Why are there no good walkthoughs?! ~UPDATED~

I've said it before, but I will say it again: I love Dragon Quest! RPG's may not be for everybody, but I think they are a genre that will continue to thrive even when other genres may wane.
I don't know how many hours I logged playing Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King on Playstation, but we're talking months of my life dedicated to completing that game. Twice.
The thing that really helped me beat the game twice was my trusty guidebook published by Brady Games. I used that book so much it literally fell apart and I had to transfer it to a 3-ring binder. The guidebook was much more helpful than anything I found online. 

Boyfriend bought me Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies for my 3DS a while ago to cheer me up after a bad day.  I was super excited! I figured that the Internet and the gaming community have changed quite a bit since DQVIII was released on Playstation 2 and that finding a helpful walk-thru for DQIX if I ran into trouble spots or couldn't find an alchemy recipe would be no problem. Between the hundreds of forums online and websites like IGN, GameFAQs, and the thousands of Wikia articles, you would logically think that somewhere out there would be a complete free guide or walk-thru or decent hint page.  Stupidly, I thought so too.

Anyone who has tried to look up a game walk-thru online knows that often you have to weed through the crappy ones written by people with grammar like a 10-year-old before you find one that is complete and works for you. This being said, there are some great wikia articles out there to help with tricky spots in games. (The Fallout Wiki is amazing. Kudos to all the countless authors who contributed to that!) 

I'm almost through the main story arc in DQIX at this point (that pesky thing called a "day job" keeps interfering.)  I think I only have one or two major bosses left to battle, so it's just grinding and treasure hunting at this point so I don't get my ass handed to me in the final boss battle. The problem is this:  The game was released in North America in July of 2010; it's been out for almost 2 years, and any of the trustworthy walk-thrus online on IGN or GameFAQs are incomplete-they only go up to the halfway point in the main story!  Well, that's helpful.

I've read mixed reviews on Amazon about the DQIX game guide, so I don't want to pay full price, but with the lack of helpful info on the interwebs has made me frustrated, so I'm caving and buying a used copy of the guidebook.
I'll let you know how it turns out.

UPDATED: 3/13/12 My game guide for DQIX finally came in the mail today!

I'll let you know what I think about it. Thank you to The Game Kingz for your excellent service! (No, they did not pay me to say that.)


UPDATED: 3/15/12 I'm not overly impressed with the guidebook thus far. Brady Games really dropped the ball on this one. I'm reeeeeeally glad I didn't pay full retail price for a brand new copy. I'll dedicate a separate post to my review of Dragon Quest IX game and the accompanying guidebook, otherwise this would be the longest amendment/update to a post in the history of history.

My First Time...

The first time I played a video game I was about six years old, it was a Nintendo Entertainment System and the game was Super Mario Brothers. It was in my childhood friend, Andrew’s basement, and it was a magical day. So magical, in fact, I can look past all the other punk things that little boys do to “torture” little girls at that age, and even for leading me astray later on with his game system advice for me (but we’ll get to that in a minute). At the age of seven, one of my girl friends at school got a Nintendo for Christmas. Well, really, it was supposed to be shared by her and her younger brother, but when I came over to play after school, we took it over and owned on Super Mario Bros/Duck Hunt.

My parents finally realized that I should have my own game system; otherwise they would never see me again, as I would constantly be at my friends’ houses. So I got a Game Boy as a birthday gift. I enjoyed Tetris but I LOVED Paperboy. I only got a handful of games, because gaming was still sort of new to my parents and relatives and I couldn’t afford to buy my own on my $2-a-week allowance for doing my chores. Also, even as a seven-year-old, I balked at 1) Nintendo’s attempt to appeal to girls with their games with Barbie-themed platformers and 2) My relative’s assumptions that I ever liked Barbie Dolls for more than a hot minute and bought me Barbie Game Girl. 

Oh, don’t get me wrong, I played that hell out of that game, but even at the tender age of 7, I knew how ridiculous it was. Maybe at a later date I will go into how sexist the game actually was, but for now, this is a story about growing up as a girl gamer before “girl gamer” was a thing.

My first console was a Sega Genesis. This goes back to Andrew. He was tired of his NES (why, I know not) and wanted to get rid of it/sell it to get a Sega Genesis. I tried to convince my parents to buy his NES and they seriously considered it, until (bum-bum-bum) Andrew convinced me that I would be stupid to want his NES and I should get a Sega too. Well, as a scrawny little tomboy growing up in a boy’s world where I already felt the need to prove myself just so the boys would let me play Ninja Turtles, American Gladiators, video games, and go sledding down the big hills with them, I wanted so badly to have the best console to run with the big dogs. This was my first introduction to the budding console war of the 90’s.

Amazingly, “Santa” brought me my Sega Genesis (2) for Christmas 1993. It was a glorious morning filled with glorious Sonic the Hedgehog. I couldn’t tell you any other presents I got that Christmas. I do know that when my parents separated not-too-long after that Christmas, gaming became an outlet and a comfort to me by means of escape and venting my frustration. 
Even when the kids who had SNESes were snubbing me, I still felt a loyalty to my Genesis. It was my first. To this day, my Genesis (and all of my games I saved so diligently to buy) is sitting safely in a drawer under a PS3, XBOX360, NES, SNES, and GameCube on the entertainment unit in my living room, where we break it out every now and then to relive some happy childhood memories.

So, how long have I been a girl gamer? I think I was always a gamer; the video game medium just wasn’t readily available to me right out of the womb like it is for kids today. (Did I just say “kids today”? Ugh. I feel old.) My gaming days started out with Candy Land and UNO, but have grown to encompass a slew of board games, console games, PC games, card games, and dice games (including ye olde D&D).

Thanks to crafster.org for the Duck Hunt Lamp image.