That was a poor choice of words on my part. What I meant to say was more like this:
I don't understand how DQ9, which apparently greatly resembles the older games in terms of art style, is now suddenly 'kiddy', when (at least some of) the art of the series has been drawn by Toriyama, whose style isn't exactly grim and gritty in the first place. Hell, the series has always looked light-hearted, so why is it such a problem now?
Indeed. I don't know why people are throwing a fit about it. But as it has been said, I think its just the same people who complained about DQVIII having an 'Anime Style'.
It's not really the fact that you can beat the game without grinding - it's that DQ8 (at least) seems to drown you in random encounters after every few steps you take. Yes, you can run from the fights, but from what I can remember that fails more often than not and gives the enemies free hits, so you're better off fighting anyway, which results in grinding.
Well like any RPG, you shouldn't run from fights. That will just make you weak. As for the random encounter rate, it wasn't too heavy in my view. It only felt that way if you were trying to get to a specific area and were trying to avoid random encounters (which btw, there were several items/abilites/accessories in the game which allowed you to do so).
But really now, with DQIX (and DQM: Joker as well on the DS), 'Random Encounters' are no longer a problem.
Six upcoming games you should look into:
