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Review: Dragon Quest VIII
- Title: Dragon Quest VIII
- Developer: Level 5
- Publisher: Square Enix
- System:PS2
- Score:9/10
Dragon Quest's focus is on entertaining and enjoyable gameplay, and so for the most part the game's plot can be forgiven for being fairly weak. The game's subtitle, "Journey of the Cursed King", is almost everything you need to know to understand what's going on. You, an unnamed heroic adventurer, are on the hunt for a power-hungry sorcerer. The spellcaster has stolen a potent magical artifact, and pair of royals present when the artifact was stolen are turned into a frog-demon thing and a horse. They hook up with you and your buddy Yangus (a burly fighter-type), in hopes of finding the spellcaster and reversing the magical effect that imprisons them. Along the way you encounter some typical RPG stereotypes (like the scantily clad mage Jessica), but for the most part that's the hook that drives the story. While this doesn't sound like much to go on, the NPC characterizations are so well-written and over-the-top that it's hard not to like them.
Really, it's surprisingly hard not to like everything about this game. Gameplay-wise, the latest installment of the Dragon Quest series is an unapologetic blast from the past. The game features menu-driven turn-based combat, endless hours of gameplay, a random encounter strewn overworld map, and plenty of slimes. You'd think this would tire a veteran RPG player, but the quality of the game's presentation and the obvious effort the designers put into the game's systems is inspiring. The overworld map, a tired warhorse in the gaming world, is a beautifully rendered naturescape. Beautiful glens, soaring caverns, and imposing ruins all lie hidden within the gameworld. The mini-map, a constant companion in most games, is blissfully absent. Without any easy-access artificial assistance, the temptation to explore is overwhelming, and can lead to some interesting hard-to-find creatures and treasures.
This sense of exploration is only broken by the occasional encounter with wandering monsters. The pace of encounters is well spaced out, to ensure that you won't have to fight through several encounters just to proceed a short way down a trail. The combat is a traditional RPG line-up, with enemies on one side and heroes on the other. Players navigate an intuitive menu to instruct their characters in who and how to fight, but attacks are far from the bland or ordinary. Both monsters and heroes have an array of visually interesting attacks and spells to take out opposing forces. Giant tongues seem to be a weapon of choice for the enemies, who have an array of quirky appearances and behaviors. Besides the title-identifying slimes, there are a bevy of beasts and monsters to face down. Some of the early beasts actually forgo their turns to calmly lick their fur. This variety of choice, animation, and behavior ensures that even the most jaded RPG fan is unlikely to get bored with combat. Trying to one-button push your way through combat, if you do start to glaze over, will teach you the error of your ways quickly. The challenge level here is high, and you can expect to wipe more than once at low levels. The tenacity exhibited by a gang of cute little kitty cats can easily end in tragedy.
That gang of cats, like everything else in the game, have distinct sensibilities conveyed by their unique visual design. The whole title has a beautiful cell-shaded look, and an anime quality that brings the personality of each beast and NPC to the fore. Dragon Ball Z designer Akira Toriyama helmed the look of this title, and the result is a naturalistic landscape and highly distinctive characters. The audio environment is stirring as well. Adventuring music takes center stage, with the occasional more thoughtful piece thrown in to highlight some of the game's quieter moments. Despite the tissue-paper plot, the voice acting is top-notch. The laughable whining and cowardice of the King and Yangus's thick brogue should set the standard for RPG cohorts in future titles. The dialogue's localization is also tremendous, with some jokes managing to be bitingly clever. It's hard not to appreciate the attention to detail spent here, as the inordinate amount of time you'll spend with these characters almost requires a sense of connection and empathy. While they may not make you cry, you'll definitely enjoy spending time with these likable non-people.
Dragon Quest VIII is not an evolution in the genre, nor is it likely to convert a dyed-in-the-wool anti-RPG nut. It's a challenging old-school game that appeals directly to traditional fans, and does so with personality, levity, and a lot of style. The hack and slash, turn-based combat system has never been so lovingly displayed as it is in this title. If you ever find yourself pining for those long-past grind sessions, gaining levels outside of Elfland by slaying ogres, this is a game you simply must play.
