Forum > Gaming Discussion > Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies
Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies
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Thu, 30 Jun 2011 16:17:06

No it's not to late to switch to bow. Armamentalist can also use them, so later you can switch to that class and power level your way to get an extra 20 or so bow points. The ranger skills are okay. They're more support skills so they're not real flashy, but they are actually helpful, particuarly in boss fights. Same goes with their Coup de Grace - brownie....something or rather. It boosts a lot of their skills so they tend to fight well in the big battles.

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Thu, 30 Jun 2011 19:17:28
robio said:

so later you can switch to that class and power level your way to get an extra 20 or so bow points.

I just realized this could be done. There is no gif that could accurately convey my feelings right now.

Edited: Thu, 30 Jun 2011 19:17:37
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Thu, 30 Jun 2011 20:22:34

Heh heh, well don't switch up too often. As you reach higher levels like in the 30's and 40's you'll start getting more skill points to allocate as you advance.  At first you're just getting 3 or 4 when you level up, but at higher levels you'll get 6 and more.

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Sun, 03 Jul 2011 15:01:03

30 hours in. Things opened up a bit after dealing with the Bloomingdale's quest and getting the boat. I believe I should be heading to Gleeba (desert town), but I found a pretty sweet spot for high risk levelling up and have been grinding on it. It's a wasteland filled with tombstones that can only be accessed by sea, and it doesn't communicate with any other place by land. It has trolls, deadcurions and whirly girlies. I'm thinking of ditching my fighter and unlock the paladin class so i can have a tank of sorts in my party.

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Sun, 03 Jul 2011 17:31:13

The Paladin with a high shield skill is the ultimate defense character. There is a boss battle near the end of the game where you get separated from your party. Turns out you're actually supposed to go get your party before taking on this boss, but it's very easy to wander into the fight solo. He's tough as hell, but at the time I was a paladin with a near maxed out shield skill and I held my own very well in that fight and almost won it.

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Mon, 04 Jul 2011 15:48:19

I don't want to play the game anymore.

There are new classes that beat the shit out of the old ones and I never seem to be able to conform a party to my liking. I unlocked the paladin class, and since paladins can use wands, I figured I could change my priest vocation since she had a lot of points towards the wand skill. Now I have a paladin that should be able to tank and heal, and brought back my old mage to couple with my gladiator as a damage dealer, leaving the ranger in the back row.

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Mon, 04 Jul 2011 16:47:20

Can't believe Steel is 30 hrs into a portable game.

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Wed, 06 Jul 2011 15:40:55
Closing in the 40 hour mark. Haven't advanced shit on the main quest, but I have kept levelling up my party. My gladiator is now strong enough so I can brave the ocean and sail freely without worrying too much about Cumulus Rexes, crabs or Abyss Divers. Found a pretty sweet spot north of the previous one with the trolls and the whirlie girlies. This one has MEGA MOAIS, lol. But the real kicker are ghouls. They don't do too much damage, and tend to call for backup constantly. That inflates the number of foes defeated, and can eventually yield 1500-2000+ EXP per battle.
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Wed, 06 Jul 2011 16:34:50

Good Job!

Now go find a Grotto with a Legacy End Boss in it and watch helplessly as your Gladiator is handed his ass anyway!

GASP

Nyaa

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Wed, 06 Jul 2011 16:44:37
I cleared my first grotto a couple days ago. It had a hard-ass horse boss at the end that made me clench my buttocks.
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Wed, 06 Jul 2011 16:47:25

Yeah, but that's NOT a Legacy Boss!

The Grottoes that have Classic Dragon Quest Bosses have them and ONLY them in them!

Don't worry, you'll know when you encounter your first one!

Lemme know if you actually kill one of them!

LOL !

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Wed, 06 Jul 2011 16:52:58
Holy shit.
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Wed, 06 Jul 2011 17:57:19
phantom_leo said:

Yeah, but that's NOT a Legacy Boss!

The Grottoes that have Classic Dragon Quest Bosses have them and ONLY them in them!

Don't worry, you'll know when you encounter your first one!

