Dragon Quest™ VIII: Journey of the Cursed King™ is the latest installment of the immenselypopular Dragon Quest series and the first to be released for the PlayStation®2 computerentertainment system. For the first time ever the colorful characters exotic environments anddaunting dungeons of the Dragon Quest universe have made the transition to glorious 3D.In their continent-spanning adventure players will be immersed in a unique world of seeminglylimitless possibilities.Format: PS2 Genre: RPG (VG)/ Rating: T - Teen UPC: 662248905013 Manufacturer No: 90501
Features:
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Strategy and role-playing combined.
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Each level you go up, you'll get new experience points to spend.
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Select the right weapons and magic combos for maximum combat effect.
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Tension system enhances the action - forgo attacking for a few rounds, then build up your power to unleash a multi-hit combo that destroys opponents.
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Special Bonus Disc with playable demo of Final Fantasy XII included!
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99 of 106 found the following review helpful:
One of the Greatest Reborn in the Same ShellNov 26, 2005
By Antonio D. Paolucci
"Collector of Entertainment"
Dragon Quest (previously known as Dragon Warrior in the US) has always been one of those games that I had to have. When I was a kid, I got the first through a subscription to a magazine, and I was in love ever since. Though as basic as a game can get, there was something addicting about the monotonous walking, fighting, and leveling up. In two, three, and four (four in particular), they attempted to bring more detail to the story lines, and succeeded just enough not to ruin the normal, DW game play that RPG lovers have come to love. Then, we missed five and six, and had to wait for the ugliest PlayStation game ever released in Dragon Quest VII. It was fun, but it seemed dated from the release; the graphics were only barely better than the old Super Nintendo.
Then, Enix, the long-time publisher of Dragon Warrior, merged with Square, and thus Dragon Quest VIII was born. I worried, at first. Was Square going to dilute it with all those Final Fantasy cut-scenes, or were they going to take away the simple battle system that's in every DW game?
The answer: NO. Everything is there that was in every other Dragon Quest game; dungeons, constant fighting and leveling up, struggling to buy all the new items, seeking out all those rare items, getting lost more often than not, a simple, point-a-to-point-b story, and that same battle system. It's all here, but with one major edition: extraordinary graphics. Akira Toriyama (Dragon Ball creator, and long time designer for Dragon Quest) was able to fully show his skill in this game.
This game is excellent to play, as well. Not only for its nostalgia, but for the actual game play. It's still addictive, but even more so since the world itself is now rendered in 3D and huge, making it a lot to explore, and exploring it is worth it as it has numerous things for you to find all over the land-map. Finding these things are important, because they've added a new feature called the Alchemy Pot which requires you to use two or three items to make one are item. Also, its fun meeting some of the new characters, and hearing the interesting ways they are voiced.
For anyone old enough to remember the first Dragon Warrior, and for anyone who actually understood it, I recommend this game. I also recommend this for anyone who loves RPGs but hasn't yet experienced one of the genre's roots. Dragon Quest VIII is a great edition to the Dragon Quest library, and an instant classic.
ADDED NOTE: I've just recently finished this game, and I must now say that my impressions were vastly ignorant. This game, from start to finish, is pure excitement, never diluted by long, dramatic cut-scenes, with an emphasis on the game play. The ending, without spoiling, was surprisingly interactive and incomplete, though I have had a chance to complete it. It also isn't nearly as serious as those other RPG endings. It allows you to laugh at the characters despite enduring the nearly seventy hours of game play and storytelling involving the end of a world. And the replay-ability is decent, with an entire extra quest and area to explore after saving your game following the credits. Now, I'd recommend this game because it is clearly the top choice in its genre (RPG). It's a great prologue to the up-coming Final Fantasy XII or Kingdom Hearts 2.
104 of 120 found the following review helpful:
I'm impressed!Nov 17, 2005
By M. A Jenkins
"southerndudeman"
Many of the RPG's I know have suffered immensely in their transition from 2-D to 3-D (the "Suikoden" series immediately comes to mind, as well as "Breath of Fire"). The colors become washed out, the gameplay becomes much more boring, and in many ways, they just plain svck...
