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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.
How can you lose? This game proves to be a traditional RPG style game that I grew up on plus the modern graphics, control and AI that provides a better challenge and experience. And plus you get a playable demo of the next FF in the franchise. If you don't buy it, you're a nazi.
Where all think alike, no one thinks very much.
I haven't played games in years, but I looked at the screen shots out of curiousity. The grass looks blurry to me, like it's got major motion blur. Is this normal for these new fangled 3d games? Maybe it's just me but it looks really strange.
"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.
A B A C A B B
This is an excellent review, thanks. If I had a PS2, this would have confirmed my purchase.
Square Enix, the company that founded the genre, spits in the eye of progress with Dragon Quest VIII.
You know, just because people have come up with new gameplay mechanics doesn't mean we should abandon the old ones. It's about time some tried and true turn based RPG came back on the market. The game market has grown, and there's room for the old style and the new style out there. I think it's fair to say that the old turn based style games offer different types of strategy than the newer real time games, and I was getting a little tired of every new RPG testing my reflexes and jacking up the pace. Those are good games, but sometimes you want to slow down and relax a bit, or add in the increased complexity that having turns allows.
If somebody came up with a real-time version of a game like chess that was sufficiently fun that it became popular, I bet people would still play the old version too. Why should video games be any different. While they're at it, let's get some good old style 2D (the environments, not the graphics nescessarily) platformers back out there for non-handheld systems. Perhaps something that uses the Symphony of the Night engine. Maybe the Revolution will bring some of these types of games back.
This is the first game since Final Fantasy VII that I was unable to put down from the moment I got it. It's an excellent RPG all round.
The game really is all the reviewer says. It has an old school charm that I find irresistable. The first time I found cheerfully floating Drakies, I laughed out loud, it was too perfect. People may be skeptical of the cell shaded look, but it works oddly well for this title. It fits the lighthearted gameplay and makes me nostalgic for the blocky sprites of the old NES games.
And lest we forget, Jessica is rather, err, bouncy... o.o
Government's view of the economy: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving,regulate it. If it stops moving, subsidize it.
or if it's because it has a refreshingly simple character system. You have a couple of easily understandable stats, when you level you have 5 different abilities you can choose from 4 weapons, and one unique ability per character, and the story isn't some over the top ridiculously unable to be understood thing. There's no sphere grid system to confuse people. There aren't 20 different stats to try and understand. It's just straight forward, and yet still deep and entertaining. The characters are great, and there's only four, so you don't have to worry about missing out on plotline for a character, or keeping everyone's level equal. Really the only complaint I have about it is the fact that there is a bunch of running around and fighting in order to level, just in order to beat the next dungeon.
And that's not a Dragon Quest/Warrior game - that was Final Fantasy!
The better analogy would have been fighting Wyverns in a swamp while carrying Princess Gwaelin back to King Lorik...
After the first hour or two, does anyone really notice the eye-candy graphics? If not, why not just skip that part alltogether and play a MUD for free?
Endless zombie gore
pales before the epic thrill
of asterisk spam
-A haiku for MUDs.
Trying to use sarcasm in text-based forums does not work.
I thought I noticed the handiwork of Akira Toriyama.
I did a little research and he designed the monsters and characters
"The unicode stuff in the latest version is working fabulously well. My russian mafia friends are ecstatic."
Is this the first American-released game to have the puff-puff girl? I don't remember one in 7.
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.
"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.
As others have noted, this more FF1 than DQ1. Additionally, you didn't fight ogres outside elfland; you go to the top of the peninsula just northeast of Pravoka. Due to the map design and the way the monster distribution is laid out in a grid across the map, in these two squares you find monsters from across the next continent. With decent buff skills, and the fact the Pravoka area is very early in the game, you can gain levels very quickly here.
(The Dawn of Souls port for the GBA makes this even more trivial with the addition of MP instead of static spell counts. I was able to complete the game in barely 13 hours with 999999 gold, level 60+ characters, and all the items, using this method followed by harvesting the dungeons out of order for items and exp.)
In Dragon Warrior, you could gain levels very quickly by fighting Metal Slimes, which gave tons of exp and had very little HP... but were very hard to hit.
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
...and the best arguement why many "old school" ideas should be left at home. DQ8 is simply not challenging because they embraced many old school concepts instead of washing their hands of it or improving upon them.
