Publisher/developer powerhouse Square Enix has announced that the next installment in its Dragon Quest RPG series is heading to Nintendo DS and will be released in 2007.
Dragon Quest IX - which sports a roughly translated subtitle of "Defender of the Stars" - is being developed by Level 5, the people behind the previous PS2 exclusive Dragon Quest VIII, and will feature 3D adventuring, an action-focused battle system and will let up to four players join forces in co-op multiplayer.
No further gameplay details have been released, although attendees at the Square Enix press conference in Japan (which was held to celebrate 20 years of the Dragon Quest series) were shown a playable demo of the game and told that the adventure would be a "true part of the series" rather than a spin-off or side-story.
The move from console to handheld is big news, and Nintendo's gain is certainly Sony's loss - Dragon Quest VIII was the fastest selling PS2 game in Japan, with over three million copies sold within its first week of release.
We just hope that - no disrespect to DS - Nintendo's handheld can handle the job.
December 12, 2006