Enter "Dragon Quest VIII" from Enix, the 6th game of the series to be released over here. I have only played for a couple of days, but I must confess that I am quite pleased at the result of adding a new dimension to the gameplay.
For starters, the environment (including the "overworld" is now fully interactive. There are set roads the player may travel, but one may also branch off of these roads to find new caves, treasure chests and secrets galore. Hence, it trumps FFX in this regard (although the playable demo of FFXII included in the game already has me salivating!). Furthermore, some walls contain secret passages, etc., and in general the game offers full movement in the world and secrets which are only made possible in the 3-D setting.
As for the gameplay (and here may be a bit of fanboy-itis, I'll admit), the game is much more fun than its predecessor. Gone is the cumbersome class system of DWVII (which I personally liked, but many hated), and in its place is a very easy to learn skill system. Each party member has five skills which they can raise any way they like. Skill points are awarded at level ups, and as skills gain more points (and the point distribution is entirely up to the player), the party member will gain battle spells and "traits", which are essentially bonuses to attack, defense, etc. The game is quite linear at the front, but I know of a few sidequests later in the game which will give the player more freedom to choose his path.
As for the graphics, well, they don't stand up next to the might of the FFXII demo packaged alongside, but the cel-shading seems perfect to bring out the charm of Akira Toriyama's character and monster designs. However, I am surprised that the female character can manage to keep her incredibly-revealing top on!
In any case, this is a worthy addition to the "Dragon Warrior" legacy, and a fine game in its own right. And I particularly like the translators' decision to use British persons for the voices of the characters - it just comes off better, it seems to me...
20 of 20 found the following review helpful:
Classic nostalgic RPG gameplayJun 02, 2007
By Aaron K. Harrington
"keokisun"
I have to start out saying that for me, this game was exactly what I needed. With a great amount of RPG's out there and all their attempts to continually evolve the console RPG, they often seem to over embellish upon such evolutions and leave out some of the common staples I personally enjoy in my rpg,(Final Fantasy X-2 losing weapons and armor upgrades in place of the whole Garment system for example or card battle sytems). While I respect the attempt to evolve on the standard rpg formula, they often leave out some of the classic elements in order to allow such changes. On two different occasions I attempted to play FF X-2 and found myself missing the more classic elements that had been left out, and end up losing interest.
Dragon Quest VIII however pulled me in and kept me going till the end.
Now some will feel that the classic elements are dated and may become bored with it.
The combat in DQ8 is the simple turn based system that gives you the standard options such as fight, item, flee,etc.., as well as a few new ones, you have the all too common random battles while you walk around with your basic 4 character team, each with their own look and style, supplemented with their own slew of weapons and abilities that you must improve upon or find throughout your quest. You merely gain levels with the hopes of entering a new area or dungeon without dying, you simply try to get the money to buy that next weapon, and have to explore outside world one step at a time. For some that will be all to tiresome.
But honestly thats why I fell in love with console RPG's. So I may be a little biased in this review. Dragon Quest had everything I personally missed from most of the modern rpg's.
You see my very first console rpg experience was Phantasy Star for the Sega Master System, and in fact was really my first rpg experience period, in any format. It was actually the first console rpg that had been released in the U.S. at that time. At least as far as I know. Neither Dragon Warrior or Final Fantasy had been released in America yet.
And well.....playing Dragon Quest VIII actually brought back what I experienced when I first played Phantasy Star and later Dragon Warrior and Final Fantasy. These games were where those those classic rpg elements derived from.
Dragon Quest VIII is the full and classic console role playing experience, but with all the modern technical enhancements,(graphics, sound, voice), as well as a few of the more recent game elements incorporated to modernize it a bit.(monster teams, item creation, ability building options) If you ever enjoyed the older rpg's from the 8 and 16 bit era, and you still love to play RPG's, you will most likely enjoy this game even more.
