Dragon Quest 9

Iwata Asks about Dragon Quest 9
Currently listening to these 10 interviews with Yuji Horii (designer of the Dragon Quest series) Satoru Iwata (Pres, Nintendo), and Ryutaro Ichimura (Producer, Square Enix).

Focus seems to be to explain and promote Dragon Quest in general and especially this latest game, for the American/Western audience.

They point out that in Japan, they are seeing a lot more women playing DQ9 for the first time, they attribute this to the character customization feature.

A "Patty's Pub" spontaneously opened in Akhihabra.

"It has become a social phenomenon." - Treasure Maps are randomly generated and people share them. One person found an amazingly good map and then they started sharing it in public - for example, at the Akhihabra pub. Kids asking their dads to take their DS with them when they go on business trips in other cities, for the Tag Mode sharing.

Have played the first hour or so of the game and it is so far much better than DQ8 for me. Progression in the early town is faster, it's more rewarding to have the multiple goals of helping people, and I really appreciate being able to choose from my random battles.

I can run back from an early dungeon/boss area to the town, and completely bypass all the slimes and other small fry that will only give me 1 exp point each. In DQ8, I had to bump into all of them.

In one segment, they said that they wanted parents to be able to play with their kids, go in and fight monsters that might be scary, etc. They also call out girlfriends playing the game only to play with their boyfriends. What about girlfriends pushing boyfriends to play?

Iwata points out that for turn-based games like this, the skill and reflexes are not as big of an issue. Horii adds, "Anyone can play through it if they give it a chance".

Siliconera article.