As October wears on and the fruits of game season, grand experiences like Dead Space and Fable 2, start to illuminate my living room with an incandescent and warming light, I find myself not looking forward, but back. 2008 has been, to date, a year overflowing with great games and even though it’s been less than a month since I finished it, I’m already looking back at Dragon Quest IV fondly. The characters, the leveling, the music; it was glorious. But, as it is with JRPGs, it will be a very long time before I ever attempt to complete that particularly glorious remake again. (If ever. Role-playing games are a steep time investment as is, a fact I’ve discussed many times in the past.) But this trailer, only recently presented in high-quality after its debut at Tokyo Game Show, fills me with hope for the future. Dragon Quest IX will be awesome. Oh yes, it will be so, so awesome.
Which isn’t to say it hasn’t previously. It’s just that this is the first look at what the game is going to look like in a complete state. The 3D engine does a truly impressive job of replicating DQVIII’s luscious cel-shading and the character designs, the mix of super-deformed characters and more human proportions, have evolved nicely since 2005’s Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker. It’s still up in the air whether or not DQIX’s multiplayer will be a quality addition or distracting from Dragon Quest’s inherent, and generally solitary, merits. But the trailer assures us of two things: the game will be beautiful and it will be chock-full of Dragon Questly goodness. Bring on the slimes, Mr. Horii.
Previous Trailer Reviews:
TGS Trailer Time: Resident Evil 5
Retro Game Challenge
Golden Axe: Beast Rider
House of the Dead: Overkill
Riz-Zoawd
Idolm@ster PSP
The Last Guy
Tecmo Bowl: Kickoff
Captain Rainbow
The Past and Future With Mega Man 9 and Chrono Trigger DS
Densetsu no Stafi 5
Sonic Unleashed
Infinite Undiscovery
Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood
Street Fighter 4
The Conduit
Mirror’s Edge