My #1 Game
My all time top favorite game ever is Dragon Quest IX Sentinels of the Starry Skies. I can still remember the day I bought it. I was little at the time, the game was at the same height as me. The cover art captivated me and my dad let me get it. Getting a game without looking into it is a gamble but sometimes you come out of it with your new favorite game of all time. There’s definitely been some duds I’ve gotten through buying games this way and that sucks. I usually research what I’m getting into now before spending money. Especially with the price of new games now. That’s why looking into a store like The Nerd Zone is great for that. There’s lots of old games at varying prices, maybe you’ll find a great one hiding in plain sight.
Back to DQ9. This game is fantastic. The story is broken down into separate chapters that all culminate into the main story. You are a celestial that watches over a specific part of the world. As you are waiting for the world tree to bloom and the arrival of the fated starlight express your home and the express itself are hit with purple lightning sending you and the trees fruits falling down to the world below. Waking up you find that you have lost all of your celestial powers (well except for the ability to see magic beings and ghosts). From here you must get back to your home in the sky and find out what has happened to the world below. Each chapter has it’s own set of characters that are important to it and makes the world feel like its full of life. As for the gameplay it being dragon quest it is a JRPG meaning turn based combat. It never feels slow though and grinding for levels is easy. You start out as a minstrel and can start changing jobs after a specific point. I will say it is sad you don’t get any specific characters as your party members though. You make your own characters to add to your party. This game had a focus on multiplayer encouraging people to join each others parties. In a way the game also had streetpass before it existed with tag mode. Tag mode works exactly like streetpass on the 3ds, you leave the game in sleep mode and when you pass by players that also have the game you’d trade profiles and items. Although it’s not active anymore it being an old ds game.
Dragon Quest 9 has a lot to offer and I recommend it to anyone that likes JRPGs. The story is amazing and the gameplay is super fun. Especially if you and a friend can play together!
Jessi Bellows