Dragon Quest IX plans shrouded in mystery
by Chris Greenhough 
{ Sep 8th 2008 at 4:35PM }
It's one of the DS-related mysteries that keeps us up at night: what is the dealio with Dragon Quest IX? Square Enix claimed the game was "almost finished" back on February 1st, developer Level 5 has long been targeting a 2008 release, and the game's official page still has the title down for a launch this year.Despite this, Spencer at Siliconera points out that there has been no recent press coverage of the game, never mind a concrete release date from Square Enix, who plan to make an unholy amount of wonga from the game. Maybe we'll find out more at the Tokyo Game Show next month, though just to confuse matters further, the game won't be playable there. It's all very bizarre.
Source: Dragon Quest IX might make 2008 ...
Source: ... but it won't be playable at TGS.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
aj @ Sep 8th 2008 11:37PM
I think that they know there is a lot of hype for the game, and maybe Square-Enix wants to keep the fanboyism to an absolute bare minimum so as not to chase away the kind of people who just stop caring after a while and then miss the release of the game because they just tune out anything to do with Dragon Quest IX from all the crapflood.
That's my theory, anyway.
They could also be waiting to see how DQIV is going to do outside of Japan, because DQ isn't the Earth shattering event it is in Japan in NA. Which is a shame, really, because it should be.
Oh well. Even if DQIX is vaporware, we still have IV, V, and VI coming out on the DS.
Jak Logan @ Sep 8th 2008 11:46PM
All I want to know is: Is this game going to be on two cartridges? That was a rumor I heard last year (wow... it has been a long time), but still haven't confirmed or denied it.
I really enjoy DQ, and I know the enemies are more or less classics... but they seriously weigh me down with their overuse more than those from Final Fantasy.
aj @ Sep 8th 2008 11:53PM
Someone, somewhere here on DS fanboy said that DS carts are capable of having HUGE memory capacity, and so 2 carts might be redundant.
However, flash memory is expensive, and I'm thinking two smaller carts might be cheaper than one big cart. Maybe? I don't know. How big is the game even supposed to be? The rumours are that it's going to be huge, and since it was originally assumed to be a console title, maybe it will end up being two huge carts anyway.
Here's hoping we can expect truly epic gameplay on the DS. I'm tired of all this 30 hour crap. That's not the epic role playing I am used to!
Dave @ Sep 9th 2008 6:05AM
If it was to be two cartridges was it suggested how the transfer would work, I think hot swapping might be possible, if that was the case then I'd be happy with the system.
Two cartridges (with hot swapping save transfer) would also make it difficult to pirate, although I'm sure the two would be hacked into one eventually. I thought FF:CC's 'Thanks for Playing' screen was a great idea, so I wouldn't put it past SE.
ButtercupSaiyan @ Sep 9th 2008 3:54PM
AJ: Have you tried any roguelikes for the DS? I've logged over 40-50 hours on Shiren and Etrian Odyssey easy, whereas FF4 has only seen 20 hours from me.
Dave: That "Thanks for Playing" screen was revealed not to be an anti-pirating measure ... it was actually a poorly-dumped ROM that skipped to the end message too early, just an interesting little bug.
Dave @ Sep 9th 2008 6:49PM
I read somewhere (very reliable, I know :-) ) that the 'thanks for playing' screen doesn't appear at the end, I'm only about 7 hours in so I don't know, and I couldn't find anything through google either.
eubep @ Sep 9th 2008 12:01AM
As a long time DQ fan, DQ IX wait is a cakewalk.
Alic @ Sep 10th 2008 5:29AM
Personally I think it might be a corporate move. They had a bad year last year, and are worried about the stock going down, so they told their stock holders they have this game (the name of which has huge clout in Japan) that is going to sell a bajillion copies. Then they hold off on releasing it, to buy themselves time before they have to make announcements like "we're delaying the final fantasy 13s to next fiscal year" (which starts next spring in Japan).
There's also that press release from a looong time ago by Wada, I think, that hints they're going to release a bunch of classic DQ games leading up to the big new one. Could just be that.
But yes, it's getting a bit annoying knowing they've probably got level 5 under a vow of silence, for whatever reason. No press on the actual game for almost a year now? I'd at least like to know how the four player mode is going to be good, now that they've changed the battle system. Hopefully they've figured out something interesting.
Alex