A great Dragon Quest game that anyone is sure to love.
We begin our story with the Celestrians, a race that watches over the mortals of Earth and gather benevolessence from them to give to the World Tree so it can bear Fyggs. Your character, one that you have the power of customization over, is a young Celestrian that is learning how to be a guardian of a small town. For a short while you do your job, you help out the towns people and gather benevolessence for that tree like all the other Celestrians for decades. After you gather some, you fly back to your home in the sky with the other Celestrians and offer up you benevolessence to the World Tree and if bears fruit. Light shots from Earth and hits the Observatory, the Celestrians' home in the sky, and causes your character to fall to Earth, landing in the town that he/she protects. You wake up without your wings or halo, cause Celestrians have those. If you've stayed with me so far, then the rest of the story is a cake walk.
Though it may seem weird at first, the story for this game is very engaging and you'll want to know what happens next. It's a very lengthy story, so don't worry about this game being too short. One of the nice things is that every town you visit has it's own story behind it which makes it feel more like a different area of the world, even if most of the sprites are reused over and over. There are plenty of interesting characters that you'll meet along the way, each having a story to tell. Something that you hear might not seem important at first, but there are some stories that are connected to that opening piece that you just read.
There is lots to do in this game, there are many quests to take on, many items to gather, and many monster to beat down with the characters you create. Besides your main character, the Celestrian, you can make other characters to be in your party, which you can up to four at any time during the game. The great thing about this is you can customize them how ever you want to. Anywhere from hair style to the color of their eyes, the choice is yours to make. After you've made your character, you'll need to pick them a vocation, your main character is a Minster by default. From the start, there are six vocations to choose from. There are more for you to unlock as you progress through the game. This is a nice feature because then it lets you build your team how you want to build it. Having a big number of vocation to choose from, for me, really makes one think about what kind of attacks they want in their party. From there on, the sky is just about the limit to what you can do to your characters. There is a number of clothes, weapons, and accessories to put on your characters, each one adding to your stats.
One of the strongest points of the game has to be the turn-base RPG fighting, only matched by the replay value and story. You can select what your party does and then watch what happens. If you get your characters to attack with the same attack in a row, meaning no other kinds of attacks and an enemy attacks you, then you get a damage multiplier that makes each attack "stronger then the last." I use that phrase loosely because if one of your characters is weaker by nature, it won't always be doing more damage then your strongest character that might of attacked before it. Because there are some many different abilities and spells that can be learned, depending on your characters' vocations, you have a lot of different ways to fight the, sometimes tough, boss battles.
Even after you beat the game, there's much to do in this game. There are a number of quest for you to finish as you travel a long in the game. These can range from a number of task to preform, anywhere from giving the person an item to beating a number of monsters with certain attack. One of the bigger things to do after you beat the game, besides completing the number of lists (ie. Defeated Monster List, Wardrobe, Item List, Alchenomicon) and multiplayer, would have to be heading into the number of Grottos that are hidden all over the world and battling monsters you don't normally find in the game so you can get a number of treasures. Another thing that you can do in the game is making your own items through alchemy. There are a number of strong weapons that you can make with this that you wouldn't be able to get otherwise.
The multiplayer in this game is basically you playing with your friends as if they were one of your party members. The down side to the multiplayer is that it isn't supported by Wi-Fi so you have to find someone with a copy of the game to be able to play multiplayer. I don't see why they didn't have it support Wi-Fi, since there is a special shop that is supported by Wi-Fi that lets you by special items. Oh well.
There isn't anything too special about the graphics, in my opinion. They're not bland, but there isn't anything really too special that makes you go "wow" when you see them. It's got a mix of 3D and 2D going on that the same time, in some spots. Your characters are in 3D, as well as the world, monsters, and important characters, but normal people are in this 2D kind of sprite that makes them look all blocky in a 3D world. Besides that, and the fact the game likes to use the same sprites just with a different color for some of the monsters, there really isn't anything wrong with them. Overall the graphics a great, just not "wowing."
There is a plethora of music tracks in the game that are well written. A number of them are fun to listen to. All of the numbers are done with synthesizers, and like I said they are well done and very catchy. There isn't any voice acting, but there is the sound of what seems to be mumbling or something when the text is showing up on the screen.
Overall, Dragon Quest IX is the game to get if you want a great RPG for the DS. It has a great story, fun gameplay, and tons of replay value. Though there are some down sides (what game doesn't have a few cons), it's still a great game that anyone will love, even if you're new to the Dragon Quest series.
Pros and Con:
+Tons of replay value
+Nice and long story
+Great gameplay
-The fact you can't play multiplayer via Wi-Fi
Scores:
GamePlay: 9.0
Graphics: 8.0
Sounds: 8.0
Story: 9.0
Replay Value: 9.0
Fun Level: 9.0
Overall: 8.7