Dragon Quest IX: Sentinals of the Starry Skies

I just got this game yesterday. Been seeing a lot of folks saying "Who would play this kiddie game?" What, not everyone likes first person shooter kill them all games either, peeps.

Anyway I'm really impressed with this game. Story line always pulls me in and they've done a great job of story in between the gameplay. You're an angel type of character called a Celestrian and your job is to help folks. When you do, the folks are grateful and their gratefulness turns into something called benevolessence. You take this benevolessence into the "heavens" where all the other angels hang out, and you turn it over to this tree. The tree eventually bears fruit (a long awaited event!) but then something bad happens! You fall out of heaven and are now without wings and halo, and people can see you now.

You're still helping people but you have the feeling that at some point you'll make it back to the heavens where you belong. Right now I'm at the beginning stages of the game. The story of the characters is cute and compelling.

Now for the game part! You get to design your character ala rpg-game style. Last night I found you can create other characters to help you quest! You can make them however you like. It's very cute, and now I have a little looks-like-Aang martial artist coming along with me to fight. You not only set your skills (increase in sword skills, for example) you can increase your companions' skills (in staves, for example) and equip them with clothes, gear, rings, etc.

You can also get on via wifi and have visitors or visit other peoples' areas and go on quests with them. I've not done this yet but hope to try it soon. Also there's a maps-to-dungeons feature - you get these maps to dungeons with cool equips...And you can take your DS out and about with you, leave it on in tag mode (I think that is it) and if you pass by someone else who also has their game in t same mode, you can get maps from them as well. There are also downloadable maps from Nintendo - they've promised to make one year of downloadable dungeon maps (one a week I think).

There are a lot of fun things about this game I've enjoyed so far, and look forward to exploring more of it. The fighting reminded me of the pokeman games though - I didn't like that at first. Run through some bushes get attacked by a slime. Then you and your helpers take turns fighting. I've gotten used to it quickly though and I like watching the characters fight. The thing I like about the fighting is that you can assign different fighting styles to different characters that go with you...like you can assign one person just to healing.

So far I'm really enjoying this fun little game. Lots more fun than waiting on folks to gather on my online mmorpg, waiting to get into dungeons...that can be fun too but it gets old after awhile!

If anyone gets this game let me know how you like it. I don't know if we can set up friends' lists yet but I'll post back. Would be fun to play with some other folks I know!

Sounds like fun. I had been interested in checking it out but these days when I do play with my DS (which is seldom), I'm just leveling up my Pokemon (Diamond) to defeat the Final Four; I lost my first time. :\

But Dragon Quest IX will definitely be something I will check out next time I stop by GameStop.

Hmm...I'm thinking you can't connect to any friend like, anywhere in the world. There's definitely a friend connect but it's looking like you need to be close to each other. Kinda bummed but I'm creating my own little party group of characters which is fun.

I'm STILL having fun with this game! I played it a lot today. Very engaging little game...so many quests still to do.

I was passing by GameStop today and going...should I or should I not. Luckily I managed to refrain from going in and splurging on a game I shouldn't even be playing right now. But perhaps during Winter or Summer break I will since you make it sound like so much fun!