There's a bunch of JRPGs with character creation.  But they just aren't games like Final Fantasy or Pokemon, which rely on a set story or focus on something besides the characters.

Dragon Quest has had both Character and Monster creation multiple times before.  But this character creation is just even more extensive then before.

Oh yeah i forgot how you could change the hair style of Cloud in FFVII, and how you could change the clothes of Sora in Kingdom Hearts .

Must have slipped my mind.

I've never played a JRPG where i can basically create a unique looking Hero. I have in WRPGs, but not JRPGs.

Character Customization Movie Link

Not to derail the thread, but memory2Zack was right.  DQ definitely isn't the first -- I could name a few others.  WKC has possibly the most insane character customation ever, even by western standards.  This kind in-depth visual customization got a big boost from MMORPGs, I think.  So it makes sense it's been catching on in Japan as well, though not in a lot of games.

DQIX's customization looks cool to me because it's the first cartoony character customizer I've seen, and it's in the Dragon Quest style... and it just looks great.

I'm pretty excited. I've never played a DQ before, but I'm a huge fan of well done portable games. It's pretty bold that they'd make a numbered game for the DS.

I heard something about the game coming on two cards, anyone know if that's true? I doubt it is, and I doubt it's even possible...

Nah, its being made on one cart, although I'm surprised myself that everything is going to fit on just one cart.  Perhaps it's going to be a 512 MB cart.

Yeah, but not many people outside of Japan has played that game. Heck i bet we get DQIX in the states before we get WKC

So Nintendo has WSR in June, DQIX in July, MH3 in August and Pokemon HG/SS in September, that looks pretty solid.

Im definitley getting DQ XI. This game I have been looking forward to forever. And the fact that they delayed its release has made me want it even more.

An interesting thing about the game is that it is coming out on July 11th. That is a Saturday. Its very unusual for any game to be released in Japan on a Saturday. 99%+ of games come out on a Thursday. However the Japanese government asked Enix several years back to release their DQ games on Saturday so that kids would not skip school to get buy a copy. The same goes for FF games. Crazy huh?

Well, here now with 2 days to go until the Japanese release of DQIX, a lot of major news and interesting tidbits have been coming out to hype the major release.

First off is a funny commercial making fun of the already manic Dragon Quest mania in Japan.  Playing off the idea that 'everyone wants the game', the commercial features the idea that you can simply use a copy of the game to catch...ahem...certain groups of people.

http://www.gametrailers.com/video/japanese-tv-dragon-quest/52240

Playing off this is the near record breaking turn out of the games pre-orders.  Which are now anywhere from 1.6-2 million in total in Japan and rising.  Considering this in relation to numbers where games usually only do anywere from 5,000-100,000 in their first week, Dragon Quest IX is probably going to do 2.5 MILLION in its first day.  And this is amazing when you consider that one of the best selling games of the past in Japan was Dragon Quest III on the NES, and it only sold 1.5 Million total.  I think they knew what they were doing by putting it on DS...

http://kotaku.com/5310591/report-2-million-dragon-quest-ix-pre+orders

Other interesting news items are such as head producer/creator of the series, Yuji Horii, has stated that DQIX is not only going to be just as big as past DQ games, but even harder then usual.  And another point of interest is the game is only going to feature one save file unlike the usual three (possible large data requirements like Pokemon?).

Whatever the outcome, this game is going to be BIG.  And is going to stretch the limits of the DS.  So for those who are interested, here is a new 7 minute trailer for the game and a few commercials:

Welcome to Dragon Quest 7 Minute Trailer: http://www.gametrailers.com/video/japanese-welcome-dragon-quest/52245

Japanese Commercial Spots: http://www.gametrailers.com/video/japanese-back-to-back-dragon-quest/52479