Nintendo DS #2: Dragon Quest 9

I can't believe that it's taken me this long to write about Dragon Quest 9. I think I beat this game about a month ago. I also can't believe that I've been playing so many rpgs lately. What happen to all those 8 bit action games? Playing lengthy RPGs is a good way to have one blog post a month. I need to step up and play some games that don't take 70 hours to complete.

Okay so I guess I do remember why I never got around to writing about this one. When I beat this game I was dizzy with fever, and I hardly even remember finishing it. I do remember that he ending was kind of a letdown. It was so subtle that I didn't even realize the game was finished. I wandered around for a few more hours before I noticed that there was nothing left to do.

I shouldn't complain about it too much though. Dragon Quest knows how to do a lengthy quest better than anyone. I mean, who really knows what's going on in Final Fantasy games most of the time? I know I don't. This isn't because the people behind the FF games don't know what they're doing. It's just really hard to tell a story that lasts 40 or 50 hours. It's not unusual for a Dragon Quest game to be twice this long, and yet they still mostly make sense. It really is impressive when you think about it.

Dragon Quest 9, like several other games in the franchise, works because it is episodic. There is an underlying story that is fairly easy to follow split up by separate quests. In this case you are an angel looking for magical fruit. Don't worry, it's just as silly as it sounds. Anyway, every new fruit that you look for has its own little quest complete with separate towns and characters. This works especially well on a handheld system where a person is likely to play for short amounts of time and then leave the thing behind for a while.

So how was the gameplay? Well it was Dragon Questy. It was fairly simple to play, had plenty of side quests, and looked an awful lot like Dragon Ball Z. At this point what else would you expect? Where Final Fantasy is always trying new radical things that anger the fan base, Dragon Quest keeps things traditional. There is a way to play with people online, but I never tried it. I play most of my games alone because I'm still not quite ready for online gaming. It seems that everyone playing it is either a million times better than me or a million times worse. Maybe I'm just too old for that sort of thing.

As far as the quality I guess I'd put this game right in the middle of the series. It's not as good as 7 or 8, but few games are. I played the thing for 70+ hours, but it felt far shorter. That's usually a good sign. I just wish that it didn't take so long to gain levels, and that you got attribute points after every level you gained instead of every other level. That really prolongs the game. It's also a little too clever sometimes. Does every enemy have to be a pun? I'm sorry if I don't sound overly enthusiastic about this one. It is a very good game, but not one to go crazy about. However, when I got my DS it was the first game I wanted to buy. There's always something comforting about the dependability, quality, and sameness of the Dragon Quest series. It's the hot chocolate of the gaming world.