Lemme know if you actually kill one of them!

LOL !


Tell me more about these mystic grottoes. How do you find them? How hard are those bosses?
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Wed, 06 Jul 2011 19:09:00

There's A LOT you need to do to get these Bosses. When the game first came out, it was easy to find people to trade maps with, as you may or may not have read earlier in this topic... Now, you're kinda on your own. It's not impossible, but it's not easy either. Rather than try to describe it all, just follow this link here: List of Treasure Map Bosses in Dragon Quest IX.

Good Luck!

...you'll need it!



Edited: Wed, 06 Jul 2011 19:09:23
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Wed, 06 Jul 2011 19:57:59
HOLY FUCKING FUCK DRAGONLORD! THAT WAS THE FINAL BOSS OF THE FIRST DW GAME!

Yeah, those seeem kind of hard. I will try out the ones I can do. Later.

Much, much later.

Reading the name Dragonlord made me realize how hard these bosses must be.
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Thu, 07 Jul 2011 15:00:02

Ok I finally dragged my huge balls towards advancing the main quest and recovered the fygg from Gleeba. I have now...NO FUCKING CLUE AS TO WHERE TO GO NEXT. Yay. At any rate, I sailed again and reached another part of the world I hadn't been in before, but the only stupid village I found is full of people that won't talk to me whatsoever. Fuck them.

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Sun, 10 Jul 2011 04:25:42

**Gonna put this in here because I think most of you who frequent this topic MAY find it interesting.**

Started playing Golden Sun: Dark Dawn a day or two ago. There's A LOT to like about the game and a little not to like, but overall, I find it immensely satisfying.

To start, if you avoid this game because you haven't played the two GBA versions, put your fears to rest. They recap the events of the first two in the beginning screens. They let you collect books from bookcases that summarize both game's stories. They let you play in a Psynergy Training ground where you re-enact events from the previous games in small mini-game battlefields... and finally, in one of the coolest little additions I've seen in a while... During conversations, in character's dialogue screens you might see a major character, location, event-name or phrase bolded, underlined and in Red, almost as if it were a Link. Touching that 'link' with your stylus opens up yet another screen that gives you more details on the subject and then puts an entry into an Encyclopedia! My god, if more RPG's did this, we might actually be able to follow along with a storyline for a change!

The Gameplay system is one of the things that makes the GS games so unique. It's a little tricky to describe, but I'll do my best! The world is comprised of Psynergy (magic). That psynergy is broken down into 4 Elements: Fire, Water, Wind and Earth. The playable characters in the game are Adepts at one of those elements. Matthew, the son of the first (two) games Hero, Issac, for example, is an Earth Adept. On their own, these characters, as they level up, will learn progressively stronger Elemental Magics associated with their types. Where it gets tricky is: There are Djinns in the world of Golden Sun. These Spirits also have elemental attributes and you can 'Assign' them to individual characters. Naturally, adding Fire Djinns to a Fire Adept makes the Adept that much stronger, boosting Stats and allowing for Stronger, more Elaborate Spells of that element --BUT-- you DO NOT have to assign the same Element to the same Element. You can, feasibly, assign a Water Djinn to a Wind Adept, and THAT'S where things start to get interesting! Alone the Wind Adept would have Whirlwinds and Healing Winds, for example, but combine her Wind Djinn with a Water Djinn and suddenly you can cast Lightning Spells and throw around Plasma...

...but wait, there's more!

Having Djinns assigned to the characters ups their stats and gives them more Spell options. You --CAN-- however 'Release' your Djinns onto the Battlefield. They'll FIRST cast some sort of Offensive or Support Spell upon doing this, but then their release also has a few additional outcomes: Your character's stats go DOWN for the duration of the Battle, BUT... the more Djinns you release, their numbers go into a 'Summon' pool. One, two, three or more of an element summons a Final Fantasy-like Diety to wreck havoc on your foes... Of course, mixing Djinns of various Elements allows for other, much more elaborate Summons too. Finding the Tablets to summon these guys is a good part of the draw of this game... They look like this:

It sounds kind of complicated, but, really, it's not. Tinkering with various combinations and finding cool Spells is definitely one of the best parts of these games. Of course, there's even more than that! Your characters can use their Psynergies on the world map and in dungeons to solve puzzles. See a sprout sticking out of the ground? Cast 'Grow' on it and it turns into a climbable vine. Is there a pillar of Ice blocking your path? Hit it with a Fireball and melt it! Magic is not ONLY used in battle! It's an essential part of exploration and puzzle-solving in the game too! AWESOME!

