Dragon Quest IX/Headscratchers

• How were the party members able to get through the barriers in Gortress without getting hurt? The Hero was able to pass through because of the Gittish Seal he had, but the party members didn't have one of their own.
  • Holding hands or something so they count as one person? All of them kept a finger on the Seal?
  • Strictly speaking, as far as the story goes your party members other than the player character don't even exist. It's best to think of the plot as the story of you, the Celestrian who's as strong as four people.
    • Except for the fact Sterling acknowledges them.
      • Okay, so how about the Celestian who has magic dissociative identity disorder and his other three identities are solid? Or something?
  • For that matter, the barrier is 2d and does nothing to prevent someone from just climbing the nearby ledge
• The ending kinda got my goat. So let me get this straight, in order to finally defeat Corvus, I have to demote myself to a mortal and sacrifice my opportunity to Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence, the way my character has lived their entire life for the chance to do, just so I can bypass my magical inability to attack a superior? And for my sacrifice, I'm condemned to roam the Earth and right the wrongs with no foreseeable reward? And the Villain is redeemed, forgiven and gets to ascend and live happily ever after with his deceased girlfriend?
  • Shut up, its heartwarming. >:O
  • Plus, it's a classic Heroic Sacrifice scenario combined with And the Adventure Continues.... Also, Dragon Quest Battle Road shows IX's Hero as a Celestrian, so you could always reason that he eventually earns his full powers back.
  • And who's to say this isn't exactly what the hero wanted? He has no stated motive, but he's often described as being pure of heart. He may have enjoyed his job protecting mortals more than the perks of his position, and come to love the "wander the Earth as a hero" bit even more. And since it was a Fygg that made him mortal, he could have theoretically used the post-game Fygg to become a Celestrian again. Instead, he just wished to be able to see the Starflight Crew again.
    • The hero is the player's avatar. I wanted to Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence. Though I suppose the postgame spelunking and legacy bosses and whatnot are pretty badass.
• Now how in the heck do your partners travel with you when you're on the Starflight express?
  • They apparently catch up to you after you land... "Your friends come into view". Maybe they just ride in the caboose, though. Or Stella can do the whole pixie dust thing.
  • Maybe the magic system lets them warp to you with the teleport spell as long as you're technically still all in the same party?
  • Umm, maybe the same trick that allows you to summon multiplayer party members.
  • My theory is that they went off on their own, tripped, fell into a Plot Hole and then ended up on the other side where you needed them.
• Related to the above, I know, wouldn't be a fair gameplay challenge (specially since my character was a sage) if literally only Celestrians or part Celestrians could enter the starflight express to go to the realm of the almighty...how come your party members could follow The Hero in with no trouble yet they couldn't before?
  • My thought in a separate paragraph..Maybe part of the Hero's wish with the Fygg was that his/her three chosen companions would gain temporary Celestrian Powers as well.
• When you get put in the Gortress, why don't they take any of your equipment away? I know it's a game, but still...
  • That bugged me as well. I was running around the entire place in Dragon Warrior armor and a huge sword strapped to my back.
  • They have a barrier that, as far as they know, cannot be pierced by physical or magical force. There's literally no point in rebelling without a way past that barrier, so they don't bother disarming prisoners- the most a rebellion could possibly do, as far as they know, is get rid of the people bringing in the food. The only reason you can bypass the barrier is because they don't realize that they're fighting the war a second time, and that as a result there's a seal from the first time not accounted for- if they knew that there was a seal not in their possession, they would have searched you.
• How'd Aquila & Apus miss that one last Fygg? No, I'm not talking about the one The Hero go that allowed him/her to become mortal and fight Corvus...I'm talking about the second one that Lleviathan had and allowed them to join in with the Starflight Express.
  • If the gratitude of all the mortals you've helped can create a Fygg, maybe it was created from the gratitude of Corvus and Serena towards the hero? That would explain it falling from the sky in the ending.
  • Even Celestria is surprised to see you back in the Realm of Almighty after eating the ninth fygg. Which means that even the Yggdrasil Tree didn't know about the final fygg.
