Despite its lack of real party members I can't really find anything about this game I dislike. It has a insane amount of customization giving it tons of replay value, I love the final villain, it's easy to get into, 100s of hours of optional content, monsters in the overworld, it's not the best looking DS game but it's certainly up there, optional multiplayer, and much more. On top of all that this game single handedly inspired the 3DS street pass feature which is great. I mean how many games can say they inspired a entire system feature?

I just cannot get enough of Dragon Quest. It’s a series I got into as a kid, especially on the DS. I still have the copy of Dragon Quest Heroes: Rocket Slime that I got as a kid, but I also had VI, Monsters: Joker, and this game, which I got around its initial release. Though, a couple of years ago when I beat Dragon Quest III on Switch, I hadn’t beaten a Dragon Quest game. So all of those games I had, save for Rocket Slime, were all left shelved until I got rid of the games one way or another. As I got into the series again this past year, this was the game I wanted most to revisit from those childhood years.

There wasn’t much I remembered about this game. Remnants of the battle system and the customization floated around in my head, but other than that, this was nearly an entirely new experience. The first thing I noticed is that this game is begging to be on the 3DS. This series ruled on the DS, and while I haven’t played the remakes of VII and VIII on the 3DS, it’s clear this series made a home for itself on these consoles, and IX feels like it’s fighting with its hardware a little bit. Important characters are 3D models, while every other NPC is a 2D sprite, not to mention navigating a 3D space with eight directional inputs when the world wasn’t made for only eight directions is a little tough (though the touch screen navigation is nice, menus, oddly enough, don’t feel good with touch controls). These are, admittedly, tiny things, but they make it obvious to a player a struggle within hardware that, for me, makes me dock a game’s score only because this is not this game’s full potential.

But, and I’ve said this before, it’s Dragon Quest. When the story takes off, these tiny things fade away, especially as you get used to them with playtime, they become an after thought, and the charm that this series oozes completely enraptures the game.

I want to say, I don’t want it to make it seem like I am knocking this game’s 3D sprites, because they’re amazing. Customizing party members and dressing them up in armor suited to their little jobs and seeing the armor on them in the overworld and in battle is such an amazing little twist that I really liked here.

Dragon Quest games have always been littered with ghosts. Here and there, the spirits of the dead roam these worlds to warn you, guide you, or sometimes they just grieve to you. Sentinels is the first one in this series I played that really felt like a Ghost Story, capitalized, and trademarked, too! Every single situation you encounter in this game revolves around a ghost who died with unfinished business. Maybe they left behind a loved one, or left before they could guide someone they left behind…

Or maybe they just need to say ‘sorry’.

before i get into this: you can access the extra material locked from the wfc's discontinue, sackchief has a video titled "How to play DQIX in 2022" that goes over this. i tried it a while ago and it worked with my phone's wifi hotspot, but comments say it still works.

anyways, dragon quest ix is genuinely one of the best games on the nintendo ds.

for the time, the graphics are cool! i admire the pixel art and think of the 3D models as charming despite how theyve clearly aged. it does repeat monsters by recoloring them, but that is an established norm of the series that was, im assuming, a solution to resource/console limits

the story and battle are paced by the player, you can play solely with the D-pad and ABXY buttons, only the touchscree, or a blend of both as you need. the only thing you will really encounter that will interrupt your pace is the overworld-present monsters.

this makes the game interesting by allowing you to jump between the story, quests, and technical gameplay i.e. grinding and alchemy.

the story is engaging, providing tales within arcs that expose you to new people and bosses as you need them, as long as you are fit for battle. it is a charming story fit for kids, but nevertheless is not all happy-go-lucky and has grit to it.

the soundtrack feels like a sticky-hand slapping my head in the best way i can mean it, the tracks 'the time of the decisive battle' and 'guide them to their fate' stand out to me as a pinnacle of the game's music production.

the gameplay is standard for a dragon quest mainline game: you may fight, cast spells, launch abilities, re-equip weaponry, check on your foes and flee. the most appealing part of 9 is the variety of battle opportunities you can choose for yourself. i've beaten the game with a well-rounded party of a armamentalist, sage, paladin and gladiator, and with a party of three gladiators and one priest, to name a few. it can be ridiculous or strategic, as long as you have the game sense to handle the party.

to conclude, game times. it overall takes me around 50 hours to complete the main storyline, but you can easily reach a hundred if you want to grind, quest and alchemize, and a few hundred with the post-story DQVC quests.

i think the best way to play dragon quest 9 is to start off casually and enjoy it at your whim before digging deep into it.