DQ8 combat engine is simplistic. I mean dirt simple to the point you can predict with "in your head math" whether you can win the fight or should flee before damage is even exchanged. This leaves a system where the only way one can challenge the player is by trying to use "Surprise! Your Dead!" rare super attacks or the equally rare chance that given 4 targets, the size of your party, they will all chose to hit just one. Neither of these senarios features much intelgence nor does it dictate any strategy or stance player should take (beyond "overwhelming forces"). In any event, you are left with no strategy to play with. No tactics to leverage. No action to minimize risks or maximize bonuses. Simply put: there are no real decisions in DQ8. You either determin in the first round if you can win or leave.
DQ8 tries to promote mindless "grinding". This sort of aimless wandering around hoping for random encounters is an artifact any level based system which DQ8 is strongly tied into. Nominally, grinding happens when a player "lucks out" or out flanks the game to arrive a place the game didn't content on seeing at this particular time or level. The problem with DQ8 and their guerilla style strategy is that by the time you disembark a city, travel to the dungeon entrance, work your way to the bottom of a dungeon, spending resources and energy along the way to do so, it is too late to show the player "Oops, you should have been a higher level!" Grinding should be tuned and supressed as much as possible. Tasked based quest systems give much more satisfaction than vague "see you when you get there" systems DQ8 uses.
Randomly wandering around, randonly bumping into creatures that may randomly kill you off just isn't fun. I seriously question they were fun back in the "old school" days too (I don't ever seem to remember thinking "oh joy! another random encounter" in any console RPG). We now have the knowledge and technology to actually instill some more complex logic and real challenges into games instead of relying on random acts of "fickle fate" to try to trip up players. If I wanted to play a game that featued such randomness, I would rather play poker.
DQ8 is a great looking game. The plot is sometimes amusing even if it is cheesey RPG fare. The music is a bit repetive but otherwise is awesome. I even like the touch that the SFX are old school. It is the wet dream of a designer who lived 20+ years ago who thought this is how these games should look like. The problem is we are play this game now instead of then and are left wonder "Why is this fun?"
It's very self-sacrificing of you to play every RPG, even though you hate the genre so much, so that you can be justified in making such sweeping generalizations. You're a paragon among haters, and I salute you.
/sarcasm
I'm "only" 25 hours into the game, but I've experienced everything the reviewer has and much much more.
;D
Despite the paper-thin plot (as it appears to me currently, at least) the game is challenging, and encourages the players to utilize tactics other than "button mashing" to get through battles.
The monsters are detailed and adorable, and the Bestiary feature allows you to look at monsters you've already fought and reply their battle animations as many times as you'd like if you just can't get enough.
The voice acting and the localization effort are top-notch. I can't remember feeling sorry for a character in recent memory except while playing DragonQuest VIII. Additionally, some of the jokes are incredible.
I'm glad I bought this game, and I am extremely happy that one of my favorite console RPG series is pulling in such stellar reviews in America. I look forward to many copies being sold so the game is re-released as part of the Greatest Hits series in 6-12 months.
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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.
First I've heard of it. That is the game, not its mind-numbing popularity.
"Waste not one watt!" - CZ
Dragon Quest is probably an acquired taste. The original Dragon Warrior on the NES was my introduction to the genre and as such, has set the standard for me as far as what I expect from a console fantasy RPG. Fancy graphics are a plus but mean nothing without good game play.
The great thing about Dragon Quest is that it gives the option of exploration as well as the incentive -- something that is largely absent in most "modern" RPGs I've played. Most other so-called RPGs restrict you to the story. You don't have options to search or work for better equipment and abilities, you're given them when the story dictates it.
They always follow the same formula: story, dungeon, next town/location, buy the next weapon/armor upgrade (which doesn't actually do anything for you but was just put in to make it feel more role-playing), repeat. Anyone who plays these games is going to play every scenario under the exact same constraints as everyone else because of the strict linear gameplay and lack of options for customization. Two different people playing Dragon Quest can be at the same scenario with completely different equipment, levels, skills and abilities depending on how they played the game. Dragon Quest gives you choices, perhaps at the expense of an epic storyline, but it makes the gameplay very enjoyable. If you'd rather watch an interactive movie, might I suggest a post-SNES Final Fantasy game.
The monster encouter rate for monsters too weak to damage (or help) your party is much too high. Those monsters should stay away unless called (And yes, you can call them.)
The monster treasure drop rate is WAY too low. And the skill you can get to increase it doesn't help much.
