A DS open on your lap, a sacred fruit to bring back, and a hundred hours gone without warning.

When the community picks on instinct, Dragon Quest IX comes out ahead of two thirds of games. Solid. But the profile gets interesting elsewhere. Attachment goes through the roof: ahead of 95% of titles. So does the soundtrack, ahead of 89%. That's the heart of this game, what it leaves in you long after. Against that, immediate fun collapses to 17%, and controller feel stays low, around 30%. The tension is clear: people love this game deeply, but nobody describes it as the one that keeps you up until 3am. A turn-based RPG on DS is savoured slowly, it doesn't snap in your hands. Stay careful all the same, each line rests on few votes.

In a genre now chasing big spectacular narratives, DQ IX commits to gentleness, the routine of its battles, the company you keep. That's exactly why it sticks to you.

So, who's it for? For you if you love long, warm adventures, the ones you leave reluctantly and whose themes you hum years later. Much less so if you want a nervous jolt in the first hour.