See, proof that churches do Save! (sorry for the awful humor, but the Devil made me do it)
Dragon Quest game Review
Story & Playability
The following review is for the US release of Dragon Quest VIII for the Playstation 2.
Another day, another RPG. After seeing the high marks this game recieved, and of course being the Square whore that I am, I finally caved into buying Dragon Quest VIII. Although I have DQVII for the PS1, I haven't played it yet so this is my first walk in the DQ universe. The story is relatively simple (and I will keep it as spoiler free). A kingdom has been cursed by the evil jester Douhlmagus. The kingdom and its people have been covered in vines, the king has been turned into a freakish toad (actually more like Yoda) and the princess of the kingdom has been turned into a horse. You play the Hero (no default name in the game), a boy who has somehow survived the curse of his kingdom and now strives to hunt down Douhlmagus so he can remove the curse from his king and his homeland. Of course you will meet more people with various reasons to follow you. There's Angelo, who is out for revenge for the abbot of his church; Jessica who wants revenge for her brother's death at the hands of the diabolical Douhlmagus and Yangus, a down on his luck bandit with a debt to repay to the Hero. The story progression is relatively simple. You go from town to town gathering information and tracking down that shadowy character. You find out there is a ruin that you need to go to, so you go there only to find out you need an item to get in. You go to get that item and find out that the one who owns that item wants something. Get item, go to ruin, fight boss... rinse and repeat. It isn't the most stellar story in the world, but it's fairly good on it's own. It's no Final Fantasy VII, but then again what is?
Rating:
Graphics
Again the devil and Square-enix have teamed up to create another game chock full of eye candy. The characters are all cel shaded, and wonderfully done at that. The character designer of the game is none other than Akira Toriyama, the man famous for the Dragonball franchise. Each character in your traveling party is finely crafted and original in their own way. One thing it particularly nice is that if with some shields, armors and weapons that you equip, it will actually make the character look different. You will always see your Hero's sword and shield, but depending on the combination of items you equip for others, their look will change. It is possible to make Jessica look like a bunny girl... not really a good idea as that equipment is really low in defense. Background animations are also extremely well done. It doesn't have the same pitfall that many RPG's do with the reuse of certain textures and animations. Dungeons, towns and the world map all look different and have each been detailed very well. I could delve more deeply into all the great things that this game has graphically, but that just is way to time consuming...
But I can't let the game get off that easy, it does have some short falls. The main one being that they reuse the same designs particularly for enemy characters. You'll fight a bunnycorn on one continent only to fight something that looks exactly the same on another, just with a different color set. You will likely run into the exact same design 5 or 6 times within the game, the only change being the colors. My other complaint will likely be minor in most people's books, but a noticible shortfall in mine. The game does have quite a few of the black lines associated with games high in the polygon department. There will be times that you are running through a cave and notice black lines from where the polygons were not properly fitted. Just to show you it shouldn't be a big deal, the lines aren't usually any thicker than the side of a sheet of paper. Minor complaint, but my eyes are peeled to this sort of thing.
Rating:
Sound
The sound of the game passable, and that is both in the actual music of the game, sound effects and vocal portions. The music is a fairly shallow score overall. The daytime inside a town song will be heard at 3 or 4 other towns, as will the nighttime variety. Battle and boss music are fair, but don't give you that rush of other RPG's, especially the boss music. In caves and in dungeons it depends more on ambient noise to produce the feel of the area, but at the same time it just doesn't seem to be enough. I would ultimately say that it fits the game well enough, but it isn't worth owning the OST like you would want to others.
As for the vocal portion of the game, I have to say I'm quite surprised by it. This game contains almost all British and Scotish vocal inflections. Yangus has an extremely heavy accent, and it shows in the actual on screen text. You'll see things like "Cor Blimey, whut waz 'at guv", which most of us need the vocal part just to understand what the hell it was that he just said. Almost every character you encounter will have that voice to it, with few exceptions, one being the king you are traveling with which sounds remarkably like a more grammatically correct version of Yoda. I guess when you think of a little green guy, you automatically think of Yoda. Still though I would say that the voices were fairly well done and there aren't any real bad actors that stick out.
Rating:
Fun
Putting a score to fun for this one is going to be hard. When you initially begin this game the first thing that you'll notice is it's difficulty. There may be a tower only a little bit down a path, but by the time you get there all of your HP is wasted. HP in this game is very low, measured in the hundreds, not thousands. In the early parts of the game you'll have somthing to the likes of 24 HP, and one hit can deal 7 and 8 points of damage. Even later Jessica will be hovering in the 150 HP range and take hits of 60, and a well placed critical hit can knock her out in one hit. This game depends heavily on equipment and levels. If you don't have the best equipment and if you are under leveled by even say 2 levels, you could meet your demise at the hands of the next boss. When this happens you have to revive them, which means taking them to a church and paying a priest to revive them. While you are there of course you'll want to save, because that is the only place you can save. No save points, so if you are afraid that next boss is going to hand you some pain, you'd better go back and save. Thankfully if you do die, you just get put back in the church, EXP gained and items gained still in hand, but amazingly half of your money is gone (thieving priest).
