Once again, from the ether

Good grief. Based on the last post I made, you can pretty much tell when the academic year started, along with my perhaps overzealous drive to try and understand things. In any case, thanks to several snow days, I've managed to progress enough with assignments to justify the time to write on the internet about my opinion on videogames. A worthwhile use of my free time, I'm sure you'll agree.

Recently, in the patches of time I have to waste, I've been getting into Dragon Quest IX. Obviously, I'm somewhat behind on talking about this, potentially just as well, now that my frothing rage over Jedward promoting it in the UK has settled. It's something of a radical change for the main series, which in itself is an oddity. For a series that seemingly prides itself on staying true to it's roots, it's quite a surprise to have it featuring mulitplayer and wifi features so heavily.

Thankfully, these are done well. A half-baked feature in a series as big as Dragon Quest would not go down particularly well. The multiplayer aspect in IX allows another player to replace one of your party members, and then you can play the entire game together, should you wish it. Having the entire game work in multiplayer is something that, from my experience, is generally limited to FPSs these days, such as Halo. Having that on a portable seemed like something of a step forward. Also, similar to DQIII, as you make your party members, there is nothing lost by replacing one with a friend's character. Again, similar to III, is the fact that you have control over party member's classes, and from the more recent editions, control over what skills they learn as they level up. It's a very good blend of old and new.

But, herein lies my only gripe with the game. After how well the characters in VIII were handled, it seems like a slight step back to have characters with no motivation whatsoever to join you on your quest. I do understand that it could have been something sacrificed to allow multiplayer to work properly, but considering how well character development has been done in the past, I'm not sure yet if I prefer it.

Regardless, so far, DQIX has easily been one of the best RPGs I've played lately. Although, considering the time I have for RPGs these days, "lately" consists of Dragon Age and Final Fantasy IV, the latter of which isn't even halfway completed. I'm hoping to have a real solid session with it over the Christmas break, and judging from the enjoyment I've had from my brief stints with it so far, that will be a very pleasurable experience indeed.