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I'm now thinking I should look into getting DQ9 on the DS afterwards or the remakes of the older games. Should I just spend the year playing the whole series? The game is working for me enough to that that thought crosses my mind. With this showing up on the 3DS this year, if they don't screw up the port, I would recommend checking it out.
I'm also a big fan of the DQ series for many of the reasons you describe.
However, even though I adore the series it tends to leave me wanting some variety after extended play. For me, playing one game from the main series per year has felt just about right and kept the whole experience from feeling too "samey".
I would definitely recommend the DS remakes of IV through VI and also Dragon Quest IX very highly. Many people say that V is the most interesting. Not sure it was my favorite, and I seemed to enjoy VI more than most (grinding didn't bug me since it was often done while watching sports on TV or listening to podcasts). IX is fantastic but felt very open and non-linear compared to the narrative-driven style of older games - maybe I'm misremembering though, since it's been a long time since I went back to IX?
After finishing the last DS release last month, the upcoming 3DS remakes will be arriving at a perfect time!
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Oh right - was going to post about what I'm playing...
Gave up on
Lunar Dragon Song (DS) after getting about 80% through the game (based on GameFaqs check).
I actually liked a lot of ideas in the game, but there were just too many little problems to care about seeing it through to the end. The AI targeting (for friendly characters) during battles is garbage and slows everything down. Having expensive equipment randomly break and leave your characters exposed wasn't a good system. The "delivery" system to earn cash is a neat idea, but also time-consuming and not particularly fun.
In the end, this game just doesn't respect the player's time.Those things combine to make the in-game systems not as good as they probably should be... and topping everything off, the story is pretty poorly told and not all that interesting.
Probably sounds like I'm hating on the game a lot... but that's not really true. The game had lots of neat ideas, and was fun to play while figuring out how everything worked, but it also had flaws and simply couldn't compel me to play until the end. I'd love to see someone take some (not all) of the ideas used here and reuse them in a game with more polish.
Not recommended, but I think that the bad reputation this game has is (mostly) undeserved.
Now I'm moving on to another poorly rated DS title:
Battles of Prince of Persia. This game is clicking with me more, although I'm still early on.
One of my other hobbies is board games - including some big, complex wargames that simulate real life battles. Why do I mention that? Because Battles of Prince of Persia feels a lot like a digitized very of one of those games. Terrain modifiers, unit facing, broken or spent units, command ranges, zones of control, etc etc... if you have played wargames then a lot of what happens in this DS title will be very familiar.
Additionally, turns are a series of card-based choices where you spend each card either as an "event" or for a number of operational points that can activate units for movement and/or combat. This is a very similar system to many of my favorite wargames.
This feels like a
very niche game, but so far it seems to be
my niche. Sure, I'd rather have a digital version of Hannibal Rome vs Carthage, Paths of Glory, or We the People (go look them up at
www.boardgamegeek.com if you want details) but that's just not going to happen. This weird little Prince of Persia spin-off isn't great but is at least interesting.