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I cannot wait for the surprised reactions to it's sales, long lines, and such from the blogosphere.

I also can't wait for it to come out over here, but that's another story.

What is surprising though are the reactions of people who have never played a Dragon Quest game before,or started with VIII and the news of some of it's features and stuff like 1 adventure log slot only for this version. Actually I'd be interested in seeing people's 1st time reactions to the first Dragon Quest in this modern age.

The major complaints seem to be that since Dragon Quest IX has one save slot, it'll be hard to beat the game if you're stuck in a dungeon. Anyone who has played Dragon Quest before knows you're never stuck in a dungeon... There's also no game over screen in one. As slow as a Dragon Quest's pace is, and the difficulty of some of it's bosses the game never hates you for not being able to beat one.

Iunno. For a series that is the originator of the modern Japanese RPG there seems to be a lot of misunderstanding of how it plays. The only other games I can think of that are analogous to Dragon Quest in it's play style are the Earthbound/Mother games and Pokemon if someone who plays JRPGs constantly needs some sort of modern game comparison.

I was also annoyed with the reactions to it being on DS originally by people who started with VIII. Mostly because they didn't pay attention to what platforms Dragon Quest games have been released on. I'm pretty sure if PSP or PS3 were the dominant systems in Japan IX and X would be going to those. It is kind of weird a mainline Dragon Quest title is going to a portable. But, everyone and their grandmother in Japan seems to have a DS so it was a logical choice I guess.

Ah well, Dragon Quest IX looks pretty good IMO. I'm glad that the game allows for some character customization in appearance and such. There have been light facets of it before in DQ/DW III's class system and changes in appearance with the hero and Jessica in VIII(moreso Jessica). But, it's going to a much more customizable in IX which is a good sign.

Also IX is going to have a quest system which is somehow becoming more popular in JRPGs lately. Like with Star Ocean 4. Hopefully Dragon Quest IX will make that kind of feature more popular in JRPGs.

Although JRPGs kind of bore me nowadays, Dragon Quest seems to be a series I enjoy even if it is a bit still set in it's roots. It's probably because it's a comfort food game that I know how the gameplay system works, what spells and attacks do what and such. There's also a charm to playing them that you don't get from games that take themselves too seriously, and usually the NPCs you meet tend to have something interesting to say. I'm just wondering how long it'll take for us to get the game.

All I've got to say is that it's hilarious how there was a copy floating around the internet a few days ago that presented you with hentai before permanently frying your DS.

Just goes to show how popular the game is, I guess.

One of the reasons I don't like doing that kind of thing is mostly because I don't know if I'm downloading something that won't mess up something in some way. You never know, especially since SE is kind of sneaky in how they make games practically unplayable if you pirate them nowadays.

lol Joe got a virus on his computer trying to download a DS rom. I guess that's the hot new way to grief?

Yeah, I think it's always been the case with downloading ROMs though. Going through sources you can trust and such.

In DQ IX news, Tim Rogers is covering the launch for Kotaku.

http://kotaku.com/5312366/you-too-can-experience-the-dragon-quest-ix-launch#pager

I'm beginning to wonder how many people's image of Japan is getting a little realer because of it. Other than that, it's a nice turnout for a game that already had 2 million pre-orders.

Iwata said that Nintendo of America is going to give it a marketing push when it comes over here. Still not sure how well it'd catch on with the DS crowd, but hopefully it'll see more sales than VIII since gamers were reintroduced to the series with that one.

i want to play this game

i really love the Dragon Quest games of this era i.e. the remakes and new games.

i find the original NES games to be cute, but unplayable.  the DS remakes have been wonderful, though, and DQ8 was a lot of fun.


the only thing with IX is that it's lost a lot of its oomph for me.

initially it was going to be a realtime battle multiplayer game.

then it went back to turn based.

and now it's multiplayer only locally (no wi-fi).  which, i guess is popular and works in Japan, because they keep making shit like that, but really, who am i going to play this game with that i know personally?  let alone three other people.

Well, let's see...

You have the summer off, Dave has the summer off, I have the summer off... we need a fourth unemployed/waiting for school to start bum to start a game.

And while we wait for an English patched version of the game to surface,  how about Monster Hunter Freedom Unite instead?

but you're both gonna hate DQ9 :(



also, i find it kind of hilarious every time i see a Monster Hunter poster in a subway car.  i guess i'm more surprised, than anything else.

i can't get the ROM to load in my M3.  i assume there will be some kind of patched ROM sometime in the future, but i want to play my customizable DQ RIGHT NOW

Haven't tried it myself, but have you updated to the latest Sakura OS? Seems to run most games that I couldn't in the regular software. Though Bob's Game doesn't work with it... just as well.

where might i get said OS?  i'm willing to try it out.  don't really know which OS i'm currently using, but i know there's a few.

Here you go...

http://gbatemp.net/index.php?download=5113

well, that GUI is certainly nicer than the one i had been using before, but unfortunately, the ROM still won't load.  it basically loads up a blank white screen and nothing more.  it seems to an issue across the board.

doesn't really matter all that much since my Japanese reading comprehension isn't all that great to begin with, but it would be nice to try this game out a little bit before it comes out here in a few months or a year or whatever.

