Dragon Quest IX (9): Clearly, they were spent after the greatness that was Dragon Quest VIII (PS2).

Dragon Warrior, historically, has been the franchise that never let me down. At least, until I played Dragon Warrior/Quest VII (shudder), which almost made me quit gaming; then Dragon Quest VIII came out and reaffirmed why I loved these guys in the first place. But when IX was released, on DS no less, I admit: I was hesitant.

When I played this back when it first released, I had a terrible experience. This time...just a 'meh' experience. Which for Dragon Warrior/Quest, can't be tolerated.

What I Liked

Though there aren't enough of them, the way they did the cutscenes, using both screens to show different perspectives, was cool. I can't think of another game that did this.

It's the first Dragon Warrior/Quest (that I can recall) that managed to do the shop correctly when buying multiple of the same item; actually prompting you for each person to equip rather than just equipping the one and tossing the rest into the bag.

The story isn't garbage, and there's not significant amounts of padding.

The ability from III to basically create your own party returns, and is a welcome reprieve from what VII was doing. (VIII gets a pass because it had arguably the best character development of the entire series.)

What I Didn't Like

I can't say it's the "worst" quest system in all of RPGs, but it's up there. Straight up gating the strongest jobs behind quests is a terrible idea, always has been. This wouldn't be so much an issue, but the nature of the quests is really irritating. I still remember the one: "beat five wolves!" Great, that's easy..."ahhh, but wait. You must use this technique that fails 95% of the time on them before killing them (fear, I believe). Oh, and they tend to run. G'luck! ; ) " Terrible.

EXP is a slow burn. Even with a +8 modifier it took forever to get to level 26; which tells me they're stingy with the EXP and I can't stand that.

Locked rotating - this is more of an annoyance, especially since almost every previous one gave you full rotation.

Enemies are map visible, but what's worse is that they'll pop up right in your path, so it's almost as bad as random encounters when you're trying to get through a dungeon.

It's really difficult to connect with your team and what you're doing. The game lacks strong emotional storytelling (I know some of you don't care). Games before it and after it were light years better in this regard, even mobile games like Ara Fell.

Fortunately, I don't have to play it ever again. But at least I can say that it's not the horror show I once considered it to be. It just never felt like a Dragon Quest game because it lacked everything that made them good in the first place.