• It's called the Gittish Empire, and yet Godwyn's title is "King". Uhhh....?
  • Truth in Television. The British Empire had Queen Victoria, right?
    • Her Majesty Victoria, by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland Queen, Defender of the Faith, Empress of India.
      • But not of Britain.
        • And she was Queen of an Empire for 39 years before she was made Empress of India.
• Why did the Fyggs screw up everybody's wishes so much? Most of 'em were genuine and heartfelt, and not selfish or corrupt...
  • Power corrupts? And in a few cases, it wasn't necessary the Fygg's gift that went totally awry -- like the second one, at Port Llaffan. Dylan was reborn in a form that enabled him to continue providing for his daughter; the real problem was how lazy the villagers got, and Mayor Bryce's selfish Greed. And Bloomingdale was working out alright until those greedy bandits decided to kidnap Marion... Maybe the Fyggs have a sin tolerance level that gets overloaded really easily.
  • I figured that the fyggs were simply not meant for mortal hands. Mortals being somewhat corrupt could have affected some wishes. Jack of Alltrades biggest fear was his flock not mastering any trades and changing their careers too much. That is to say, he didn't want his flocks becoming 'jacks of all trades and masters of none'. Which may seem like pure wish, but at the same time his wish is about controlling people's choices. So the fygg being super-powerful grants his wish to the extreme. I guess the idea is every wish made by a mortal has a small seed of corruption in it.
  • I dunno...they all seem to have gotten what they wanted (except Jack, who did seem to go kind of nuts, and Drak, who...sort of got what he wanted, sort of didn't)...they just failed to think through the consequences Dylan, Mason, Marion, Sir Sternivus, or didn't fully understand the situation Marionette, Drak, Sarantsatsral.
• Why the heck doesn't the game have a "randomize character appearance" button when creating new characters in the Quester's Rest? Small complaint, I know, but I liked the 3 random guys I got at the start of the game, except for one's name (Davide, which felt like a typo, but is probably correct) -- I ended up using a dice roller app, instead. ~~ KiTA
• Why does falling from the Sanctuary make Celestrians visible to mortals? It happens to both Protagonist and Corvus. And what happened to Protagonist's wings and halo? Corvus fell and got visible, and kept his.
  • There were feathers flying everywhere during Protagonist's descent -- that was probably more than Perpetual Molt, because they could have easily been damaged by one of those energy blasts. As for the visibility question... they normally use a portal to enter the Protectorate, right? Maybe that's part of what actually renders them invisible to most mortals. Falling =/= passing through the portal, so if the portal confers any extra benefits, they wouldn't get those...
  • Yeah, this bothered me too. So much so, that I thought the loss of the protagonist's wings and halo were actually his reward. I interpreted the Celestrian's 'salvation' as them being turned into mortals... at least until I found out otherwise. I figured that the Celestrians were corrupt mortals and were forced to serve mortals until they redeemed their actions, but were unable to remember what they did to deserve the punishment. I continued to believe this until the Reveal. This was supported by the fact Greygnarl's monster log entry states he dislikes Celestrians for some reason, but in-game he dislikes the smell of the Gittish empire. This isn't a WMG because it's ultimately proven wrong, but honestly the game never does explain the protagonist's Cosmic Power Failure.
  • Actually, if you take a look, Corvus is missing his Halo- and one of the people you first talk to in the Observatory mentions that the Halo is where all of your power from the Almighty is stored.
• Can anyone tell me what was up with Batsureg's naming theme? In a game filled to the brim with Incredibly Lame Puns, all that had to mean something, but it just looked like foreign-ish gibberish to me.
  • Might have been the point, seeing as the construction of sentences in Batsureg seems a bit odd and stilted. Maybe the joke is that there is no joke?
• What was the rest of your party doing during the first fight with Corvus? That plot point just falls apart when you consider that 75% of your party isn't being held back by an inherent disability. Corvus hadn't regenerated his Halo either, so it's probably not that they couldn't see him.