Felt weird to play this game after playing the remakes of DQ7 & DQ8 on the 3DS, as it felt like I was going back in time to the Super Nintendo era with the lack of voice acting, worse graphics, and a feel that feels very similar to DQ3. Speaking of which this game feels like I am playing DQ3 but with a different story.
I played this game in 2022, so unfortunately the online play was already removed and this game feels like a shell of its former self from what I have read online. The game was made around the online play, so that's where the real meat of the game is.
It's a typical Dragon Quest adventure like all the others. They bring alchemy back from DQ8 and have it where you can change classes once again, but when you change classes this time it has more of a mmorpg feel like from FF14 where your level resets to level 1. This game is very grind happy, as it was made with many side quests in the base game and post game, and DLC (That you will have to use an action replay to access now), all the classes to level up and max out skill points for, items to craft through alchemy that will be the best in the game, post game dungeons, grottos, and perhaps some more stuff I do not know about. You are definitely intended to spend 100s of hours playing this game, which is fine if you want to do so. You can also just spend 25 to 30 hours beating the main story of the game if you are wanting to experience all of the Dragon Quest mainline games like I am currently doing.
It is definitely not needed to do any of the side stuff or even reclass even once to beat the main story. I beat the final boss at levels ranging around 40-42. As long as you have equipment from the the latest town, are around level 40 with a balanced party that includes a mage, priest, and martial artist monk you should be fine. You will have to abuse Oomph, Sap, Acceleratle and Multi-Heal but that's it. That's how I did it anyways.
It's unfortunate that you cannot speed up or skip the animations in battle like the previous re-done DQ games, but that's probably because I played remasters or remakes of the other DQ games, whereas this game has never been ported and remastered to my knowledge.

I can quite imagine how easy it is to break the balance of this game if you start reclassing and levelling up the other classes, as I have heard that stats you gain from other classes stay with you as you go into other classes to a certain extent.
It's possible that I will re-visit this game and do the side quests, grottos, level up the classes and such, but not right now.

This was the very first Dragon Quest game I had ever played and got me into the series. Last year I decided to do a replay.

And this time, I made my party after myself and friends.

It went well until two of them (Paladin and Gladiator respectively) started ganging up on me and murdering me everytime they became confused, while my self-sufficient Armamentalist just watched with the most apathetic expression on his face like he was questioning why he decided to join me in the first place. Yes he was a support unit...but he mainly supported himself with us being a passing thought if he felt like it. I was the actual healer and I was a Ranger.

The final boss also, magically, did not use Disruptive Wave EVEN ONCE while the Armamentalist kept slapping a billion buffs on himself and whacking him with Miracle Slash to heal. And then the final boss died to 2 damage recoil from attacking my Gladiator.

Amazing game, had fun from beginning to end.

The game does without a predefined cast of playable characters in favor of giving the player complete control over the customizability of their party. From vocations to appearance, players can make their team unique and fit any team composition.

Allowing custom characters has its pros and cons.

Cons:

Your characters lack any personality, therefore the connection between members of your party and their interactions with the story seems rather generic or simply nonexistent.

This, however, does not stop you from imagining a personality for your characters in order to immerse them in the story.

Pros:

You have complete control over how your party performs. Skills transfer between vocations, allowing you to mix and match with a plethora of abilities while in combat.

--

The story focuses more on the interactions and personalities of the NPCs rather than the player's characters, and Dragon Quest 9 does an excellent job at portraying an interesting story with intriguing characters, even if you are not playing as them.

One negative thing I must bring up is the DLC content which added new dungeons, bosses, and items. Because it was tied to the old Nintendo Online services, it is unlikely that you will be able to download the additional content. Through code hacks, I was able to get the DLC apparel items, but I was never able to unlock the new grottos added.

