Trivia / Dragon Quest IX

• Killer App: Sold over five million units on the Nintendo DS, exceeding even some first-party Nintendo franchises.
• Marth Debuted in "Smash Bros.": With downloadable character and cameos from the entire series becoming slowly available over the course of a year (July 2010 - July 2011), it's a fun look back at the history of the series as a whole - wait, Dragon Quest VI? That hadn't been released outside of Japan yet, and "Ashlynn of Sorceria" was the third one up. Hence, she came over before her game did. (Another character from VI, Carver, averted this by making his cameo after VI's US release).
• Newbie Boom: Much like its predecessor, a lot of Western fans got their introduction to the Dragon Quest series through this game, making it one of the most popular DS titles in 2010.
• What Could Have Been: When initially unveiled back in 2006, IX had a very different approach in the form of being a genuine hack-and-slash co-op Action RPG, with players fulfilling different class roles via their own custom characters and dungeon-crawling or wandering the fields cutting down anything that got in their path. While it's unsure as to whether there were development issues or it was entirely due to the backlash from the Japanese fanbase, ultimately this entire concept was ditched partway through development and returned back to traditional Dragon Quest gameplay, despite retaining the co-op and customization aspects.

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