The Xbox Man on 20 May 2010
Dragon Quest IX might just be the next Pokemon
Yes it's yet another Dragon Quest game, and the assumption is that it'll be a niche game appealing to hardcore fans, but interestingly Nintendo is publishing this one, and there's a few other reasons why this game might be different than the rest and could be a breakout hit.
Jeremy Parish explains...
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... It's little wonder Nintendo picked up the game for U.S. release. The last portable RPG to perform [so well in Japan] was a little thing called "Pokémon," which started off fairly small and progressively ballooned into a juggernaut thanks to its compelling multiplayer component, which turned it into a schoolyard favorite. Likewise, DQIX's passive connectivity features turned it into a massive phenomenon in Japan, with groups of people gathering at various locations in Tokyo and elsewhere to share information and quest together. If Nintendo can convince American audiences to give DQIX a shot, it too stands a chance of becoming an international smash alongside Pokémon. That's hardly the only thing the two games have in common, though. One suspects that DQIX developers Level-5, Armor Project, and Square Enix took very thorough notes on what makes Nintendo's monster-catching adventures so popular and integrated their findings into DQIX in an attempt to create the ultimate RPG. I'm talking about the big-picture concepts and fundamental underpinnings of Pokémon here, not the monster-trading aspect. Dragon Quest did monster-catching years before Game Freak's classic came to fruition, and in any case the series' more direct superficial Pokémon analog, Dragon Quest Monsters, currently has an installment dominating the Japanese charts. No, the deeper similarities between DQIX and Pokémon revolve around the way they capitalize on the nature of portable platforms, and how the social element is integral to the experience. But even there, DQIX differs greatly from Pokémon: The latter's multiplayer component is primarily about competition, where the former uses connectivity as a means to expand on the series' long-standing themes of friendship and teamwork. Players can jump into and out of a friend's adventure at any time -- not quite seamlessly, since it requires an invitation and a minute's worth of party juggling, but painlessly to be sure -- and band together to tackle the next portion of the host player's quest. It's hard to understate how entertaining cooperative role-playing is. Even though DQIX employs traditional turn-based battles, the format works remarkably well with multiple players -- like a small-scale, turn-based MMO. It's a unique take on multiplayer questing, eschewing the real-time mechanics of World of Warcraft or Monster Hunter, and the result is an RPG experience quite unlike any other. ... ...Another strength that DQIX shares in common with Pokémon is its heavy emphasis on post-game content. The main story -- which involves a fallen angel and wish-granting heavenly fruits that have fallen into the wrong hands -- is really just the beginning of the full DQIX experience. Beyond the main quest, the game offers roughly 250 side quests, many of which don't become available until the final boss is defeated. More than 50 of those quests will be distributed through free weekly downloads for a year. (The game's July 11 U.S. release date is quietly significant, as it marks one year to the day since the Japanese release and thus the end of the game's weekly download schedule.) Weekly quests aren't the only content that can be downloaded to the game, though. Characters from other Dragon Quest games will show up for small cameos, and there's even a Wi-Fi shop in the central town that updates daily with hard-to-find equipment and rare alchemy resources. And then of course there's the game's tag mode, the famous "surechigai tsuuchin" mode that helped make DQIX into such a blockbuster. By walking around with their systems in tag mode, players can mingle passively with other DQIX fans, exchanging not just character information but also rare and extravagant treasure maps. Certain maps have become holy grails among the DQIX fanbase, coveted for their high-level loot and rare monsters. The prospect of bumping into another player who could pass along one of those highly desirable maps was one of the key components that kept Japanese fans playing (and interacting passively) for so long. ... |
Read the full article which goes much more in depth here: http://www.1up.com/do/previewPage?pa...cId=3179395&p=
The title clearly has a lot of similarities to Pokemon with regard to the root causes of their popularity. It's about school yard fun and a (near) bottomless pit of addictive content. If Nintendo gives this one a big push I could definitely see kids crowding around dungeon crawling together and sharing content much in the same way that we see kids playing Pokemon today.
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Is this possible?