Otherwise, the game is great and should definitely be given a shot.

I'm fascinated by the existence of this game, it's like a dream I could only imagine. Not only is it one of the best games in the series with the best version of the classic combat system, an extraordinary OST and a great amount of content, but it's the first time I can share my favorite video game franchise with my brother, with whom I love playing two-player games.

Unlike DQ8 whose main novelty was to go back to the roots and present a vast world in full 3D, or DQ7, which was made with the purpose of being the culmination and the longest game of the classic era, instead, Dragon Quest IX takes the risk of recreating the same traditional formula, but for a handheld console and with the possibility of being played in full co-op.

The story is about us this time being guardian angels, serving for an organization of many angels called celestrians, who must protect mortals and their world. However, after an event we fall from heaven and we are restricted from our powers as angels and become almost normal humans. It will be our mission to help and solve the problems of different people in the world to finally reach the ultimate goal of the guardian angels, which is to leave humans in such a favorable state that makes the guardian angels are no longer needed and can retire and return to god.

The game follows the classic episodic structure of visiting a town with a small narrative arc each, passing the dungeon and moving on, and I like how the stories revolve around helping ghosts of people who died, but were trapped in that state for one reason or another. It sounds quite serious and different, but being Dragon Quest, in reality the story unfolds and has the same usual tone as all the previous games.

This time, instead of reiterating on what was established in DQ8 or DQ7, due to the multiplayer, the core of the game is taken back to the game that started it all and the best choice in this case: Dragon Quest III, therefore, the class system is similar to the one seen in that game. The members of our party are avatars without dialogues created by the player, and when we get the ship we will be free to choose the order in which we want to follow the story up to a certain point. Level-5 certainly modernized the classic DQ formula quite a bit, as there are many quality of life improvements, such as the select button menu where you can access a lot of useful information. Also, the game is easy and difficult at the same time, as you are given many options and items to overcome the battles, but it is up to the player to use them properly to overcome the battles, this game does not require grinding if you know what you are doing. The boss battles for example are difficult in the first half of the game, but I feel that the game in general is quite well balanced, since normally if you lose you just need to have a good planning and a solid strategy to win. This game also implements the points and skills system of DQ8 (which I will go into more detail later), and alchemy, which is greatly expanded in the amount of items to create and no longer requires waiting time or guides to get the most out of it (although you can always consult the internet and see some recipes).

The world to explore this time has a larger scale than previous 2D games in the series, trying to emulate a bit the large map that was seen in DQ8, although now it is much better executed because it benefits from placing materials for alchemy scattered around each area, that these materials reappear every time a certain time passes, so remembering their location is convenient if you want to get the most out of the item crafting system. Combat is the same as always, but now there are no more random battles, which was a necessary change for this specific game, because now with the expanded alchemy and secondary quests, it is a necessity to know which monsters we are going to face beforehand, not to mention that the multiplayer would work weird with random battles, but moving on to how the battles against monsters work, these are still the same turn-based battles as always, the mechanics of the "tension" of DQ8 is maintained, which basically allows us to prepare more robust spells or attacks while we have more accumulated, only now the way it is increased differs, because only our character has the ability to increase the tension, working only to increase it to our teammates and not applicable to ourselves, which adds more possibilities of strategies especially in multiplayer. Although the classic command to increase tension can be obtained later with the monk class.

One of the things I also really liked was how every piece of armor we equip is reflected in the look of the characters, giving a lot of customization for our characters by changing their looks in this way, and being impressive once again for a DS game. But what really adds a lot of customization is the fantastic class system that is unlocked at a certain point in the story. This class system doesn't work like in DQ6 or DQ7, instead it's a hybrid between DQ3's class system and DQ8's skill points. Basically, the level our character has is the level he has in the class he is in, so if we change to a new class we start again from level 1, although we can always return to the class we were previously in keeping the same level exactly as we left it. Each class increases our stats in a certain way as we advance in level and unlocks abilities that we can only use in that class, although increasing levels in a class will also grant us skill points, which we can dedicate to a skill, whether it is a weapon or secondary skills of the class. By dedicating a certain amount of skill points to a single branch, the abilities that are unlocked through this method are permanent, which is very useful. For example, if we unlock the ability to "steal" with skill points being in the thief class, we can use that ability in all the other classes, and the best thing is that these skill points are accumulative and usable even when the character changes class, which means that if we are interested in the skills that are available in a certain class but cost a lot of points, we can accumulate those points by leveling up in a class with little experience and then change class to spend them where we are interested in obtaining the ability. I really like the freedom and the many possibilities it gives us.