Some of that may sound bad, but what this game has in good qualities makes it great. Granted the game is hard, but nothing makes you feel better than divine retribution against something that just had it's way with you. Also those fans of long games, this is a LONG game. If you want to not just finish the game, but get better equipment, level up and do all those extras, you could easily spend upwards of 100 hours or more. Just finishing the game you are looking at 50-60 hours. This game is not only long, but just plain huge. Unlike many of the RPG's of late that hold your hand and tell you where to go, this one just sets you loose in an expansive world and lets you go. Island hopping and searching every continent for that rare item eats up time like you wouldn't believe. You are also encouraged to explore as you may find an item in the far reaches of an uninhabited island that may turn the tides of the next battle in your favor.
As for the battle system itself, it is a regular turn based system. You will input all of your characters commands and they will act it out based on your agility rating. Leveling up is few and far between, but when you do, you get skill points that you can put to certain traits like swords, spears, knives etc. But each character has a unique trait that you can also level up, like humanity, courage and my favorite sex appeal. It's true, Jessica can level up sex appeal. This makes it so that monsters can oogle you and forget to attack, or (God help us all) you can get her to hold her arms under her breasts and give the enemy a seductive look so that they get fixated on her. That type of 'originality' makes this just plain fun... and funny.
All in all a pretty good experience. I'm not rating it as high as the big gaming sites did, but even still it is a pretty good game overall. After all is said and done, I may decide to finally pop that DQVII in and give it shot, but right now I need a mindless shooter to let my brain heal from the madness.
Rating:
Final Verdict
7.0000 (above average)
Reviewed by shoujoboy, Mar 20, 2006
Comments
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codewulf Mar 21, 2006
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Pisaro Mar 21, 2006
yeah... i think this DQ8 is improve alot if compare to DQ7 or DQ5 remake... All the system like battle, world map, and skill have quite alot of different is compare to last time.. I'm a big fan of DQ, almost all of the episode i also play before... So the changes in DQ8 make me hard to adapt to it at the first time i play...
I think the greatest system that make me like DQ8 alot is the weapon can change with every different weapon he/she equip... There is two character which only change his/her armor.. that is jessica and hero(Eido)... Jessica can wear bikini if equip with bikini set... And hero can only change his appearent is you able to win "dragon king" for 7 time... Win one time will able us to get one equipment... About the dragon king, you need to get though a special event to access this secret dungeon. hope you all can get though this event and fight Dragon king...first battle: Great Dragon of Deep Crimson
advice to choose "Dragon God's Sword"
second battle: Great Dragon of Deep Green
advice to choose "Dragon God's Armor"
third battle: Great Dragon of White Silver
advice to choose "Dragon God's Shield"
fourth battle: Great Dragon of Gold
advice to choose "Dragon God's Helmet"
fifth battle: Great Dragon of Black Metal
adivce to choose "strengthen the Renkingama"
sixth battle: Great Dragon of Saint
choose the last one "Awesome Team Monster"
last battle: Consecutive Dragon Fights - Great Dragon of Eternity
This is totally insane. You fight them one by one before. Now you take on all
these forms CONSECUTIVELY. You still start the battle against his human form,
but this fight, he will transform into Deep Crimson, Deep Green, White Silver,
Gold, Black Metal, Saint and then finally, Great Dragon of Eternity. But before
these fights, let's make one Item: Mysterious Tambourine.How to make Mysterious Tambourine
you need 3 items:
Sun's Crown, Demon Beast's Skin and Angry Tattoo. You probably have both Demon
Beast's Skin and Angry Tattoo, Sun's Crown is the main focus. To make that, you
need Saint's Ash which you probably have and Skull's Helmet. This one is found
left of God Bird's Nest/Tower. You need to fly there. Just fly around the left
of that nest/tower, there should be a place to descend and explore a bit to
find the Skull's Helmet. There should be another one since I have 2 so I end up
making 2 Mysterious Tambourine. By the way, Mysterious Tambourine has infinite
usage in battle. -
dMp Mar 21, 2006
the hero's real name is Eido? was that used in earlier series or in the Jap verion of DQ8?
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dizzy1990 Mar 22, 2006
I not quite sure,but there one thing for sure the dragon at dragonvia---->Lord of Dragonvia was dammed difficult to kill especially Golden dragon
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Avalon247 Mar 23, 2006
Wow! Dragonball meets full Metal Alchemist. What a Crossover!
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rukasu04 Mute Member Feb 08, 2010
Nice review
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chibinonoko Nov 14, 2012
jessica! why do you die so often? T^T
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