Dragon Quest 9 (DS) was my favourite of the year, followed by a tie between Little King Story (Wii) and Monster Hunter Tri (Wii). I also had loads of fun with Just Dance, one of the few times where a “party game” actually worked as a party game (other times included certain board games and WarioWare Smooth Moves) - as prior to that, the closest thing was Guitar Hero or Rock Band - I had to get rid of those games because certain dudes loved breaking them out during parties - within 20 minutes that party would become a sausage party (most of the girls would clear out or be in the kitchen looking for an escape). During that brief 3 year period in the Wii’s second half, the Wii was the authentic party machine. I also enjoyed Assassin’s Creed 2 quite a lot, and Final Fantasy 13 more than most people (although, I am an RPG guy and a big Final Fantasy fan dating back to the first game and original spin-offs). I didn’t play Uncharted 2, but feel that game looked good.
Dragon Quest 9 is a lot like Secret of Mana, it works better as a co-op multiplayer RPG, at least the second phase (more on that shortly). I probably put about 300 hours into this one - way, way more than I’d ever put into single save on any game up to this time. It was more or less the big game of the DS generation for me.
This game has two phases. The first is a traditional linear Dragon Quest story that lasts about 40-60 hours. In the much larger second phase, it becomes an open world RPG with quests, quest lines, and procedurally generated dungeons using all parts of the original game, adding hero characters and enemy bosses from previous DQ games - you also get to resurrect a fallen civilization (something people wanted to do in Breath of the Wild). As it sounds, the second phase is multiple times longer than the first.
The co-op multiplayer is a lot of fun, 2-4 players - it’s closer to Monster Hunter than Secret of Mana - except better. Most co-op multiplayer games limit players to the proximity of each other - but Dragon Quest 9 allowed all players full run of the world, in parties or independently. The only limitation is if the primary player hasn’t completed the main story yet—other players are limited to the locations currently available to the primary player. I have yet to find another co-op RPG that isn’t some kind of MMORPG (with the game world located on a server) that allows this level of freedom; surprisingly, since local co-op multiplayer is much more common these days, especially on Switch. Animal Crossing NH allows players to visit each other’s world and have the full run, but the world is substantially smaller than DQ9.
2009 was a great year. A lot of different game types for different types of gamers and different gaming situations. Perhaps the best year of the generation.
Last edited by Jumpin - on 16 November 2023I describe myself as a little dose of toxic masculinity.