There's nothing really fancy about DQ8, and I personally love it. The game plays simply, yet allows for a good deal of depth in character building, development, personality, and story. The story itself is quite standard and expectedly typical of most rpg's, but it moves along rather tightly and refrains from bogging down of an over imposing storyline or a bunch of long drawn out dialogue. It has many of the common rpg cliches when it comes to the characters and story, but the voice acting to me is superb, and found that it keeps those cliches from being so cliche. Admittedly my bias shows a little more here as I am no fan of the long video game storyline. I like mine simple with a few twists and turns, and the rest is left for you to look into or not. I seem to enjoy the idea of creating and guiding the story with the characters and the actual game playing itself, and not just being guided through a novel, or a movie. Dragon Quest feels more like a choose you own adventure experience.
There are a great many recent RPG's out there, but I find most of them to be quite linear,(Final Fantasy X comes to mind, one of the best battle systems in any rpg, but nothing more than a pre-set adventure) or they contain very repetitive maps and dungeons( .Hack//, Dark Cloud). Dragon Quest avoids both of these issues.
The most important thing that Dragon Quest 8 does for me, and what seems to have disappeared from the majority of RPG's today, is it created the wonderful illusion of an open world with no permanent boundaries. It never sets you on an strict storied path, but never leaves you guessing what to do next. There are side quests that allow you to focus on something other than the main path of the story. Exploring the countryside for secluded treasure chests or special monsters who join your monster team give you reasons to explore the vast world map. There are often times when you can go to areas and towns ahead of schedule, simply because you can walk, sail, or fly, to multiple places on the map. There are many hidden items to find in cupboards, barrels, pots or water-wells, as well as searching bookshelves for recipes to create useful items with your alchemy pot. So you can actually interact a bit with your environment. Another thing lacking in many modern rpg's. Most just lay a few treasure chests while you travel your linear path. And finally with this illusionary sense of openness, you also find yourself traveling back to older areas to find other surprises that had previously been unattainable or that you simply missed. Again giving me the appearance or the illusion of a game world without borders.
Many recent popular action-adventure games such as Grand Theft Auto and all their clones have seemed to reintroduced this aspect to console games, with a few other games like Zelda having kept it up.
For me this was what I always preferred from the games I played. Whether it was a standard rpg(Phantasy Star,Final Fantasy III), an action/adventure(Metroid, Casltvania - Simon's Quest & Symphony of the Night), or adventure/rpg(Zelda, Secret of Mana, Kingdom Hearts), the illusion of boundless exploration, hidden surprises, field interaction, back tracking, and the ability to build your character's strength through item's and/or leveling was always preferable to the common straight forward gaming. It makes me feel as though I control my characters on a much more organic level.
Dragon Quest VIII has all of that. It is the best of the classic console rpg formula.
Unfortunately, that will turn a few people off completely.
Many people need a more modernized battle system, with a faster paced play through. If you need your rpg to have a consistently active battle system as opposed to turned based, or need grand visuals in battles, if you hate having to back track, prefer linear pre-set paths and story lines and abhor an open world with optional exploration, you may not enjoy this game.
Dragon Quest VIII is a wonderfully nostalgic gaming experience with all the modern goodness of the PS2's standard capabilities.
If you have been playing console rpg's for the last 10-20 years, get this game and enjoy.
8 of 8 found the following review helpful:
Good solid funJun 12, 2006
By A. Griffiths
"Adrian"
Dragon Quest 8 is a good, solid RPG that any fans of the genre should be playing. This review is just to let potential players know what they are in for. I won't go into the story, but to help you decide, I'll just list the features that my be the make-or-break factors for your enjoyment.
Battle style: Traditional turn-based, although you enter all character commands at once and then see the results. Depending on abilities, the turns may not come out on screen in the order you enter them, and monsters will take their turns dotted between those of your team. This can be a problem if you cast a attack-building spell on your strongest character, only to see his turn come up before the person casting the spell! Also, some reviews of the game mention that there is an AI setting for your team members so that you can let them fight by themselves and only control the team leader character directly. Well, there is but it's entirely optional, and for me that is not what an RPG is about, so I never used this setting once. Total manual control all the way, thank you.
