| Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies (Nintendo DS) |  | From: Nintendo
Category: Video Games
List Price: £34.99
Buy New: £24.99
as of 5/9/2010 00:58 EDT details
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New (6) from £24.99
Seller: Amazon.co.uk
Rating:  14 reviews
Sales Rank: 21
Format: Unknown format
Platform: Nintendo DS
Genre: role-playing-games
Media: Video Game
Number Of Items: 1
Operating System: No Operating System
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 5 x 5.4 x 0.6
MPN: DSDRAGONQUESTIX
UPC: 045496740993
EAN: 0045496740993
ASIN: B003OUWU4C
Publication Date: July 2010
Shipping: Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping
Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours
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Product Description
You will begin your Dragon Quest journey as an angel in the kingdom of Angels. You and your fellow angels are seeking to move into the God's Land, by helping and protecting your mortal town and earning the thanks of the villagers which intern will earn you Sta Auras which are the key the Gods Land. But this is not to be as the kingdom of angels is attacked from below by a mysterious and powerful force. The force scatters the angels, and knocks your character into the mortal world, where you awaken without wings or a halo in the town you formerly protected. Having lost most of your angel powers, but the ability to see deceased and magical spirits, you must travel the mortal world to find a way back to the kingdom of angels.
You must help and protect the villagers to gain Star Auras that will enable you to return to the kingdom of angels. You will need to immerse yourself in the role of the Angel and even customise your character before you begin to play, you will need to ensure that you are interacting with everyone and defeating enemies to gain the knowledge and ability to get back to your kingdom. Your will embark on an epic adventure protecting your mortal town participating in turn based battles against evil enemies notably the slimes. - 4 player co-operative local communications gameplay
- Carry the Nintendo DS in Contact mode and meet and exchange info with other players
- Weekly downloadable content over Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection
- Create and customise characters for the first time in the series
- Considered the most challenging Dragon Quest title in the series
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 14
 Brave new direction July 23, 2010
Bryan A. (England, UK)
33 out of 34 found this review helpful
It's a brave new direction for Dragon Quest. Much has been made of making this for DS, but I'm happy to report that it works well. If anything, it taps into DS's strength.
The beginning is a cliché : I started the game by customizing my main character, walked, talked and battled as you do, and it took a while to get to grips with the story and system. I was never quite sure how I should develop my character with the skill system, somewhat akin to DQ8. I stuck to the old RPG wisdom of "stick to the skill you started to develop", and narrowed down to 1 weapon skill and 1 class skill. A pretty good wisdom (to start off with, that is).
Some hours into the game, just as I begun to wonder whether I've missed the chance to form a party, I went through some events and an inn opened for business - I formed a party of 4, and the rest is history - I forgot myself as I got drawn into obsessively chasing that next big thing. I often talk about replay value in reviews. I won't this time; exhausting it the first time is long enough that you'd go truly mad to replay the lot.
The crux of the obsession for me boils down to 2 things: skill development and equipment upgrades. The main story is not the strongest I've seen, but it's intertwined with bewildering number of quests and character-development elements. The pace is set from around when you make your party, and after that you will find yourself obsessively pursuing your desires until you forget where on earth you were in the story. I actually recommend this sidetracking from the main plot. I can say that it's a great way to enjoy it, with the benefit of the hindsight.
It isn't without its faults. Developing your character means the story gets easier when you return to it, and I would say that the game could use a bit of 'balancing'. Just strengthening the monsters in the story will do. Square-Enix may have done this deliberately, though, to welcome casual gamers as they might otherwise find the story too hard.
Any misgivings I might have had on that never got in the way, as I became overwhelmed by the sheer volume of content. There is the usual "sense of journey" in this game, of trotting across large plains of grass, desert, snow and mountains, watching the classic monsters roam around freely. The world is split into large zones and the sense of scale is well expressed.
As you get to grips with the game, you would always find a reason to get skills and equipment. There's always that special something to camp and upgrade. It's obsessive enough in the single player, it gets even more so if you start to adventure with your friends in multiplay as you tend to 'compete' a bit when you have friends to show off to. I suggest sidetracking and pursue more items and skills in between the 'segments' - after forming your party, unlocking Ranger/Battlemaster, and unlocking Paladin. It's more fun that way. Multiplayer enhances the joy, but not necessary.
