After so many Dragon Quest games centered around its core party, it's odd to get one we're but a loose cog in the mechanism of the plot. Our hero is a Celestrian - essentially an angel - assigned to the small village of Angel Falls, but when a cataclysm happens in their home, they find themselves cast down to the world below and stripped of their Celestrian powers. They're then forced to journey around the world, helping people to restore their faith and send the powerful energy of "benevolessence" back to the Celestrian world above.

I actually like the plot here despite the lack of any characterization to our entirely player-created party, plus there's also a really robust job system to boot, which I love! However, the game wants you to engage not just with its main narrative but also a pseudo-MMORPG style system of extremely grindy quests. If you can get into these you'll find Dragon Quest IX to have massive longevity far after the game concludes its narrative, but I found them off-putting and time-wasting.