But well, let's move on to talk about what makes this release particularly special. DQIX is a rare product, it is today and it was in its time, I mean, a turn-based RPG as classic and old as Dragon Quest, multiplayer?, yep, well this one is, and to my surprise, it is quite well done, frankly surpasses the quality of any average Nintendo DS game or any attempt at multiplayer game of other renowned franchises that I've had the chance to try, very few compare to it, as usually the latter always lack a vital element. For example, Zelda Four Swords (or the much better Tri Force Heroes), are very well designed multiplayer experiences, but they lack the vital elements of a Zelda game by only focusing on dungeons. Another example would be New Super Mario Bros. 2, it has multiplayer, but it is so poorly implemented that it is best played single player. Lastly, Animal Crossing, a game that is focused solely on socializing and placing furniture, comparing the multiplayer of, not its DS version, but the Switch version, has a multiplayer so limited and with so many restrictions that I feel a bit sorry and pity.

Well not here, this game is a complete game and of the main series, which can be played in local multiplayer practically from start to finish, allowing player 2/3/4 to move in the world of player 1 with freedom and without too many restrictions, being the only moments where multiplayer is not available the introduction and another short moment at a specific point in the plot. At most the only central element where Dragon Quest IX falters is only in its story, which is a step backwards compared to previous games, but it always maintains the spirit, charm and minimum quality of any other installment, but it falters by being simpler than usual, although when you're getting to the end it really improves and introduces probably the best antagonist the series has ever had.

Another new feature that the game presents, and to adapt to the standards of a portable game, 2 optional additions are implemented that add a lot of content and are useful if you are not at home and want to reserve the main story to play it in a more private place, in other words, if you want something to pass the time or just want to make your character even stronger. The first is that there is now a treasure map system that allows us to explore optional dungeons and after finishing them we are given another map to access another optional dungeon, it's almost like infinite content. And the other thing is the secondary missions, which consist of challenges, such as fighting a certain number of battles in a specific way or delivering a difficult to get item. These side quests are also quite optional and doing them can be a bit challenging in some cases, I only recommend doing them if you really need the item you get when you complete them or you are playing the game to pass the time, although it is worth mentioning that there are 4 quests that unlock additional classes, so I recommend them if you like the customization of classes in RPGs.

Speaking of the music, it is without a doubt one of the best soundtracks Koichi Sugiyama has ever composed, really the quality is quite good, the town theme and the cave theme are themes that I adored listening to and have become my favorites of the series. The OST is in MIDI due to the capabilities of the system, though for some reason the instruments sound different than they did in the other DQ games out there on the DS, though that helps some of the songs sound a bit more "modern" like the cool battle theme. As for the main map theme, I thought it was a great touch how it changes when you play solo to when you play multiplayer.

I really liked the graphics, it's one of the best looking games on DS. The art style resembles that of DQ8 in terms of the environments. While with the characters, I like how even though they are too low-poly, they have expressions and movements that give them personality. The monsters are also animated in 3D and there are plenty of combat animations for both characters and monsters. However, the game suffers from a lot of slowdowns as you traverse the map because it really pushes the DS to the limit, so to lighten it up 2D sprites are used on many occasions. You can tell that the developers wanted to go a little further, but they couldn't because of the limited power of the system.

Finally, I will talk about the unfortunately inaccessible content. This content is currently locked, as to access it you had to connect to the Internet, giving us access to more side quests, final boss fights from all the previous games, and also a store of exclusive items that changed every so often. And another thing that is no longer available, is that if you met like 30 other people who also had a DS with DQ9, the main inn would level up and characters from previous DQ games would arrive as guests, who could give you a copy of their outfit as a reward. Pretty cool and impressive of Level-5 to include DLC in a DS game.