Random battles: Yes, frequent. The world is large and getting from one place to another can take a while, so expect a lot of fighting. It's also very sprawling and confusing and you don't even get a world map for the first few hours of the game (arghh!), so expect much roaming, searching and getting lost. You'll want to kiss the character who finally gives you the world map after the hours of wandering before then (don't worry it happens at a set point in the story, and can't be missed!)
Transport: Yes, after you reach a certain point you gain access to a ship to cross the seas, and later on you are even able to fly. Plus, instead of all that running, you also become able to ride sabretooth tigers, which makes land exploration far less tiresome (you still encounter monsters but can cover ground much faster if you're just searching for treasure chests).
Saving: In a word - Argghh!! Which is because you can only save (and rest) in towns. So all the dungeons ending in a boss have to be completed in one sitting, with every recovery item you need taken along with you. This sounds like a harsh feature, but in return, you are given skills that allow you to do two important thing: you can instantly warp to the dungeon entrance at any time, and when on the world map, you can instantly warp to any town. So if you play deep into a dungeon and want a rest or are too beaten-down to face the boss, you can always warp out and recover, then come back to the front door and make your way through again - hopefully more swiftly this time, as any solved puzzles or unlocked doors will stay solved if you've done them once. And you can even cast a spell to cut out random battle encounters for a few minutes at a time, which makes these repeat trips through the same dungeon less irritating. So that's not so bad, then. I wouldn't cut out random battles too often though, because the levelling up system in this game is sloo-oow. After a brisk start, the required experience to gain levels starts becoming larger and larger, and you may be forced to do many loops of monster hunting to gain points before facing the more difficult bosses.
Items: Phew! There are hundreds of weapons, shields, clothes and accessories, plus the game features an "Alchemy Pot" which will allow you to combine items and turn them into new ones. This echoes the "Inventions" scheme of Dark Chronicle, and the "Item Refining" of Star Ocean. It's deliberately vague, presumably to encourage experimentation, and can turn into a huge side-game by itself. For those that like distractions, this could be a very large one, as many of the advanced recipies for alchemy are cryptic or just plain secrets. I guess it all helps towards the sale of strategy guides...good luck!
Which leads me on to...side-quests. Yes, we have plenty of those, one of which does not appear until you have beaten the game once. My favourite is the entirely optional Monster Arena...extra-strong enemies, a bit like mini-bosses, can be seen roaming around the world, and they can be recruited once beaten in battle, to make up a "monster team" that you can enter into tournaments for big prizes. Of course if you can find the really strong ones ( along with actually defeating them) in the far-flung corners of the world, you can form a real killer team and earm some great rare items. Plus your team also become available as a "summon" in battle, and this turned out to be a life saver for me in some tough fights, as your monster team can really come to your rescue and dish out the damage - and withstand it - in some of the harder battles of the main game storyline. Plus it's very satisfying to see a monster that took so much effort to beat go out there and use those powerful offensive moves for your benefit - I almost found myself cheering when my top team won some of the arena battles! They are real characters to watch too, because they act of their own accord in battle. When you let them fight (in the Monster Arena and as your support summon), you can only start the fight and then cross your fingers as the team make their own decisions on how to proceed...hopefully they will make mincemeat out of your enemies, but some of the more dopey monsters will choose comedy actions like doodling on the floor (Squiggles), or staring into space and scratching himself (Klub Kong). This can be hysterical to watch, but it's hardly a winning battle stategy!
That aspect leads me to the sense of humour present in this game. There's a lot more fun in the random battles in this game that I expected. Whoever wrote the script for them has a great sense of the absurd. First of all, the magic spells have been given comic book names like "Thwack", "Kaboom" "Squelch", and my favourite, "Oomph"! Plus the monster enemies are pretty daft too, and you'll be up against things like purple apes called Pink Pongos, or Puppet Masters whose attack is to put on a little puppet show for you. Then there's the Tap Devil can perform an attack called "Underpants Dance" in which he does a kind of disco shimmy, and then pokes his backside at you. The first time I saw this, my male characters were unaffected, but Jessica fell to the floor in shock...and I was laughing my head off. Other comedy came from some sexy witches who do a bewitching attack called "Puff-Puff"...which is basically some fluttering of eyelashes and bust-jiggling while a cheeky parp-parp noise plays on the soundtrack...it can entrance the male characters, but if tried on Jessica it will fail, and the caption says "Jessica has won the battle of the bulges"...And in addition to all this madness, the voice acting is British! People talk in a wide range of comical accents ranging from broad cockney to the overly affected, they call each other "dearie" or "old bean", and talk about tea and say things like "posh" and "cor blimey"...it was all very accurate and authentic!