  • Canonically speaking, for plot purposes the rest of your party is supposed to be your own alternate universe equivalents from alternate universes, aka three other players, who, as alternates of the hero, would also have the same problem. Why they can't fight when they're the less canonical Player Mooks can be chalked up to Cutscene Incompetence. There's also a WMG that they're ghosts bound to physical form by your celestrian power, giving them your own limitations.
    • Maybe the Player Mooks are also alternate universe versions of you just like multiplayer partners, and they can't say anything to the player? It's not like multiplayer partners say anything in-character...
      • ....Where the hell did you get the idea that every party member besides the player canonically comes from the Raportal?!
        • The fact that they can't attack Corvus, for one. The fact that they're wholly customizable and the game is explicitly made to encourage multiplayer as much as possible, for another. As far as I can tell, you're supposed to play with your friends, but the Player Mooks system was put in just in case, the way fighting games are made for a minimum of two people, but have AI just in case. The fact that they're so generic in a series that usually has Troperiffic sidekick characters, combined with the fact that you design them in the exact same way as the hero, indicates to me that they're just placeholders.
  • Maybe they were distracted by seeing what you were going through? Or intimidated? Or Genre Savvy enough to recognize a Hopeless Boss Fight when they see it?
  • Maybe when he flared black everyone got blown away except you because you're a Celestrian? Or he whacked the other guys away when you undid the chains?
• OK, Erinn runs the inn, Patty lets you build your party, Sellma sells you stuff...what in the world does Ginny have to do with banking? (The only explanation I can think of requires it to be her name in Japanese...which, I suppose it may be, but it'd be kind of odd if she was the only one who was...)
  • Yeah, I woulda called her Jemma. At least then, it'd sound like Gem.
  • Say her name aloud. It sounds exactly the same as guinea… a British coin.
    • I'm totally with the above troper. Did anyone else notice the use of "blimey" and "mates" in the beginning of the game?
  • Except it's more likely pronounced "gin" like a gin and tonic, or like Ginny from Harry Potter. All this troper has is... well, you keep your G(old) in the Inn... that or, since she can't join your party later, isn't considered important enough amongst the inn characters to have a punny name.
  • Ginny should be running a bar and serving gin... I expect that's what her parents expected when they named her, it's just how this world works. Then they could have someone named Goldie run the bank.
  • When you first meet, Ginny mentions that Patty gave her the same "You can save the bar and us all!" speech when she first convinced her to sign on. So maybe she was running the inn/bar at first, and it just wasn't working out.
    • Ahem. Ginny.
• With the Metal Slime gear, there's a piece of gear for every part of the body...except there's no pants. Am I the only one creeped out by this?
  • No. No you are not.
  • The Metal Slime gear is noted for being as hard as, well, Metal Slimes. How would you move in stiff solid pants?
  • When has weight ever affected an RPG character? Besides, all the other armour sets have kneecaps in the legs section. They coulda just done that. Maybe it's a poke at people who want to get 100% Completion?
• As a first-time Dragon Quest player, I have to admit that the Divination spell bugs me a little. It seems... well, outdated. I can't really think of a good reason not to put "exp to next level" on the rest of your character info screen. Also, what bugs me is when I went to a message board and found a topic with a similar complaint. Other posters then jumped down the guy's throat, and probably the best response I saw was that "Dragon Quest likes to be old-school." Okay, that's a decent response, but the rest of the game seems fairly fresh and modern to me, with the monsters, legacy bosses/characters, and equipment from previous games being all that really connects them. It's certainly more advanced than the older ones, why does this one thing have to stay the same? Also, I read a response that other games were doing the same thing- I don't know of many modern games like that, but that still doesn't automatically justify it. The worst response I saw was someone saying that, if you take out Divination, you might as well take out churches, have statuses healed after every battle, have your party healed after every battle, take out armor and weapons, take out the world map and basically have a menu between locations to teleport you everywhere, and making it real-time instead of turn-based. Look, I've heard of Jumping Off the Slippery Slope arguments before, but seriously... what? Or am I just now finding out that the Dragon Quest fanbase is as rude and pissy as the Pokemon and Doctor Who fandoms that I'm most accustomed to?
