Dragon Quest IX Hype Thread - Target July 11th

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One thing that hasn't been mentioned is that there are more persistant(non-episode based) characters. This is emphasized more toward the end when the overall story starts to open itself.  Sure you don't play as them, but why would that matter? Games where you have a pre-determined party have just as many flaws to replace the flaws that come with a player determined one. What I think is best about the game is that it isn't falling into the linearity that we see with other recent RPGs, which is the case for most Dragon Quest games more or less, but it still works, and the additions like the treasure dugeons, alchemy, etc just gives you more reasons to explore the world. As for the spike in difficulty, it takes a steady pace of increase after you save the Abbott like it has been said.  Actually, with quite a few of the bosses towards the end I ended up killing them with one character left who only had about 4 or 5 hp left. And you'll also have characters die in a dungeon frequently. Another refreshing experience after you save the Abbott is the introduction of side quests that allow you to get more classes. You eventually will have to kill monsters with restrictions on freedom in order  to  complete the quest. Then later on, you'll have to do some sidequests relevant to whatever weapon skill you level up, or whatever class at a specific level you are at. So basically the game has as much for you as you want to dig into it. For the main quest the pacing is excellent, as you never feel like you are in a place too long, and the  episode stories although while are similar add a difference to how you view the cities you traverse. Which is much more important than how you see the characters that fight with you with the aspects this game aims for(exploration.) Actually pre-determined characters probably wouldn't work to well with the massive amount of "end-game" content there is.