History YMMV / DragonQuestIX

* GoddamnedBoss: [[BonussBoss Shogum]] does on occasion summon King Cureslimes, which if you don't kill them quickly, will cast Omniheal, restoring all HP to Shogum (and the King Cureslime).

* GoddamnedBats: The Metal slimes. In order to unlock the Armamentalist vocation, you have to kill two with a wizard ward barrier up. Easier said than done, given the fact that Metal Slimes have a tendency to ''run'' before you can even get their health down to the point where a mage can finish them off. (Granted, mages can inflict 1 damage, and you ''can'' give them Metal Slash, or exploit abilities).

* GoodBadBugs: In terms of programmed game environments, the damaged Observatory is a completely distinct area from the original Observatory, with a duplicate set of red chests imitating those in the undamaged Observatory. Due to an apparent oversight, the game doesn't check whether the red chests in the undamaged observatory were opened or not and simply offers the second set of red chests to players, allowing their treasures to be "re-collected".

* AlternateCharacterInterpretation: Patty, who is generally depicted in one of two ways. In-game, she's bombastic, blunt, and borderline rude, but in the opening movie and the page image TV Tropes is currently using for YouAllMeetInAnInn, she's far more sultry and prone to lounging.

* GameBreaker: Two things: Tension makes a comeback, but is ''optional''. A fully tensioned up character, with buff spells, using a powerful attack can do 70-140 TIMES the damage of a standard swing -- ''7000+ '' instead of ''80''. Endgame bosses have an attack that specifically prevents this tactic, but bosses before the end of the main story do not. In addition to that, you keep skill points between switching jobs, meaning that if you level to 15 then switch jobs a few times, you can take one of the class's 5th, passive skill trees to 100, which then affects all jobs that character uses. Taking ''Courage'' to 100, for example, will make the character strong and tough even if they are a Mage. Taking a weapon's skill to 100 will make them vastly stronger when using that weapon (+ 60 attack power when most weapons at the time are giving around 27) than they "should" be. Later, doing this up to level 38 (which is when jobs give the first 100th skill point) will allow you to do this with *multiple* skill trees.
** And [[NintendoHard the legacy and grotto bosses]] ''require'' you to do most of this stuff to have a fighting chance. And most of them have an attack, Disruptive Wave, specifically designed to counteract the first one.

* StrawmanHasAPoint: On the main page, the Celestrians are called out for being {{Smug Super}}s and holding the mortals in disdain, but think about it -- the Celestrians have spent their entire existence practically slaving away for the mortals, protecting them from monsters and solving problems for them (like finding lost items and ''cleaning out their damned stables''), and for what? For what amounts to largely ''abstract gratitude'' to the local guardian figure -- the only actual ''personal'' gratitude the Celestrians get comes from ghosts (and let's ignore the {{Flat Earth Atheist}}s like Ivor). They've been cleaning up mortal messes for thousand of years with no real end in sight -- they're pretty well-justified in not thinking very well of humanity. Frankly it's a wonder that they don't hate mortalkind ''outright''.

* ThatOneSidequest: Tag Mode. It's easy enough to find all the players you need in Japan since everyone and their mother plays ''VideoGame/DragonQuest'', but players in other regions will find it much more difficult to find the required 30 different people to max out their Inn upgrades in addition to getting the additional items and treasure maps.

* NightmareFuel: [[spoiler:Princess Simona's [[GoMadFromTheRevelation psychotic breakdown]] at the climax of the Yore arc. Seeing one of the kindest, sweetest characters in the game driven to such despair that she's literally seething with barely controlled rage and bitterly calls her own father, her people, and ''herself'' cold blooded mass murderers (which is actually ''[[SinsOfOurFathers kinda]]'' true) all while clearly on the verge of tears is... unpleasant, to say the least. Her [[SycophanticServant sycophantic]] reverence towards Yore did not help matters. Thank Celestria she was brought back to her senses after Yore's death.]]

* GoodBadBugs: In terms of game environment, the damaged Observatory is a completely distinct environment from the original Observatory, with a duplicate set of red chests imitating those in the undamaged Observatory. Due to an apparent oversight, the game doesn't check whether the red chests in the undamaged observatory were opened or not and simply offers the second set of red chests to players, allowing their treasures to be "re-collected".

* {{Squick}}: The Puff-Puff scene.