Conclusion
There is no doubt in my mind that Dragon Quest IX despite being a game with a simple structure, has so much attention to detail and many other subtleties that show it is masterfully designed to function both as a single player home game, and be perfectly fine as a typical handheld game, with multiplayer present in both cases. Very close to being my favorite DQ if it had had a stronger story, but I think it was a sacrifice that had to be made in order to make the multiplayer experience smoother.

Nowadays it can be seen as a shallow and ugly game, and I feel a bit sorry for it being overlooked in the community, but the truth is that this game is an exceptional title, I consider it to be the best playing DQ and I see it very difficult for a later game in this series to beat it in that aspect. When I mentioned that it is a dream come true, it is because I love playing 2 player games with my brother, and being able to share a game from a series that I love as much as Dragon Quest with him, has been one of the best things I have ever experienced. Undoubtedly a unique experience that no other title will be able to replicate.

To some degree, I don't know what I expected. It's a Dragon Quest game. Of course it's going to have pretty basic turn-based combat, a straightforward job and skill system, a generic storyline, and the same art style this entire series has. But there's always a part of me that goes into a game, regardless of what it is, thinking that maybe this'll have something special in it. Maybe it'll just be a lil nugget of an idea but there's at least something for me to latch on to and obsessively point at and exclaim "No! No, you don't get it! This is secretly really good!". But Dragon Quest IX seems to be sorely lacking in that "something special" department. I'm sure playing this on emulator and completely missing out on the various online features (co-op play, doing dungeons with people, whatever else there is there) makes for an incomplete experience but, if I'm being honest here, I don't think I would've messed around with those much had they actually been available. I'm just not much of a multiplayer gamer these days.

I need to talk about how miserable grinding in this game is but I don't want to get too long-winded and mechanics-dense, please bear with me, I will do my best here. The game expects you to grind. A lot. This isn't an inherently bad thing but it was a bit of surprise because I've always felt that this era of RPG is around when developers started making games that could be constantly progressed through and generally allowed for, but didn't require, grinding. But, see, this is a Dragon Quest game. So Metal Slimes exist and, in this game at least, are the objectively correct and most optimal way to grind. But the best way that I found to farm Metal Slimes is to use Metal Slash, a sword skill. So before I even got to the part of the game where I could figure that point out, I had already specced my characters into different weapons and had to spend time specifically speccing them differently so that I could be able to do the farming the game expected of me. (This is in addition to me, foolishly, having one of my characters put a significant chunk of their skillpoints into the Shield skill, which is borderline useless, before I had a strong grasp of how the skills and jobs worked.) So the game requires you to grind and funnels you into grinding in a specific way that restricts your character builds... but also because of how the jobs work it means all your characters are going to end up with the same stat bonuses and skills as each other and it really wears away any sort of personality an individual character can have. And as someone who tends to play RPGs more for the characters' stories/arcs rather than the big picture main plot, this was a pretty big disappointment to stack on top of the disappointment I faced when I found out that this game is entirely about custom created collections of stats and not having a party of actual characters to adventure with.

All that said, I did play this game for nearly 82 hours so if nothing else this game did wonders for my podcast backlog - listening to people talk about video games or books or whatever while grinding metal slimes.

And, once again, this is a Dragon Quest game so, to some degree, what the hell was I expecting. But. This game continues the franchise's long storied tradition of being Weird about women. And the ways in which it objectifies women is just so boring. Like, damn, this is all y'all got? Really? "What if a woman wore a bikini!!! OOOOO [eyeballs telescope out of skull, stomps feet on the ground, lights a stick of dynamite in mouth like a cigar, smacks myself over the head with a large mallet, all while a loud AWOOOGA sound effect plays]"

Rest in piss Koichi Sugiyama, you were a piece of garbage and your music wasn't even very good, this game's OST is mid at best.

So this is a weird one. I played this when It came out and I was like 11 or something. I remember being really impressed by the scope and technical execution of the game, which to be clear is still impressive what they managed to fit on to the DS. I enjoyed summoning my friend to help me with the bosses that gave me trouble and just generally enjoying the coop aspects via local wireless.

