There is a very solid chance I would not be the Dragon Quest fan I am today without Electronic Gaming Monthly. Before I really fell for the online scene, that magazine was my gateway to the gaming world. I subscribed for three years and still remember some of my favorite articles and reviews. I remember the October 2006 issue, which released in something of a short Autumn lull. There were plenty of games in the review section, but the Game of the Month only scored an eight out of ten. It’s not a bad score, but it certainly is a low score for GotM, all things considered.
That game was Dragon Quest Heroes: Rocket Slime, and based on the short recommendation in that issue, I picked it up at my local K-Mart upon release. Then, over the next week, I fell head over healslime for that game — it’s still my absolute favorite on the Nintendo DS — and a fandom was birthed. I would go on to pick up every release of that era, from Swords to the oft-forgotten Dragon Quest Wars, but it wasn’t until 2010 that this fandom changed to a downright obsession. Because that is when Nintendo published Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies for the Nintendo DS. That title would end up changing the way I game for years to come.
Source: Destructoid Dragon Quest IX’s greatest innovation changed the way I game