I have to admit, I LOVE these games partially from the Nostalgia they recall for me. Camelot Software, the guys who made this series, also helped make such classic Genesis games as: Shining Force, Shining in the Darkness and Landstalker! Their little trademark touches appear throughout the game. Little graphical 'Heads' shaking or nodding representing your 'Yes' or 'No' answers to questions posed to you in the game; the fact that Shops have their Normal Sale items and 'Specials' and Emoticon Expressions to show the characters Moods during conversations... ALL IN THERE! You may not know what I am talking about by reading this, but, rest assured, if you played any of those classics and then you played GS: DD, you would recognize them immediately!

Not to be too spoiler-ish but one of the things I like THE MOST about this game is the fact that the Heroes from the first two games actually ended up doing MORE HARM to their WORLD THAN GOOD! Thinking they were saving the world in the first two, they were actually bringing about events that would ruin and reshape their world, sometimes NOT for the better! It's 30 years after those events and the children of the heroes take up their own quest! Apparently, this is not just an idea they came up with just as an excuse to make the DS version of the game. The plot for Dark Dawn was discussed as far back as 2003! The developers have revealed that parts 1 and 2 were just a prologue to the 'REAL' story of Golden Sun, and Dark Dawn is just the beginning! I can't WAIT to see where they take all of this!

I love the game for its familiarity. I love it for its creativity and unique battle system. The story line is intriguing to say the least... The one issue I have with it is the GRAPHICS! They are not bad, by any means, but they are NOT the Camelot I am used to. Back in the day, these guys had a VERY distinct, hand-drawn, bold and colorful style to them. In this game, the colors are bold and the world is 3D... but it's just not the same. I'll let pictures speak their thousand words on this one:


_____________________

--See the Battle Screen here? Doesn't this look like it could be from Shining Force?

--See the little Nodding or Head Shaking icons and the distinct Font used in all Camelot games?

--THIS is what Golden Sun looks like now... Doesn't it look like every other DS RPG?

_____________________

What's MOST important is that it PLAYS like Golden Sun and it is the continuation of two of THE MOST celebrated RPG's of the last decade! Most of the elements are there, graphically, but something is... off. Thanks, Nintendo, for turning these guys into your Mario Sports developers and taking them away from what they do BEST...!

A few of you wondered why I got so excited upon hearing of this game at last year's E3. I hope this post sheds a little light on that! A few more of you have either just started getting into portable RPG's or might be in the market for something new and a bit different... Again, I hope this sheds some light and you consider this game! I'm only 5 hours in, but I can tell it's as much of a classic as the two that started it all... With any luck, this game will sell pretty well and ensure that it isn't the end of it all! Camelot clearly has a lot of ideas in their collective heads, I hope to see them in future 3DS or Wii U entries to this series!

I'll post more as I play more, but any questions in the meantime, fire away!



Edited: Sun, 10 Jul 2011 04:41:07
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Sun, 10 Jul 2011 05:07:28

Hmm, if I see it at a reasonable price, I might pick it up tomorrow.

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Sun, 10 Jul 2011 05:10:51

Played more. Recovered the 6th Fygg at the academy, and now I try to find places with metal slimes to really start grinding for Levelling up.

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Thu, 14 Jul 2011 18:25:09

Got all fyggs...only to suffer from yet another plot twist. GASP

Now I'm searching for the Hero of Legend or some shit, while trying to scrape enough money to buy me the cool and expensive shit they have in Upover.

Almost 50 hours in. I wonder how much more goodness in in there.

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