  • Unfortunately, Grandfather Clause will do that to a fanbase. Always knowing "exp to next level" was considered an unnecessary form of cheating when DQ 1 was released, and Enix has stuck to tradition ever since. Combined with the Ruined FOREVER and Unpleasable Fanbase issues and yes, you have a pissy fanbase who claims "it's oldskool so it's awesome!"
  • I consider it to be very useful, however. "Hmm, I need to gain a few more levels, but I'm bleeding pretty badly. Should I go back to town and heal, or risk killing one more Metal Slime? Lemme just check how much XP I need to level up; if there's a lot more to go, I'll go back to town and heal up/save. If not, one more Metal Slime!"
• The shields man, the shields. First of all, the characters hold them wrong. They hold them so that the logo is facing the wrong way when they're in the blocking position, which really bugs me for some reason. Also, despite the fact that your character almost always has their weapon sheathed outside of combat, they never sheathe their shields; they're always just sitting there on their arms. Doesn't it get in the way? Speaking of getting in the way, during certain class abilities it shows the weapon missing from their hand, but the shield just stays there. Why do the shields never move!? Why!? Why!? WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!! *headsplosion*
• Okay, so you need a fygg to turn you mortal so you can fight Corvus because Celestrians can't go against their superiors. Fine, I can accept that. The problem is that afterward, you need to find a second fygg to negate the first one. All the other fyggs could be removed without killing the entity that had consumed them. For that matter, even when one of the fyggs was cut up and eaten, you still recover the whole thing. So why can't you just give up the powers you gained in the first place?
• The fight with Aquila is a hopless boss fight because celestialians can't attack their superiors. Except he's not, the start of the game has you promoted to his exact rank (which he conceded, so the inverse should be true).
  • Aquila is still older and was a Guardian longer than the player character, so maybe that's what they meant.
  • Aquila is also the Guardian of the entire Protectorate while you're just the Guardian of one tiny village.
• Why does a female character need a one of a kind magic trinket to wear a pant-suit?
  • Same reason a male character needs a one of a kind magic trinket to don a skirt?
• Why are the "male" versions of the DQ 3 hero's gear sex exclusive? Didn't the male and female hero share a sprite set (Read: both wear that outfit) until the remake?
• Celestrians physically cannot defy their superiors... so, rather than eating a magic fruit that takes away your awesome supernatural powers, why not just have Apus Major promote you? At that point in the game the protagonist is pretty much the Guardian of the planet as it is, and they'd certainly done enough to earn it. Or, alternately, why not just wish on the fygg to simply be able to break that rule?
  • Presumablly AM's comment that even he is ranked under the Big Bad means he can't promote you that high.
  • But that still makes no sense. Why would it be ranked only by power? By that logic, the hero should be above Apus Major as well. And I got the implication that Apus Major was put in his position by Zenus himself, so... how did Corvus go over God's head in that case? Hell, why did Corvus still count as a Celestrian? He'd lost his halo and wings, and he was more of a monster than anything else. Not to mention there's still the question of why the fygg wouldn't allow one to break that rule.
  • Well Corvus didn't exactly disobey Zenus. He just nuked Heaven before anyone could tell him not to.
• Why does Doctor Phlegming have to apologize to the town? He was busy researching how to save their lives while they kept talking him down. If anything, they should apologize to him!
  • He's apologizing for keeping himself locked away, and making them worry about the man who saved them.
• Aside from the on-going mystery of the Gortress Guerillas (Digby on the tower has 'nowhere to go back to'?), one point about returning to the Gortress post-game: the ex-prisoners/random travellers have opened a restaurant?!
• So you become mortal to fight the last boss, and presumably your Celestrian-ness is leaking throughout the last dungeon. By the time the ending rolls around you can no longer see the supernatural. So...how do you talk to the ghost in Porth Llaffan to figure out how to kick off the postgame?
• For that matter, if Sterling is a divine engineer that disappears from your view along with Stella and the train...how was he able to lead the revolt (of mortals) in the Goretress?