The Blogtastic Blogfest That Is Getmeoutofthis.net!

Whenever I beat an RPG, it’s cause for celebration, because I never beat RPGs. It’s also a sign that said RPG is really fantastic. Dragon Quest 9 is really fantastic. It is, without a doubt, one of the best games you could pick up for your DS, even if you don’t like Seth Green.

If you haven’t played a Dragon Quest, you might think, as I once did, that the actual gameplay of a Dragon Quest is incredibly old school and very boring. This is not true. While it is very traditional in many ways, Dragon Quest is smart enough to know how to mix things up and keep things different. Unlike some RPGs, you really put to use almost every spell you learn, for example. Status effect spells like Sleep can be extremely useful in some situations. Overcoming fights with proper use of skills can be just as useful as pure levels.

Additionally, Dragon Quest 9 is a return to the job system of some earlier Dragon Quests, and that adds a lot of depth to the game. Basically, you can switch jobs just about any time you like by going to a place called the Alltrades Abbey. These jobs work kind of like FFXI, although not quite. When you switch to a job, you start as the level you’ve gotten to in that job. So if you haven’t used it before, you’re at level 1. This seems like a horrible idea, but honestly, it’s not hard to boost people back up, which surprised me. You can go crazy with grinding, sure, but it’s less important than it initially seems. You don’t carry over spells or stats when you change classes. What you do keep are your abilities and stat bonuses you have bought with skill points. As you level up in jobs, you get these points, and can invest them in various weapon or class skill lines. Some are stat boosts that affect all classes, like “+30 Natural Strength” which makes you always have 30 more strength than you would have without that boost. Those are probably the ones you go for the most. However, there are also a wide variety of abilities that can be used in combat or out. The one I probably got the most use out of was the wand skill Caudecus, which worked like a slightly more powerful version of Heal, but which my spellcaster had access to as long as she had a wand: She didn’t have to be in a class like Priest who had healing spells to heal that way. Skill points don’t have to be spent immediately, nor in the class in which they are gained. As such, the game rewards you for leveling a few levels in a class you never expect a character to use, and then taking those skill points back to the class you want them to be more powerful in and spending them. At first, the whole system seems really clunky, honestly, but after you play with it for awhile you begin to see how smart and well-thought-out it is.

On top of all this character building, you also can equip crazy amounts of gear. All of it shows on your character, which is totally cool. You can focus on dressing up and looking neat, or you can focus on pure stat-gains, if you want. I did a combination of the two. The result, though, is that your party is very customizable, and very much yours. You’re completely tailoring their skills and classes and wardrobe, and you really become attached to them because of that. It’s awesome. I can’t remember a set of generic characters I’ve gotten more attached to in recent memory.

Of course, it’s taking those characters through the story that really makes the game awesome. But that kind of stuff I’m going to talk about tomorrow. That’s right, I’m doing two days of DQ Review. Deal.