DQIX Famitsu article and other DQIX news

The information in this post is all thanks to tummai from the Dragon's Den.

First of all, this Japanese new article at Dengeki Online.

It says you create your own party at Luida's bar (DQIII style), and you can change your characters' classes at the Dharma Shrine whenever you want. Another thing it said that I didn't catch in previous news was that you can change your character's appearance (hair, body, etc) anytime mid-game.

I don't think you can move around the battle field. It says that you give your characters commands in the classic turn-based DQ style and then your characters will "deploy and fight with animations that make it seem like a real battle is taking place". Looks like they are just trying to hype up the flashy animations.

Later, tummai went out and bought Famitsu and scanned the following pages for us.

He explains what each page says:

Nothing really new information-wise.

First page they talk about the trailer shown at the Tokyo Gameshow. They wonder about the tree and the light in the middle of the tree, and they point out that the big tree is located at the top of the floating castle.

Second page they comment on the battle scene movie in the trailer. They say that it appears the priest girl casts a heal spell on the hero and then the wizard girl casts Bikill. They talk a little bit about Luida's bar (nothing new) and they talk a little about the equip screen (use the stylus to drag equipment onto your character, item categories for weapon, shield, helmet, body armor, gloves, pants, boots and accessories. They wonder if the "Lv." at the bottom refers to the character's overall level, or just the level in his current class).

Third page talks a little about the battle system. Traditional turn-based DQ style. Battle scenes are animated with lots of movement to make it look like a real battle is going on.

Fourth page talks about some monsters. They point out that old favorites like drakies, killer machines, golems, goldmen, stonemen, werewolves and druins are in the game as monsters. They also point out the new monster, the "tiger lance" which has the torso of a lion, the legs of a horse and wields a lance. For the drakie/killer machine picture, they also point out that it appears that the party is surrounded and they guess that the enemies were able to attack first.

At the bottom of pages 3 and 4 they have the familiar class artwork, and they guess that they are soldier, wizard, priest, martial artist and thief.

A sharp-eyed member of Dragon's Den, Billy MK, also noted that it looks like the NPCs are sprites, not 3D like the party members.

This feels like it sort of vindicated what I was bitching about before (that DQIX won't look anything like the cutscenes in the trailer and that the game will be pretty constrained on the DS) but it's also kind of sad to see the game go off half-cocked (please don't let that be just British slang so that others can actually understand!) in this way, having to make totally anachronistic compromises with game design.