Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies
 

How can it be that just about everyone on my Backloggery list is playing this game, but no one has made a thread?

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...IXBoxArtJP.png

First, you make a hero who might look like this with a fancy poncho:

http://i781.photobucket.com/albums/y...201_dq_b23.jpg

Then you're set loose in a world of wacky Scottish people who need the help of a fallen angel to make their lives better. Then you get to create your own party of adventures from scratch, grind, alchemize, and generally go nuts in the usual DQ way. Could the game be described better? Probably, but I'm the one making the thread so you're stuck with it.

Many of the old DQ conventions persist, but random battles have happily been replaced with visible enemies that can mostly be dodged if you choose. Plus there's local multiplayer, which could be fun.

Go ahead, boast of your slime-killing prowess here.
http://i781.photobucket.com/albums/y.../slimefast.gifhttp://i781.photobucket.com/albums/y.../slimefast.gifhttp://i781.photobucket.com/albums/y.../slimefast.gif

Naming your characters dirty words is harder than ever, with a much more aggressive word filter this time around. It picks up on common number and symbol replacements and will also block those in addition to the regular words.

TOO BAD :(

Other than that I'm having a blast, though. So good. Not very far yet though. (Maybe only 5 hours or something)

Here's my poorly named party (what will I do if I ever have to name my children?)

http://i781.photobucket.com/albums/y...p/IMG_0013.jpg
http://i781.photobucket.com/albums/y.../IMG_00141.jpg
http://i781.photobucket.com/albums/y.../IMG_00151.jpg
http://i781.photobucket.com/albums/y...p/IMG_0016.jpg

I'm a little bit after getting the boat (hit up the village on the Great Plains), and I love the game so far. I've played it a ton lately, especially with the power outages I've been getting due to storms, and I just wish there was some wi-fi multiplayer instead of local only.

The quests unlocked via the DQVC shop are apparently only available in the post-game, and treasure maps aren't nearly as plentiful as I was hoping. Then again, I just got my first treasure map from an NPC in a fairly early dungeon that I'd passed over and the boss in that grotto beat me to a pulp and spat on my corpse. It was partly because my main character was only level 10ish after a class change, but mostly because he was too heavy a hitter. If that's how strong the lowest of the grotto bosses is then they may just be withholding maps until later.

My party is made up of:
- Main character - Minstrel -> Thief
- Martial Artist -> Armamentalist
- Priest
- Mage

I may try to take pictures like Nutty later so that I can demonstrate my poor naming skills as well. None are even close to as frightening as Bart.

It was disappointing when they wouldn't take my full name. :\ So I abbrev. it to my nickname instead. Angelica isn't counted but yet Angel is? What the hell? But yeah, in every scenario when I was able to create a female leading character, I'd name her that and color her hair green. ;) And I'll love any sort of confusion that may follow by that name.

I barely played this, I had 2 more missions left in Advance Wars 2: BHR before I can really put in a time sink on this game. I just arrived in Angel Falls after the epic... ya know, the epic, and I just found out that you still need to search everywhere AGAIN. She (the NPC) wasn't specific on the time constraints but yeah I'll be obsessed with searching everywhere. (Blue Dragon's nothings anyone? :D )

Did anyone pick up the Zoma map from EB last weekend (or plan to get it from Best Buy this weekend)? I like how it's a level 1 map, but the boss does 300-600 damage each turn. I'll probably never level up enough to beat that. :(

Crap, forgot about that. I'll have to let my friend know to go so we can both get the map.

I've been grinding my nuts off trying to level and gear out around Bloomingdale. I probably should try to unlock some of those classes but they just seem a little far fetch for me. Especially the metal slime one :(

I'm not sure why the maps were only available at sporadic EB's. None of the mall or high traffic locations around me were participating, and Tritoch would have had to drive several hours to find one. Same thing with Best Buy; not all are participating.

The map will come with some DQVC stuff later if you don't want to get it now, or are incapable of doing so.

That's good news. I know they've said in the past that treasure maps would come out on the DQVC, but I've yet to get any to appear on mine. As Nutty said, the closest participating EB to me was about an hour and a half away. I'm not going to drive out into the wilds of Tennessee just to get a single map.

Pretty neat that they've used the two main story bosses from DQ3 (Baramos and Zoma) as treasure map bosses. I've just finished Fygg hunting and am onto the next leg of the story, but I'm sure Zoma would still crush me. I might give Equinox another try soon.