The above examples should let you know that Dragon Quest can be a very entertaining game as well as a challenging one. But don't let all this fun fool you - some parts of it can be tough and there are times when you may think the enemies being thrown at you are unfairly difficult. So be prepared for a challenge. Interestingly, the game never ends after a party defeat, you will automatically be resurrected at the last place you saved - but minus half your total money holding, which is harsh indeed if you have saved up a small fortune to spend on expensive weapons and items, only to see it completely halved by one defeat. But again, the game is not really unfair, as I already mentioned that if the going gets tough, simply take a break from your current quest (flee current battle, call Monster team, etc), by immediately warping to a town to recover and save. There's no need to risk the next random fight if you are near death with no magic or healing items! However, you may be well prepared but still fall in the face of a particularly unfair match (I've seen battles with up to TEN opponents squaring up to my team of four!!), but to ensure your finances, the game has banks in certain towns for you to deposit money in, rather than carry it around, and this is NOT lost by a party defeat. So be sure to drop off large sums regularly - its free! Plus defeat and ressurrection does not rob you of any experience gained up to that point...so put that together and I hope it all sounds like a fair trade for the harsh save system. I appreciate the thought put into these settings, as I feel they are fair enough to stop unexpected death being a total waste of 3 hours play without saving, but strict enought to make you cautious, and learn when to retire and re-group. It only took me two cash-draining downfalls to never forget it!
Take all this in, and the game becomes totally addictive. It looks good, plays smoothly, and it's a long one too. Be ready to give up a lot of your social life!
12 of 14 found the following review helpful:
A hopeless love affairOct 27, 2010
By Raymond J. I'm a bit surprised how well-received this game has been by the average gamer, I'm also a bit surprised why I as a huge JRPG-fan can't bring myself to like it as much.
Almost everything about DQVIII is excellent. The environments are impressive, the music is beautiful, Toriyama's character designs are better than ever and the voice acting couldn't be more spot on. The story, though simple and straightforward, evokes those timeless fairy tale themes we know from storybooks and Disney movies. It's one of those games where you always want to see what wonders lie beyond the next corner, which is why it's so unfortunate that getting there is a chore. The gameplay is immensely slow and clunky, containing a number of elements that needlessly delay even the smallest details such as a item management and saving your game.
Don't get me wrong; I love old school JRPGs and some of my favourite games are Final Fantasy IV, Lunar: Silver Star Story and Suikoden I-II. But these games all have gameplay mechanics that are implemented to reduce tedium as well as a finely tuned levelling curve. DQVIII's high random encounter rate would have been fine if not for how slow these battles play out; it loads, you read what enemies appear, you select attacks, then you usually have to wait for the enemy to attack first before you'll watch your own attacks and the measly damage they do. Because of the steep levelling curve getting to a point where you can conclude random encounters quickly takes hours more than in most other games, while the enemies are rarely so strong you risk dying, end result being a needlessly drawn-out affair where both sides have weak attacks and a lot of HP. Add to this that each victory gives very little exp, that healing after the encounter is a slow affair due to the clunky menus, that you can only save your game in towns (and some bosses will kill you - have fun doing everything over) and an item synthesis function that for some reason has a built-in 15-30 minute wait before you see the results. There are just so many layers of tedium and pointless delay.
I clocked in about 20-25 hours before I regretfully decided enough was enough. I really wanted to like this game because I love nearly every aspect of it, but it contains too many design decisions that add delay while seeming completely unnecessary. I can't help but think what a timeless classic this would have been with improved pacing, as it stands DQVIII remains a hopeless love affair.
based on 221 reviews
( 221 customer reviews )