Every single game news source has been covering the launch, but the only one that really counts is Sankaku Complex...

http://www.sankakucomplex.com/2009/07/13/dragon-quest-ix-release-total-fiasco/

Yeah, sorry. I'm not going to be playing this.

sorry, Matt, but your blog is the only one i can read where i don't mind grammatical and spelling errors.

just to put on my snooty hat for a second, i think it's cute these guys are finally getting around to "side quests".

welcome to 1988, my friends. enjoy the ride! :)

on a more serious note, do folks ever cross back over from dq to, say, wizardry? (the western series that comes to mind as being most progenitor-ish). i know someone told me that there were a few wizardry branded games in japan that were largely roguelikes with no real c+c in them but until wiz 5 or so they're mostly straight up dungeon crawls. though the wizzes were never my favorite series, to be sure. (wiz8 is apparently some kinda masterpiece)

i figure if you're going to western rpg tile crawl yourself to death, there's always the bard's tale series or perhaps even wasteland.

I tried running wasteland a while back but my windows 98 machine was too fast for it. :(

Maybe with the advent of Dosbox it would run at an...acceptable speed?

dosbox runs it fine, but you do need a .txt or pdf of the manual, since that's the copy protection.

the oldest of the old school! (it's unforgivably hard)

not that anyone here delves into highly illegal ROM downloading

but there's a patch out for the DQIX ROM, in case you weren't able to get it to run.

the graphics are surprisingly better than i expected!

A lot of people praise Wizardry 8, but for me, managing 8 person party with a turn-based combat every 5 minutes where you have to dig your way thru a LOT of menus to get things moving gets boring quickly. I have to admit, back in 2001 that game looked brilliant.

As for other good (but solo) werstern crawlers - Ultima Underworld series were always my favourite - the freedom of movement engine gave you was mind blowing back in 1992.

Now I will shut up, because I really have noting more substancial to add to this thread, I never played any of the games in DQ series.

That's because they hated bringing them out here for a while.

There's a fair amount of Japanese Wizardry and Wizardry-alikes, the dungeon crawler seems to be a pretty popular niche over there, even now.

As for DQ, a friend who has lived over there says that there's an odd dichotomy where the vast majority of DQ players don't seem to be interested in other videogames and "gamers" are highly dismissive of DQ and those who play it. Anecdotal evidence, etc.

in a lot of ways it must be a designer's dream to have something lime DQ. the main series ALWAYS does well and people come out of the woodwork to buy it.

Dragon Quest's target audience always seems to be "everybody."  Well, actually, that was the target audience in the first place with the first Dragon Quest.

I am wondering if there is a fan translation of this: http://www.atarihq.com/tsr/books/fc/dqm.html

I'm also wondering why why don't have that many documentary comics over here. Other than that it'd be interesting to know what the process was going on in creating the original Dragon Quest.

that's kind of interesting.  i'd read it, out of curiousity, at least.

but it makes sense to have a comic based on the creation of DQ, since it's just such a major thing over there (and comics and games seem to go hand in hand a lot of the time).


so is anyone really playing IX at all?  i'm still in the first section, i'd imagine.  it's fun!  i don't really want to keep playing it as i only understand enough to have a vague idea of what people are saying (and this series is a little less charming when you don't have the dialogue), but i'm enjoying myself and therefore don't want to stop.

they're really emphasizing the character customization/creation in this game; unlike most JRPGs, everything you equip is shown on your character.  the whole thing sort of screams "adorable."  if marketed correctly, i could see a lot of people, even those who own a DS but don't really "play games," getting into this. 

but DQ has never really taken off here in any kind of major way, so i wouldn't be surprised if it's barely marketed at all.

Iwata does want NoA to market it over here. Probably with the same marketing style they're doing in Japan to promote DQ to people who are unfamiliar with RPGs. Whether it works or not, remains to be seen. Since it was NoA who marketed the first Dragon Warrior.

Also This!

http://www.woodus.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=14587

It seems like if there is a main character you want to dress up as from the previous DQ games... You can!

that's pretty neat.


yea, i remember NOA marketed DQ1 fairly heavily, but i also seem to remember that it didn't really work out for them in the long run.  and it's really a shame that the SNES games/remakes were never brought out here in any official capacity.  but who knows, maybe they made the right decision in terms of finances at the time.  but considering how long Enix disappeared from the US, it probably wouldn't have mattered anyway.

Then again, Square Enix pretty much doesn't have to rely on Nintendo to bring games out over here. So, it could just be something Iwata wants to do in order to bring more awareness of the DQ series here in the states. At least among his customers.

They'd probably do a few things in the style of the "My First DQ" Pamphlet they have over there. (somewhere near the bottom of the picture list.)

http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3175124

It is neat looking at how much merchandise goes along with a Dragon Quest game too. With all the kind of things you'd find with popular children's cartoons you find over here.