Dragon Quest VI: Realms of Revelations

Nintendo has announced that the immensely popular Dragon Quest VI will finally be released in North America on the DS. Less than a year ago Nintendo released Dragon Quest IX to much success, so this DS remake will no doubt draw some comparisons.  Dragon Quest IX was the first in the series exclusive to the DS and VI was the best selling game in Japan during its original release and is often touted as the best in the series.  We'll have to wait until February 14 to see how it stands up, but until then these are my thoughts on the known details.

What I'm Liking So Far:

• Both heroes and monsters can be recruited into a players party.  This caught my attention and I think it is a great feature VI has over IX.  Unfortunately, it has been said that the Beastmaster class was removed in the DS version.  This loss and removal of after-battle monster recruiting will only allow specific slimes and the battle rex, Dorango, to join the party.  But, it is better than no monsters.
• Parties can hold up to 8 members, as in many past titles.  Four members go into battle with the other four waiting in the sidelines to be swapped in.  This should mix up battles a little so that they don't get so monotonous.  As an added bonus, all 8 characters will get battle experience.
• Spells and abilities learnt from one vocation are still available after a vocation change.  This is a big plus for me, one of the few things I was annoyed with in Dragon Quest IX.

Things I'm Not Looking Forward To:

• One major benefit in Dragon Quest IX was the visibility of enemies.  This has not been included in VI, meaning that once again battles begin at random.
• Party members are not shown during battles, instead the encountered monster is the focus.  Not a major loss, but this makes battling a lot less interesting to watch and will likely cause me to button mash 'A' to speed through battles.
• Dragon Quest IX has a huge variety of items, armour and weapons.  Since this is a past title in the series it may lack this variety; hopefully not.

Questions I Want Answered:

• Graphics have been updated, but party members are not shown in battle.  Will the general play and cut scenes show characters in their equipped gear or just the generic character?
• As you can see above, the game case does not show the WiFi logo.  Will there be any use of WiFi, even as little as a DQVC like feature?
• On that note, how much replay value will there be?  In Dragon Quest IX, DQVC allowed future downloads of quests and purchasing exclusive items.  It also had treasure maps and alchemy to keep the game fresh.  It is especially important to note that Dragon Quest developers said themselves that IX is the hardest game in the series.  If VI is indeed easier and mastered completely, what is going to make me want to play it again?
• Will there be quests at all?  This was a fun addition to IX and was useful it getting some nice bonus items.

There are some things that I am on the fence about or just don't care about.  The addition of the mini games, such as slime curling, just makes me think the game was short enough that they had extra space to fill.  Either way, mini games will have no effect on the actual game.  The main thing I am on the fence about is that the story and game play switch between two worlds, real and dream.  How this is going to affect game play is a mystery for me, since I haven't played the original.  I hoping it won't make any difference or the alternate dream world will have the exclusive features that top Dragon Quest IX.  Lastly, some players want multiple save files (which IX lacked), but I don't care either way.  I'm still only going to use one file and would rather have the second file used as backup for power loss.

I'm sure I'll pick this game up eventually, but I'm not lining up for it's release.  Even the slime plush is not enough to entice me to pre-order Dragon Question VI.  I think I'll wait a few weeks to see how well it does.