Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies

In Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies, players begin their adventure as a city guardian who is sent to retrieve a sacred trees fruits, which have the power to grant wishes. Players travel the…

86 11 July 2009

Adventure Role-playing (RPG) Turn-based strategy (TBS) Fantasy Open world Sandbox

Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies is an adventure developed by LEVEL-5, released 11 July 2009 on Nintendo DS. The main story takes about 50 hrs to finish.

Verified 16 Oct 2026 Sources: IGDB , Wikipedia

What Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies is

Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies is an adventure game developed by LEVEL-5 and released in 2009. It was published by Nintendo. It is available on Nintendo DS only.

The premise, in the publisher's words

Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies is a 2009 role-playing video game developed by Level-5 and Square Enix for the Nintendo DS. Published by Square Enix in Japan in July 2009 and by Nintendo overseas the following year, it is the ninth mainline entry in the Dragon Quest series. The storyline follows the protagonist, a member of the angelic Celestrian race, after a disaster in their home scatters magical fruits across the mortal realm. While carrying over traditional gameplay from the rest of the series with turn-based battles, the game is the first Dragon Quest entry to feature a customizable player character, and the first to include a multiplayer mode, with the option of…

Description from Wikipedia · source

How it plays

It is played from a first person perspective. Its themes are fantasy, open world and sandbox. It is a single-player game with no multiplayer component. Available modes: Co-operative, Multiplayer and Single player.

Where it sits in the Dragon Quest series

Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies is the 45th of 122 entries we hold in the Dragon Quest series. The next entry was Dragon Quest III: The Seeds of Salvation in 2009. Its critic score of 86 is 13 points above the series average of 73. The highest-rated entry is Dragon Quest VII Reimagined at 92.

See all 122 Dragon Quest games in release order →

How it was received

Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies holds a critic score of 86 out of 100. That places it above 86% of the 7,527 rated adventure games in our database, which average 72. Games released in 2009 averaged 67, so it scored 19 points above the year average. Player ratings track closely with critics at 86, across 55 votes.

How long it takes, and what that costs

The main story runs about 50 hrs. Completing everything takes closer to 150 hrs, roughly 3 times the length of the critical path.

What it launched against

Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies launched on 11 July 2009, within three weeks of Trine Enchanted Edition, Wii Sports Resort, Trine and The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition. It reviewed better than 3 of the 4.

Released around the same time: Trine Enchanted Edition, Wii Sports Resort, Trine, The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition.

Cheats and codes

We have not confirmed any working cheat codes for Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies yet. Rather than reprint a list we have not tested, this section stays empty until one is verified.

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