From ds.ign.com

December 11, 2006 - Square Enix held a press conference in Tokyo today to announce the next entry in the main Dragon Quest series. In a surprise move, Japan's most popular series will continue not on the PS3 or the Wii, as many had expected. Instead, Square Enix will be bringing the game to the DS.

The full name of Dragon Quest 9 is Dragon Quest 9: Hoshizora no Mamoribito. The surname can be translated to "Protectors of the sky."

Level 5 will be handling development on the game. The hot-shot development studio headed up development on Dragon Quest 8, before turning to a couple of projects for Sony. On the DS, the studio is currently working on Professor Layton and the Mysterious Village, to be self-published early next year.

Development staff on Level 5's end is the same as from Dragon Quest 8, right down to company president Akihiro Hino, who's serving as producer. Other staff members should come as no surprise. Series father Yuji Horii, heading up the project once again, was in attendance at the press conference, and said, "The DS version is not a side-story, but a true part of the series." Kouichi Sugiyama will be lending his talents to the game's soundtrack. And all future Dragon Quest soundtracks, it seems, as he took the stage today to say "I will continue making Dragon Quest music until I die."

Development seems to be quite far along. The online arms of magazines Famitsu and Gemaga, report that a demo was held at the press conference, with Horii and other guests playing the game live. Dragon Quest 9 features an action-oriented battle system playable cooperatively by up to four players via Wi-Fi. This is the first network-based Dragon Quest, Horii noted. The DS's dual screen setup is also put to use, with the top screen showing a map and the bottom screen housing all the action.

Horii is aiming for a Japanese release some time in 2007. With Dragon Quest 8 pulling in favorable sales internationally, expect a release outside of Japan to follow.


We've uploaded the first two screens of the game, which come our way via Gemaga





a small part of gamespot's take:
Square Enix released Dragon Quest VIII on the PlayStation 2, which was a great boon for Sony. However, it appears as though the benefactor of Dragon Quest IX will be one of Sony's rivals. Forbes reports that Dragon Quest IX has been announced as an exclusive for the Nintendo DS.

Some analysts think this could be a big blow against Sony, as the Dragon Quest franchise is considered a top-tier franchise and has sold more than 41 million copies worldwide. Hiroshi Kamide, analyst at KBC Securities, said the decision to put Dragon Quest IX exclusively on the DS "was rather unexpected, so it's not a huge vote of confidence for the PlayStation 3," reports The Sydney Morning Herald.

DEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE ESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS MATHAFAHCKA

What did I say in the other thread? GBA/DS>home consoles

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Some stories can't be told with words, some legends are meant to die

i hope its good, the ps2 game blowed.. I hated it lol

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Job 10: 20
The mikey's have a plan. Djay isn't all powerful.

YES ! This is almost as good as the Crystal Chronicles for the DS is gonna be.

i'm ready

I liked certain things about DQ8, I'll probably get this when it comes out. I doubt I'll do any wi-fi though.

4 player wifi Co-op? Im not even a fan of Dragon Quest but wow that sounds like wicked ass fun. God that would be awesome to have in a FF game. Could you imagine if FFXII was 4 player wifi? That would be pretty fun.

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COBRA KAI DOJO NEVER DIES
RIP Shiloh

That would be like a private 6 man MMo, and that would rock.

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Some stories can't be told with words, some legends are meant to die

i dont know what wi-fi is but if it has anything to do with multiplayer, i might be up for that





anyway i thought DQ8 was on par with FF4, FF6

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RIP Shiloh - I'll never forget ya

Wifi lets you play your DS with other people via wireless internet.

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Some stories can't be told with words, some legends are meant to die

Yarr, are you getting FF:CC DS? If its wi-fi instead of just local wireless, we should have a night where 4 of us just go through the whole game.


I can'twaitcan'twaitcan'twaitcan'twaitcan'twaitcan'twaitcan'twaitcan'twait for these wi-fi multi-co-op games.

Wow I can't believe old school RPG lovers actually hated Dragon Quest VIII lol.