After the main plot more features become available, one of which is the hundreds of treasure maps. There are normal maps, and boss maps which host a dozen of the big bosses from old DQ series. Higher level maps are harder, and boss maps can be made harder with progressing levels; past level 95, some of these big bosses are mind-numbingly hard. Good luck formulating your own strategy to bring them down. There are also additional quests you can get from Square-Enix server, as well as shopping for fancy items. Another memorable feature was the hidden alchemy, which was insanely hard but extremely rewarding.
What we have yet to see is the extent to which the guest-visit system ("contact mode") will spread here. You run DQ9 in stand-by mode and carry it in your pocket or bag. When you walk within several yards of other players, you exchange a copy of your avatar, who carries the map as a gift. Your inn grows in size as you collect more guests and you get rewards for that too.
The beauty of this is that you're doing it with complete strangers you walk by. It's hard to discover all the maps on your own, so exchanging them is a great idea for DS in your pocket. Obviously, the more people walk around with this game the better this will work. I managed to easily fill 3 new guest slots every time I crossed the big road in central Tokyo, but that's because it's that popular there. We don't know yet whether that will happen here.
Alas, as all good things must come to an end, it felt like I was leaving a large chunk of me in the DQ world. When I put it down, over-exhausted, I noticed that single + multiplayer together I had clocked up 300+ hours. Whether that's a good thing, I'll leave it to your judgement, but this amount of content in a DS game is truly remarkable - SquareEnix surely are serious with DQ9 and it shows; this was no gimmick. Heck, it's probably one of the most full-blown games ever on DS.
Very Good August 3, 2010
Sophie Jarn (UK)
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
As a person who has never played a dragon quest game before I relied on online reviews to guide me upon whether to buy this or not. I would definitely recommend it for anyone over the age of about 9 as the game play is simple and easy. It has good graphics and a long story which is great for those of us who appreciate long term appeal. It has similar game play to pokemon, however a different storyline and I think that this game is completely worth buying
Dragon quest IX July 26, 2010
15 out of 17 found this review helpful
I think this game is utterly brilliant, it always gives. For the first time i have ever played on a Dragon quest, i was overwelmed as i havent noticed the series before.
Dragon quest is fun, querky and sometimes funny. If you like RPGS this game go's down your street, but if you like other game genres this game you might like it.
The monsters i love, they are so imaginative and the graphics make them look brilliant. I am astounded as they have put a brilliant, massive, and really good graphics all into a tiny catridge.
This game is really good and fun, the story is massive and you can go out of a city and fight loads of cool monsters.
This game is for 12 to well any age. i think that this is the best game ever on ds.
best game ever August 25, 2010
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
this game is best game i have ever played it has over 1000 items and the story line lasts 40-60 hours and has taken me 75 hours just to complete 10 out of 200 grottos BUY IT!!!!!
Immense Game, Excellently Crafted August 23, 2010
Kaezo Takenzae (Lerailen)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
This game is impeccable. Fantastic. A Masterpiece.
The game has an excellent story, which to complete will span at least 30hrs if not closer to 40hrs, the story itself containing several bosses, at least 13 within the main adventure. The animation sequences that depict the story are beautiful to watch, and create an excellent story to play through.
These bosses are no easy feat, getting more difficult as the game progresses, with the end bosses being nightmarishly challenging to beat.
However, even after completing the main adventure you will be nowhere near 100% completion of the game, there are over 100side quests, maybe even over 200, I'm still playing through them, and the game is highly addictive.
If you complete all the sidequests, there is still more to do. In the game you can find treasure maps to go seeking new items and equipment on a treause hunt in dungeons and other kinds of areas. At the end of these treasure maps, there is a boss, giving the game well over 30bosses to play through and defeat.
The multiplayer is fantastic, having yourself and three friends play in any of your games is a riot, and can help you level up quicker or you can just pilfer their map for things you can't yet attain in your own game.
The map is enormous, with continents to adventure through and new things, items and places to discover. There are too many things to write in expressing how great this game is, so I'll stop here, with the end note being: Buy it, it's hard to be disappointed.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 14
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