I never did beat this game. I made it to a boss who had two knights with him in a tower and he utterly destroyed my pre teen self over and over again. I think I tried grinding but the exp I got from nearby enemies were a pittance.

Flash forward to today, Im a more experienced, older gamer and to be sure a lot of the bosses that gave me trouble the first time around I completely embarassed now, which was gratifying. Unfortunately, in part due to the bog standardness of the setting and franchise, and the fact that any and all of your party members are entirely player created (probably to allow for any of them to be benched in favour of "epic_warrior_69") the story is incrediblye bland and boring, your entire party are blank slates, which I guess you could characterise yourself but as an adult thats a bit harder, I feel.

And because I was schooling every boss and it takes so goddamned long to get the ship that opens up the world I packed it in long before I could show that one boss what for. Idk man, Im not the biggest fan of most jrpgs, and this didnt really convince me much, all its really got going is the technical stuff.

Some of the best gameplay that the series has to offer. The vocation system is great here.game reminds me of DQ3. The music is great as well with lots of new tracks.

The main reasons why it isn't higher than an 8 even though I really liked the gameplay is the world and story were extremely lacking, especially since this series to me has great worlds and stories and characters. The focus on multiplayer was definitely the reason for this.

Also I know it's a freaking DS game but man this game slows down a lot. Definitely became an annoyance.

without a doubt my favorite jrpg i've ever played. an amazing job system, a great story with a better postgame, an endless dungeon crawler, and seamless multiplayer. this game showed me what rpg's could be and every one i've played since pales in comparison.

honestly, i often think my jrpg days are behind me. i'm too busy and too easily distracted to give these games the attention they need. the same is true for dq9 at this point. i've tried to start new playthroughs, but i'll never be able to immerse myself in this game like i did when i was younger. i hope some day i can find a game that makes me lose myself in it the way this one did. or they could just remaster it. i'd buy it again in a heartbeat if they remastered it.

Hoimi Tables were fake and anyone who said they worked was lying don't @ me

The red-headed step-child of the series, and kind of deservedly so. The choice to make the party customizable added a lot of interesting party comp design, but the ability to use unlocked class skills in any other class meant that higher level fights came down to the choice between two Gladiators and two Sages or three Gladiators and one Sage. The customization also made the party personality-free, which hampered the storytelling of the game a fair amount—although there's still some good plot in the Fygg stories. Even still, a below-average Dragon Quest is still a great video game—it also features one of the better quest systems in an JRPG, as a surprisingly large amount of them add a fair amount of challenge and story to the game.

Really cool game. Every time I start a Dragon Quest game I always find myself surprised by how good they are. This game in particular has a ton of customization in terms of your party. You just create 4 custom characters and can make them into whatever job you want. For example, I got through a majority of this game without even having healing spells because I was able to build a party that could handle that. Spending several hours crafting gear admittedly helps with that, but still. Speaking of the crafting, it was a pretty major part of my playthrough. I got super into it, tbh. Created a dedicated spreadsheet to tracking things that I want/need that could calculate the number of each ingredient that I need. That's not to say that doing that level of crafting, or any crafting at all, is required to enjoy the game, but I thought it was really satisfying.

This game also got really creative with multiplayer. In a way, I think they were experimenting with some MMO stuff in this game before they made X. I unfortunately played this years after the online was shut down, but traces of the game's roguelike-y dungeon generation content still remain and seem pretty integral to post-game. Similar to an MMO, 100%ing this game also seems grindy as hell. I hear some people say that a majority of this game's content is in the post-game, so I definitely intend to check that out.

I LOVE DRAGON QUEST!!!!
I LOVE BEING ABLE TO MAKE MY OWN PARTY TO FIT MY OWN PLAYSTYLES STRAIGHT FROM THE SECOND TOWN!!!!!!
I LOVE BEING ABLE TO PLAY ALONGSIDE MY OWN FRIENDS AND HELP THEM IN THEIR OWN BATTLES!!!!!!!
I LOVE SPENDING HOURS FINDING CRAFTING RECIPES, DOING SIDEQUESTS, AND MAKING MY OWN STORIES WITH THE PARTY I CREATED!!!!!!!!!
I LOVE DRAGON QUEST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!