Sure it had horrible voice acting (I wanted to fucking stab Yangus and the ugly king) and an average story...but it had great gameplay, character development, battle system, graphics, music, and plenty of fun tedious side quests. It really reminded me of an old school RPG. It took me 3 months to beat it, because I had a lot going on irl at the time and I was juggling it with FFXI. I did most of the end game sidequests like the Dragovian trials and such. I think it was an amazing game. I plan on playing it again someday when I have downtime from the other games.

I'm excited to play DQIX on DS. I didn't even know about it. Dragon Warrior is one of the first RPGs I ever played. I either played that or FF1 first...can't remember. The series can't touch the Final Fantasy series, but it's a good runner up.

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dragon quest is the scottie pippen of rpgs

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RIP Shiloh - I'll never forget ya

That's basically FFXI lol

Things I didn't like about DQ8:
character design - didn't care about anyone, especially the mute main character
storyline - if I don't like the character, how can I stay interested in what's happening to them
everything is british - not my cup of tea
can't see armor on characters - this would be the first thing I'd implement if designing an rpg. seems like a no-brainer.

Things I liked:
music - the music is very unique for an rpg, very orchestral
graphics/world layout - it reminded me of running around in FFXI, which is a good thing. cool towns, surrounding countryside, etc.
notorious monsters - nice touch
choice of main weapons for each character - I hate when a character can only use one type of weapon

I'm sure there are some other things in each category but I only got about half-way through and don't remember a whole lot.

angelo was cool

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RIP Shiloh - I'll never forget ya

You are good. You are very good.

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Some stories can't be told with words, some legends are meant to die

Its what FFXI should have been lol.

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COBRA KAI DOJO NEVER DIES
RIP Shiloh

why is everything either single player, or massively multi player?
An online rpg that's 4-6 player seems about right to me.

I would totally play an online RPG with 4-6 people. Playing turn based multiplayer is kinda strange. I did that on Final Fantasy 3 SNES (FF6) with my stepbrother and he didn't like me controlling the character running around, and him only being able to control 2 characters turns in fights. He got bored rather quick. I think a multiplayer RPG with a battle system like FFXI or FFXII would be much better.

DQ9 looks similar to 8 in those pics. That troll mob is the same character model as the trolls in 8, and the little spikey box around the damage looks the similar. I like how a lot the enemies in 8 had smiley faces lol. It was kinda creepy on some mobs while they danced to the battle music (for some reason the smiley bells creeped the hell out of me). BTW The regular mob battle music in 8 is my FAR my favorite in any RPG I've ever played. I could listen to that on loop for hours lol.

Yeah the british accents annoyed the shit out of me, and the voice acting was just plain cheesy. Jessica and Angelo were my favorite characters. I wanted to beat the shit out of that fat kid you get the jewel for (from the lizard things). Most annoying voice ever! And like I said before I couldn't stand Yangus or the king at all.

You can change Hero and Jessica's look. The Dragovian armor for Hero looks fucking rad, and Jessica has (3?) different looks from her normal one. Some of her armor makes her almost naked lol. Hot toon ftw.

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I will be incapable of resisting the urge to purchase this game. I need more money dammit, I just bought a new car lol.

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Eternus Ifrit Server Atariii LS member
75 BRD with a bunch of subjobs

I hate whenever you're playing games where it's not the best idea to have the sound on. Like something epic like this must have good music, but it's going to be hard just playing it where I can have the sound on.

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[In Yarr we trust.]

Use headphones then! I use headphones while playing games on the TV in my room sometimes, because other noise irritates me when I'm sucked into a game. My neighbor has a stupid mutt dog that barks 24/7 and I can clearly hear it in my room. I'm going to murder it one of these days. Also my TV in the living room is against my bedroom wall, so if my roommate is watching TV I hear it pretty loud. Headphones ftw.

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Headphones + school = omg you have a bomb lol

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[In Yarr we trust.]

A few years ago my sister's boyfriend got me these huge headphones because I'd blast the AC/DC on my cd player and he didn't want to hear it lol. Moral of the story: Castlevania and Metroid with big headphones is fucking awesome.

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Some stories can't be told with words, some legends are meant to die