I’m starting up MoA very soon! My goal is to play through the full series in the next year or two before (or shortly after) the new game comes out; I had a lot of games in the series already and figured now was the best time to start. My goal is to complete a generation and then take a short break before starting up the next numbered installment so I don’t get burnt out. 2 is one of the few I’m missing, so thankfully that gives me a little bit of time to see if I can get it for a good deal before jumping right in. (A friend picked up 2: AA for me already, so I won’t have to pick up two games in a row at least.)

I’m honestly glad to hear MoA is a bit harder! I breezed through Phantasma’s story and the arena relatively quickly. The only thing that gave me any trouble was the final boss, which took me a while until I discovered how effective the rockets were on him.

I’m excited to see how the rest of the series goes! I’ve really enjoyed my time with it so far.

Yes, it's true. I haven't been a subscriber to XBox Live since 2018, so my co-op days on the 'Box are currently on hold. If that ever changes in the future, I'll be sure to let you know. Indiscriminately murdering a small country's worth of Majini is twice as fun with a friend by your side, I'm sure.

I know of the Yakuza games, but I have not played them. Thanks for the recommendation.

Sure, sure, they explained in the game that skill points and learned abilities carried over between classes, but in my eyes, that was not worth the sacrifice of levels. What's the point of learning a great sword skill if my newly de-leveled character is too weak to do anything with it? (The solution is grinding! Always more grinding. No thanks.)

I stuck with my starting party throughout, which was a Minstrel, Mage, Thief, and Priest. As I mentioned, I wanted to make my Minstrel into a Warrior, but decided against it. It turned out okay, though. Minstrel is just Dragon Quest IX's version of a Red Mage, and I think we can both agree that Red Mages are pretty great.

Yeah, it almost feels blasphemous to speak ill of a Dragon Quest game, but I really did not like this one.

• The first two-thirds of the game is just fluff and filler. It isn't until we've collected the seven macguffins at the 40-hour mark that we get even a hint of a primary antagonist or deliberate conflict.

• One of the main features of the game is the class system, but I never bothered changing my characters' classes because changing your class drops you back down to level 1. Who thought that was a good idea? I was already at level 20 when I was given the option to change classes. I'm not going to throw away all the time and effort it took to get to that level just because I want my Minstrel to be a Warrior. It's like the game is actively discouraging the player from utilizing one of its primary features.

• The difficulty was too high. I'm fine with difficulty in a video game of any other genre except RPGs. In a difficult RPG, the problem is always "There's nothing you can currently do to beat this boss because your numbers aren't high enough" and the solution is always grinding. Boring, tedious grinding. I beat this game in about 65 hours, and I reckon at least 15 of those hours were spent mindlessly grinding metal slimes. Fun.

• The story was nothing special and there were too many plot holes and loose threads. In fairness, I haven't played any of the post-game, so maybe some of my questions do get answered eventually. As it stands now, though, the ending left me feeling unsatisfied.

• Why doesn't the Priest class, the White Mage of the game whose sole purpose is to heal and support the rest of the team, learn the Kazing spell? I had to scrape by with Zing, which only revives dead characters maybe 30% of the time. I can't tell you how many boss fights I lost because my damn Zing spell kept missing again and again at a crucial time. On that note, I know this isn't new to the Dragon Quest series or anything, but a revive spell that can miss is still friggin' stupid.

There's more, but I've almost hit the character limit for this comment, so I'll leave it at that. I really enjoyed Dragon Quest 8, 4, and 5, but 9 get a thumbs-down from me. I really wanted to like it, but I could not in good conscience give it a free pass just because it was a Dragon Quest game. Goodwill earned from other games in the series is only worth so much.

I'm glad that you enjoyed Ys IX, at least. I'll get to it someday. Gotta play Lacrimosa of Dana first, though.

Not yet i haven't had a lot of time for anything lately. Family stuff has kinda taken over

I did see the trailer though yeah! I'm so excited. I only read the first half of part 6 but it's sooooo good and i'm really excited to see a few seen animated! Can't wait to watch

I see. It sounds like your experience with Ys IX is pretty similar to my current experience with Dragon Quest IX. It's not bad, but it's not really good either. It's kinda Just Another Dragon Quest Game™.

Here's hoping our respective Nines can turn things around before all is said and done.

EDIT: Regrettably, my Nine did not turn things around. So it goes.

[Awareness Increased +1]

Ahhh! Look at that! I totally missed it! haha. Thanks :D 4 years of tracking games, and my backlog has only gotten larger LOL

Romance comics are fun! We all need some love and mush once in a while

They areeee. They're trash games haha! My boyfriend recently got me into Cookie Clicker, and since then I've been on an idle game grind.. lol. It's just your generic anime dating-sim with the idle mechanic added to it. The only difference is Crush Crush lets you date the ladies and Blush Blush lets you date the lads. I'm having the best of both worlds