The voice acting is... well it's terrible. They should have not had voice acting and used the extra time and money to put more stuff in the world and increase interaction with NPCs (A la Morriwind.)
Occasionally the writing was heavyhanded in a very typical RPG and Anime way. It's that whole "Oh look the bad guy is gearing up to cast a spell that will destroy my party, I'll just stand here with my thumb up my ass and let him" mentality. NO! Put an arrow in him before he can launch his attack! Or "We just beat down the big bad boss without breaking a sweat, but the next scene is of us all gasping for breath while he attacks again/does a move that makes him stronger/limps off to lick his wounds" wtf?!
All in all it's a reasonably fun game that will keep you busy for a while, but I'm still holding out for the next Morrwind game.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
"Square Enix, the company that founded the genre"?!?!?!
BS, BS and more BS. The CRPG genre was well established before Square or Enix were even founded as companies. Heck Ultima III (Richard Garrot's forth CRPG) had already been released before those companies came into being, Ultima IV was out before the first Dragon Quest, and Ultima 5 was out before the first Dragon Warrior Game.
Dragon Warrior was a dumbed down newbie to a mature and established CRPG genre when it was released.
(FF1, for those who missed out)
Mark of the Coder fades from you. You perform Opening on World of Warcraft. Warcraft crits GPA for 4. GPA dies.
I find it unfathomable that anybody would even TRY to go into the first dungeon without having walked around to see what they could find. Are there actually players who go and do what they're told to do before checking all the nooks and crannies for surprises? That's... so boring.
In an RPG, when the building is on fire and you have to rush to another floor to save somebody, do you rush to the other floor to save them? Instead of mucking about opening boxes, running around in circles, standing in front of the person you are supposed to save without talking to them, laying down on the bed to take a nap and restore your HP with the flames blazing all around you, etc.? Why?
I really don't think the game designers expect you to do that. Hell, DQ8 even has dialogue about it -- when there's a scare in the first town because the cursed king's appearance is frightening everybody, if you wander around talking to people several of them say things like "Aren't you worried about the monster they spotted? You have strange priorities." They ASSUME the player is going to dilly-dally because that's part of the fun of the game.
Before that first dungeon, aside from just exploring the landscape, there are several treasure chests and unique monsters out there in the field, two inaccesible bridges to discover (one of which, from the clues, clearly leads to your home castle), as well as a mini-sidequest with the guy in the hut on top of the mountain who lost his toolbox. I probably "grinded" for at least two or three hours before I even CONSIDERED moving on with the quest. I never found it even remotely tiresome. I hesitate to even use the word "grind" because it carries negative connotation.
If you're playing an RPG that has random battles, and you don't enjoy fighting in random battles, you should probably stop playing. Fighting random battles is PART OF THE GAME. It is part of the game because some people LIKE them. If you aren't one of those people, don't play those games.
No matter how many times I fight those floating bells, I never get sick of seeing them chuckle. The pelvic-thrusting Hipsters crack me up. The way the yellow, reptilian Jargons balance on one foot most of the time, but occasionally hop to the other foot like they're dancing makes me smile. I could just sit there watching them stand there, swaying, and enjoy myself without even entering any commands. All of the battles are simply DELIGHTFUL because the enemies are so clever, punnish, and cute. A man who doesn't enjoy slaughtering a band of bipedal foxes wearing muskateer outfits and dancing jigs is a man with no soul.
As for "no progression of character development"... I would say that's only true if you don't read any of the dialogue. I think the characters -- both in your party and all the major NPCs -- are very clearly defined by their manner of speech and the things that they choose to talk about. Even if you never his START to talk with your party (which you can do at any time while walking around) they still have plenty to say during cutscenes. You complain that there is no reason to go to that first dungeon aside from being forced to do it, but I would say that is itself a story/character progression -- the King insists that you take time out of chasing down the man who cursed him to help the girl because she reminds him of his daughter, and because he believes that she is a Good Person and feels that she deserves your help.
And... "You don't learn any background into many more hours into the game"? Seriously? In medias res is a staple storytelling technique. Granted, being staple doesn't mean you have to like it, but it's used so widely that it seems like a weird thing to complain about. (Especially when it is used to much more tiring effect in, for example, most Final Fantasy games, where an amnesiac main character is as common as not.) What more do you need to know at the beginning aside from the king and princess being cursed, you're a castle guard, and you're chasing the guy tha