Square Enix has managed to place themselves back in the race again with some inspiring titles in the upcoming quarters. Ever since this game was first announced back in 2006, I somehow managed to endure the long wait. Dragon Quest IX: Defenders of the Starry Sky ????????IX ?????? is the first original Dragon Quest game in the series made specifically for the Nintendo DS.

After a long delay, Level-5 decided to kick it back old school by completely revamping the battle system from what was suppose to be an action-RPG to turn-based RPG. As a DQ fangirl, I’m glad they made the right choice by switching it to the turn-based system.

Dragon Quest IX is set to go on sale on the 11th of July in Japan. I’ve already called a couple stores here in NYC and I have my fingers crossed that they will be receiving an early shipment on Friday.

I will admit that when the game was announced I was a little bit skeptical. I was expecting the new Dragon Quest to be made for the PS3 or 360. Dragon Quest VIII had such a massive and expressive world to explore, and the DS is so tiny that I’m a little wary of being disappointed by this attempt on the DS. I want it to live up to it’s predecessors. I know they managed to port over DQ4 & DQ5, which is a good sign, but even so I don’t want to get my expectations up too high. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see, unbelieveable things do come in small packages (of all people I should know this!).

Also, let’s see if Dragon Quest IX will convince me to upgrade my DS for a DSi or not.

For now, here’s a couple clips of DQ9 — please stay tuned for my first impressions of the game once I get my hands on it!