was Dragon Quest IV: Chapters of the Chosen in 2008. This came at an opportune time and, while the mechanics were still old, the fresh 3d graphics were a breath of fresh air.  Then, in February of 2009, Dragon Quest V: Hand of the Heavenly Bride was released and proved that as long as there’s a great story, casual gamers will forgive the outdated battle systems.

These titles proved that the Dragon Quest series is great and should be great sellers.  So why the lack of faith in an original DS RPG?  

Maybe because, this time around, Square Enix decided to make a Japanese-ass Japanese game.  I mean like a Monster Hunter kind of Japanese RPG.

You see, Monster Hunter is huge in Japan not only because of it’s an RPG but because it was made to work well specifically in Japan. The multiplayer mode was made to play with nearby players so because everyone there has a handheld console and they’re always in crowded areas, they’re always connected with each other. No online mode. You can only play with nearby players. This mode thrives in Japan. Not here. So when it came time to release Dragon Quest IX overseas, Square Enix was hesitant to say the least. So when Nintendo heard of the high sales of DQIX, and how it broke some kind of Guiness World Record, they decided to take it upon themselves to bring it over here. That and the remakes did well for them as well.

Now that I got the history lesson out of the way, let’s get to the meat and bones of DQIX.

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In DQIX you’re a fresh Angel who’s the new guardian to a small village. You’re tasked with helping the people so they will pray to you. The more they pray to you the more seeds you’ll get and after you receive a certain amount of seeds, you’ll ascend into the high heavens to join God.  Simple enough right? Well, when it’s time to deliver the last seed, something goes terribly wrong and you fall down to the surface world without your wings. With no way of contacting the Angel world, you must push your way forward while trying to figure out what has happened.

The story is usually the strong part in Dragon Quest games. That’s not the case in DQIX. This time around, the story isn’t really there until the last act and since your entire party is comprised of characters you created yourself, there’s a serious lack of character development going on here. Usually in Dragon Quest games, your party members bring so much to the table. Hell, you like them more than the main character or even the story itself sometimes. This being a multiplayer-centric game, the main focus is on the gameplay. Sounds weird for a DQ game, but this time around you create your party members from scratch. They don’t have any part in the story whatsoever and are absent from the most important parts just because the game calls for you to be alone.

Dragon Quest IX continues the legacy of its predecessors while employing new game systems that might break it of it’s old school molds. It’s not only the first in the series to have multiplayer, it’s a fully customizable online RPG. You create your character from a series of Dragon Ball archetypes. I’m not kidding. Akira Toriyama is in charge of the art and character design (he always has been). He’s the guy who made Dragon Ball series and while every single human character looks like an avatar from my middle school Toonami memories, the monster design is a lot of fun.

This game has three different online functions. There’s a store where seemingly random items will appear each and every week. These items are mostly reagents needed to create better items. They’re usually rare items so you can go on with your armor creating quicker than you normally would. Then there’s a local multiplayer where your main character can enter another’s “world” to join in on the fun. I wasn’t able to partake in this mode much because it’s local only and I only knew one other person who owned the game.

The most popular online mode had to be the treasure map trading. It was the Street Pass before the Street Pass. At one point in the game, you would collect a treasure map. Each map leads to a harder-than-you’re-used-to dungeon where you’ll find a difficult boss at the end. Once you defeat the boss, you’ll get some sweet loot and another map. Now the first map you receive will always be the same, but each map earned afterward is randomized. These randomized maps are what people hunt for. So what you would do is go to the inn and place your DS on sleep mode and hope others are doing the same. If you happen to pass by someone who’s holding a map, you’ll trade maps with them. It’s that easy.

Things got crazy with the map hunting in Japan and there was this one guy who had the perfect map filled monsters who would give the most experience and the best loot. This guy used it to his advantage and charged people lots of money to trade maps... and people paid! True story!

One thing that always catches me off guard when it comes to the Dragon Quest games is the localization. When the team translates the game, they add different European accents to each country in the game. They also spell out their accent phonetically. It can be annoying at times (especially the Cockney accents) but I find it charming when I can understand what certain people are trying to say.

The monster that caught my eye the most would have to be the final boss. Now, I’m not going to go into details or spoil the story or anything like that. I just wanted to vent and warn you about how much of a Japanese-ass Japanese boss this guy is. This is the kind of guy you’d fight, then he’d run away, then you’d fight again, then he’d change forms, then fight again, then he’d go into his final form. Annoying bugger, he is.

Even after you finish the game, there’s still loads to do here. This isn’t the norm for the Dragon Quest series, but with the crazy item creation system and map trading, there’s always something to do here. There’s even DLC available with new quests that reap great rewards.

That's it for this edition of Random Ncounter.  Check back as I level up and Ncounter another Random RPG next week!