You Can’t Know Where You’re Going Unless You Know Where You’ve Been

Publisher: Square Enix
Platform: PS2
Rating: T
Release Date: November 27, 2004 (JP), November 15, 2005 (US)

What most people don’t know is that Dragon Quest was the original console RPG, a game that Final Fantasy imitated. Dragon Quest has been around for nearly two decades and has spawned a total of eight games.

Dragon Quest VIII received more publicity that most other non-Final Fantasy role-playing games, and for good reason. That is not to say this game is not without critics. It is by no means perfect and many gamers new to the series may be turned off by overly traditional game play and difficulty. Dragon Quest VIII stays close to its roots, close to the elements that made it such a success in the first place. So how does this traditional role-playing game measure up to the more complex (sometimes overly so) games of today?

Story

You begin this game, like many other RPGs, by picking a name for your character. For simplicity purposes I am going to refer to the main character of the game as Hero. Hero, alongside with his partner Yangus have come to the aid of the King of Trodain whose castle was destroyed by the evil jester Dhoulmagus. To complicate things, Dhoulmagus transformed the King into a monster and his daughter Medea into a horse, hence the title of the game, “The Journey of the Cursed King”. Hero’s mission is simple, destroy Dhoulmagus and undo the curse. Along the way the party meets up with two other characters, the voluptuous Jessica (who is probably the most popular character for one reason, well make that two reasons) and the handsome Angelo. The story is by no means groundbreaking; in fact at times it is down right predictable. There are some clever twists along the way, but the story doesn’t really get good until the latter part of the game. Some gamers may be put of by the slow pacing but the game rewards you for putting in the time, and there is a lot of time to be spent playing this game.

Game Play

Dragon Quest VIII can be succinctly described with two words: hardcore and traditional. The game does not stray far at all from the elements that made it such a huge success in the first place. Again, this produces the effect of nostalgia or annoyance depending on the gamer. Every role playing game revolves around a battle system, which can either make or break the game. The battle system in DQVIII is fairly straightforward. When a battle is initiated a simple menu appears consisting of Fight, Flee, Intimidate, and Flee. When the Fight button is pressed another menu appears. Here, you can attack, use spells, use abilities, use items, defend, or psyche up. All these commands work like you would expect them to. The psyche up command is the only real innovation. When selected, your turn is spent raising your tension gauge that increases the damage you deal on standard attacks. When your tension gauge is maxed out the character enters a state of super high tension, which changes his/her appearance and allows them to deal massive damage. When your character levels up, you are given skill points to spend on one of four weapon styles or one character specific character trait. This allows for a small amount of customization.

As I mentioned earlier, the story is fairly simple and the game play reflects this. Most of the game involves you going from one town to the other to fetch special items to further the story. These special items are often found in one of the games many dungeons. No traditional RPG would be complete without some dungeon crawling! But DQVIII alleviates this sometimes-tedious chore through its implementation of beautifully crafted environments and clever puzzles. Almost every dungeon contains a map, an unrealistic but incredibly helpful feature. There are a plethora of towns in DQVIII, each brimming with individuality and cast of colorful characters. The only gripe I have is that the same music is used for every town; this is a subject I will touch on later in the review. The world map is seamlessly integrated between the towns and dungeons. Gone is the top down map with the over sized character. Instead we are offered with a fully functioning 3D world map, full of secrets and surprises. I hope more RPGs adopt this philosophy when it comes to world maps.

So what is there to do between traveling from town to town and exploring dungeons? To put it simply, a lot! Early on the game you pick up an alchemy pot that can be used to create items; in fact some of the most powerful weapons and armor can only be acquired through the alchemy pot. Interspersed throughout the world are bookshelves that contain recipes, although you can also find recipes through talking to people or through experimentation.

Hidden across the world map are powerful monsters that you can capture and use in a monster arena. The monster arena is surprisingly complex and offers some very lucrative rewards. Also, there are two casinos that offer a variety of games including bingo, roulette, and slots. If you ever need a break from the main quest there is always a lot to do.

Graphics

Dragon Quest VIII is a perfect example of cel-shading done right. The characters are brimming with personality, thanks in part to the artistic styling of Akira Toriyama. For those who have been living under a rock for the past 20 years, Toriyama is the mastermind behind the Dragonball series. The towns, dungeons, and world map are all beautifully rendered in a way that makes the player feel as if s/he were in an anime. The world of DQVIII is immense but unfortunately it has its share of bugs. At certain points in the game the screen will freeze as environments are being loaded. I have never experienced a game crash but these load times can be annoying. Also, occasionally the music will cut out for a few seconds and there is a delay from the moment you press the menu button until the time the menu loads. All of these bugs are further intensified when the player gains access to air travel. The graphics are incredible but the glitches really hamper the game flow.

Sound

The voice acting in this game is top notch. Almost every important character, aside from Hero, has a voice and each voice is done in a unique way. That is to say almost all the characters have some sort of accent - English, Irish, Italian, French, etc…. This adds a lot of personality to the game and it is nice to hear something other than the standard American-English dialect. The music is orchestrated very well and it creates and it helps create an incredible atmosphere. That being said, the music is very repetitive. The same song is used for nearly every town and the standard battle and world map music do not change. At first it was tolerable but by the end of the game I was begging for some new tunes. It’s really too bad because adding individual town music would have really helped to create personality for the towns by distinguishing them from one another. The sound effects are standard fare.

Final Verdict

At its core, Dragon Quest VIII is a throw back to role-playing games of yesteryear. It is hardcore and it is traditional, which many newbie role-playing gamers may be turned off by this but veterans will revel in its nostalgia. The story is lackluster for the majority of the game, although it does get interesting towards the end. This game is bright and colorful reminiscent of an anime. DQVIII raises the bar in the terms of voice acting; I have never heard such memorable voice acting in any other video game. The world is large but with its share of glitches. Dragon Quest VIII is not for the casual gamer. The main quest will last upwards of 70 hours, and the side quests will easily add another 20 to that total. Perhaps best of all, this game is not easy, it requires patience and persistence.