The metal slime quest to unlock the armamentalist class isn't all that difficult once you try to do it. It isn't easy and is mostly luck over not having the metal slimes run away, but it worked out surprisingly quickly for me. DQ IX's visible encounters make it easy to find metal slime encounters, so these things aren't too bad. I've got all classes unlocked except for Superstar and Sage now, and I've heard Sage is unlocked in the final dungeon and Superstar in post-game.

Just unlocked Gladiator. Now for Armamentalist. I heard Paladin and Ranger weren't too bad to unlock either.

There's only 2 locations in South Carolina participating in the DQ event... luckily Myrtle Beach is one. Going there Saturday. I heard there will be swag and I'm all about free stuffs

Paladin is incredibly easy to unlock. Ranger is kind of tricky, but not bad.

Oh, and if you have fun with the quest to unlock the Armamentalist then you'll love the skill rank 30 spear quest.

When you spend 9 hours over three days not REALLY DOING ANYTHING but still having a blast, you can tell the post-game is going to be horrifyingly addicting.

Grotto diving sounds like it should be a riot~

I spent my time just grinding out gold trying to buy everything in the DQVC I had downloaded. Icicle Dirk at 8700 was a bit hefty of a price, but it's helped my thief out a few. Any tips on how to make stealing work more often? My Deftness is a little over 200 atm.

Got the map from that one dude at Zere Rocks. Can't wait to test it out. Finally got the ship too so I'm just seeing what I can find. I'm enjoying this game a ton.

Also unlocked Paladin and Ranger... found some book for Dancer?

I haven't found ANY books yet.

Where did you get it?

What Dancer book? First I've heard of anything like that unless you just mean a bookshelf that had alchemy recipes for the Dancer Costume and such.

I read that after a point Deftness doesn't have much of an impact on stealing, and that your level in relation to the enemy is more important. Either way, stealing is a pain in the ass.

I finally managed to beat that level 1 grotto boss, Equinox, the other day. He gave me a map to a level 8 grotto where the enemies were even easier, but the of course the boss was much harder. My priest learned multiheal this morning, so I may be able to take him down now.

Also, we've got a new visitor this week. Guess this means they'll be bi-weekly. I laughed pretty hard at the "hat" this one gives.

I hope everyone got some Sharp Shades from the DQVC this week, I am told it is a Sellma exclusive.

Of course my VC never pulled it during any of it's randomized item lists, so I was shit out of luck. Hoping it pops up again during another theme week and/or during regular rotation.

I wonder if this Visitor has 3 items to give too?

Worth trying on the birthday thing/similar job thing like with Alena

This visitor does indeed have 3 items to give. It's still the same using birthday/job to get them too.

The Sharp Shades only came up twice in my shop, but I did grab a pair the second time. I've got my mage wearing them, since they were pretty good in addition to looking hilarious.

I think it was in Gleeba. Wanted me to accept a quest after reading it. Lost art of Belly Dancing or something?

Oh, that.

Well that's pretty bogus.

Guess I'll try to grind out all the money for me to buy out the shop with tonight before heading to Best Buy tomorrow for the map and everything. What day does the DQVC usually update on for the week?

Pretty sure the only unlockable classes are Ranger, Gladiator, Armamentalist, Paladin, Superstar, and Sage. I read that Superstar is post-game only and the Sage quest requires a monster in the final dungeon.

The DQVC updates daily at 8am GMT (4am EST). If you mean when the weekly themes change and visitors arrive, it's apparently on Fridays since a new visitor arrived today and the sale theme changed to slime apparel. Be sure to grab Slime Crowns since they were used in some high level alchemy recipes in DQ8. I wouldn't be surprised if they're required for stuff like liquid metal equipment in 9 too.

Yeah I had just read the book text wrong. Off to more grinding!

Angelo has FOUR items to give actually.

His gloves come from having improved the inn.

...the first stage of which comes from having 7 unique tags.

fffffffffffffffff

I stopped by Best Buy today and got their map (Estark), and picked up more tags, bringing my total up to 9. The inn is improved, but though I've tried several times, Angelo won't give me his fourth item. What job class do you need for the third item, anyway?

I also got some nifty stickers:

http://i781.photobucket.com/albums/y...dqstickers.jpg