Hey, Odin Sphere is cool. And so is Dragon Quest IX.
I haven't put in as much time as Weegee (I'm guessing he's ankle-deep in the post-game), but it's been incredibly enjoyable thus far. I really like how the combat flows; it's not insanely fast like some JRPGs I've been playing recently, but with your characters actually moving around the battlefield to make their moves, it's more dynamic than those games. I also really like the implementation of the vocation system, though given how useless some of the abilities your characters can learn are, I sort of wish you could respec.
Also, alchemy in this one is a *****; you have to go around the world several times, hunting down every spot where you can find ingredients, visiting every treasure map dungeon, buying every item you can get your hands on, doing every quest. And then even after you've found every recipe scattered throughout the world, some combinations can only be discovered through trial and error - though, thankfully, you get your ingredients back if they don't make something, so you won't lose your Yggdrasil dew or something trying to figure out what you've got left to make.
Regarding the multiplayer stuff, thanks to Nintendo wanting to heavily push this game they published, Dragon Quest IX is getting Pokémon-like events; there's a GameStop event this Saturday, and a Best Buy event next Saturday, both giving out special treasure maps. Depending on where you live, that might help with the problem of needing to find a lot of people to tag with. But even with that, it's definitely not as easy as in Japan.