"Despite the tissue-paper plot, the voice acting is top-notch. The laughable whining and cowardice of the King and Yangus's thick brogue should set the standard for RPG cohorts in future titles."
Just a fair warning: The voice acting is very over the top in a cartoonish way. If "top-notch voice acting" means realistic and dramatic to you, you'll be sorely disappointed with the voice acting in DQVIII. The accents and the content of the dialog is so silly and uninteresting, that I ended up skipping story sequences (a major RPG sin in my opinion) after a dozen hours of the same crap. You've been warned.
Great game otherwise.
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The graphics engine for this game is based on the Dark Cloud series of games. They were known for their highly stylized graphics, and they are a little old at this point. The first one is from 2001. You're seeing a combination of those things. Plus, it looks better when stuff is moving. It wasn't really designed for stills.
If you ask me, they could have used 8-bit sprites, as long as the gameplay was good.
You mean like Kung Fu Chess? http://www.kungfuchess.com/
I bought DQVIII the day it came out, and have never regretted doing so. The graphics are beautiful, the plotline is engrossing, the characters are lovable, and the environment is believable. The only complaint I have is that some of the songs sound like they were recorded in an echo chamber. Apart from that, I love it.
I am scientifically inaccurate.
If memory serves, Toriyama's done the design on all of the DQ titles... which was vastly more palatable back in the 8-bit days, when you couldn't tell how atrocious his "distinctive" character design was. He's also responsible for the aesthetic of Chrono Trigger - a game that plays great but in my opinion looks absolutely horrible: his grotesque "anatomy" and facial design seriously hampered my enjoyment of the title.
The lesson here is that a "distinctive" look and feel can alienate gamers as well as attract them - I won't play or watch anything modern that Toriyama's involved with simply because I just can't stand to look at it.
The puff-puff girl can be found in Dragon Warrior I & II for GBC
I'm starting to think GNU is the problem with "GNU/Linux" these days.
If you RTFA, you'd see that "Dragon Ball Z designer Akira Toriyama helmed the look of this title, and the result is a naturalistic landscape and highly distinctive characters."
I am scientifically inaccurate.
"The U.S. first saw the series on the Nintendo Entertainment System as Dragon Warrior, and some of the most hardcore elements were dumbed down for our squishy American palates."
You seem to be confusing this with the Final Fantasy series. The only changes made to the first Dragon Warrior was an improvement in graphics to make it look as pretty as Dragon Quest II ("ZOMG, I can face in four directions! Look, a shoreline!"). Later games had you dragging along ghosts instead of coffins when somebody died, but Enix didn't pull any of that EasyType crap on us like Squaresoft.
Which is why it didn't sell. Dragon Quest never apologized for being Dragon Quest.
You can turn the voice acting off. The Japanese version had no voice acting at all, and was a bit better off because of that. Just turn the Voice setting to 0 in the menu and you'll not miss out on anything else. The only difference is that the prerendered cutscenes have voice encoded into them, but there are only a handful in the game anyhow.
Akira Toriyama has done the character design and artwork for every Dragon Quest game in the series.
:)
Yuji Horii has done the storyline and scenarios for every game in the series.
Koichi Sugiyama has done the music for every game in the series.
They, combined, are the "DQ Team", and are responsible for the entire series, having come together to create it after enjoying Wizardry and Ultima, but thinking they were too complex for the mainstream.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon_Quest
In addition Toriyama and Horii did quite a bit of work on Chrono Trigger -- Toriyama did the art and designs, Horii did the storyline and scenarios, and several experts from the original Final Fantasy team did the battle engine, music, etc.
That's why CT was so great -- it was basically a new spin on the Dragon Warrior series of games.
Bewarned, even though DQ8 is arguably the easiest game in the DQ series, it's still leaps and bounds above the difficulty arc of modern Final Fantasy games. If you've never played a DQ game before you're in for a treat, but you *will* die a few times.
For those slightly more lazy but just as ignorant as me: Godwin's Law