** FridgeHorror, because you realize that [[spoiler: eventually...they're GONNA find out what happened to Marion]].

** Goresby-Purrvis is also criminally obnoxious, given that he can attack twice and has his turn-skipping [[ThatOneAttack upward slice]] to keep you from retaliating, along with the fact that he [[LightningBruiser hits like a truck]] and can easily ''kill'' a character in one turn if he chooses to focus on them.

** Goresby-Purrvis is also criminally obnoxious, given that he can attack twice and has his turn-skipping [[ThatOneAttack upward slice]] to keep you from retaliating.

** Finding people to tag was a lot easier if you're the type to go to conventions. It was especially easy during the time Nintendo was actively promoting the game by giving out maps.

* CompleteMonster: [[SorcerousOverlord King Godwyn]] is the ruler of the Gittish empire who [[{{{{Patricide}} murdered his father]] and imprisoned his soul to take control, out of simple impatience. [[WarForFunAndProfit Leading the Gittish empire on a brutal expansionist war]] to kill countless people, Godwyn also imprisoned Celestrians in the prison known as TheOubliette, where they would have their powers drained after torture, including Corvus, who was tortured into a shell of himself. Upon his revival, Godwyn attempts to revive the dark dragon Barbarus to devastate the world until he reigns over what's left.

* InternetBackdraft: A Japanese-market case of this occurred back when the game was initially unveiled in 2006, because it was intended to be more like a co-op Action RPG. It's with this game more than any other that proved that the main formula can never be radically shifted for the ''Dragon Quest'' franchise without the dedicated fanbase backlashing to a supreme level, because by the time the game released it was right back to traditional turn-based combat.

** The Dreadmaster exploits Tension boosting and multiple attacks, meaning that the main character is just about ''stuck'' until he learns Back Atcha to reflect attacks.

* MostWonderfulSound: When Half-Inch works, it's very satisfying, and so is the sound effect.

** One specific outright edit, however, was the modification of the "[[{{Dragonball}} Mr. Popo]]" style face option. It now just resembles a [[MascotMook Slime]]'s face.

* BreatherBoss: After battling Goresby-Purrvis, some might consider King Godwyn to be this trope.

* CharacterTiers: [[http://shoryuken.com/forum/index.php?threads/tiers-for-non-fighting-games.13171/page-47#post-893782 This page.]][[note]]Check [[http://forums.shoryuken.com/discussion/13171/tiers-for-non-fighting-games/p47 Page 47]] if the link doesn't automatically go there.[[/note]]

* AlternateCharacterInterpretaion: Patty, who is generally depicted in one of two ways. In-game, she's bombastic, blunt, and borderline rude, but in the opening movie and the page image TV Tropes is currently using for YouAllMeetInAnInn, she's far more sultry and prone to lounging.

** The difficulty of a grotto boss essentially hinges on whether or not it knows Disruptive Wave. As ContractualBossImmunity means stat-lowering spells don't work on them, the only way to cause some real damage and survive is to buff yourself (Fource, Channel Anger, Tension, Kabuff...), which Disruptive Wave completely nullifies. Sages can learn it, but it will (at best) remove 20 tension from a boss.

* DemonicSpiders: Although technically a boss, Tyrantula otherwise fits this trope nicely, capable of entangling your characters and striking them all at once with its toxic venom.
** Boa Bishops. Good Almighty, Boa Bishops. These things get two goes per turn, have a hit-everything attack that can destroy mages in one or two turns, an automatic sleep attack, very much avert SquishyWizard ''and'' FragileSpeedster. And they show up in twos and threes, often accompanied by cyber spiders (DemonicSpiders themselves, what with their blinding and slowing moves, high attack, and needing magic to be killed) or freaky tikis (which lower resistance to StandardStatusEffects and also have a blinding move). Oh, and if that wasn't enough, they also chase you instead of going in a straight line, and their snake tentacles/feet give them extra width so you can't even dodge or go around. Even level 99 parties can be quickly killed by these things.

** SubvertedTrope: However, you might be mightily worn down from Purrvis...
%%* CharacterTiers: [[http://shoryuken.com/forum/index.php?threads/tiers-for-non-fighting-games.13171/page-47#post-893782 This page.]][[note]]Check [[http://forums.shoryuken.com/discussion/13171/tiers-for-non-fighting-games/p47 Page 47]] if the link doesn't automatically go there.[[/note]]