Despite my qualms, I came away from the DQ9 booth with a feeling of relief. The simple, intrinsic single-player DQ experience remains completely unaffected by either hardware specs or multiplayer modes. I've played enough Dragon Quests to know that I'll enjoy my latest outing with Horii, Toriyama, and Koichi Sugiyama...in all likelihood, just as much as I have in the past. If the final version's multiplayer does turn out to be something great, it will just be icing on the cake.
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