Dragon Quest VIII

[McMurphy]

Has anyone had a chance to play the new Dragon Quest game, Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King?

I have been seening commercials for the Playstation 2 game on television, and, being a huge Dragon Warrior (the American title for the series when the publishing company was just Enix instead of Square Enix) original Nintendo series fan, I am dying to have enough spending money to purchase this game.

Akira Toriyma, the creator of Dragon Ball, has continued to devote his artistic talent to the Dragon Quest series, and the 3D versions of the characters showcase his involvement clearly with their "Super Saiyan" versions of themselves in battle.

 

[kaneda]

I've recently started playing this (well 25hours in now ). It's actually really enjoyable to play. I wasn't too keen on the silent hero at first (and tbh, I still don't like that). Its a solid RPG that doesn't pretend to be anything other that. The voice acting is by far the best that I've heard in a video game (all brits as well).

So far, I highly recommend it.

Has anyone else got round to playing this yet?

 

[McMurphy]

I am glad to see this thread resurface on the board. Since I posted that initial post, I have purchased the game and have beaten the game once through. I am in the middle of playing it again with a clean slate but, this time, building up the characters in a different manner and spending more time on some of the mini games, such as the casinos and completing the Monster Pit (isn't the dialog in that section hilarious?).

Yeah, I admit that I was a little worried about the main character not being voiced, but, after playing it, I am glad he doesn't talk. It keeps him a little more asexual for both genders of players, you know? Besides, it works as a great counterweight for the amazing voice acting of the supporting cast. It is hard to believe that the Japanese version of the game didn't have any voices. Apparently, voice acting isn't as important to the average gamer in Japan as it is on the Western front.

The first time through, I named the Hero as "Chase," and his main weapon throughout most of the game play was the boomerang. In the current playthrough, he is named "Roric." Here is the trivia question to end all trivia question in regards to the Dragon Quest/Warrior franchise: What is Roric referencing? Hint: it is, in part, a reference to the boomerang.

The game is, to date, the best RPG I have played on the Playstation 2 sytem. I appreciate the fact that the game is solid and fully realized in every sense. It may not attempt to offer as much various forms of gameplay as other games, such as FFX-2, but not a single element of the game works by accident.

The storyline is very standard, but, instead of that working against it, the game feels like a classic fantasy novel. The story is engrossing and, daring to hint at a spoiler, I couldn't wait until the Hero pushed open those church doors....

I just completed a thread in the Film board mentioned the Belly of the Beast archetype in hero quests. The Belly of the Beast represents the greatest challenge that typically places character-altering stresses on the main character both on the physical plane and on the inner conflict or growth level. After conquering the Belly of the Beast, the hero would be forever altered (often matured) from the type of person he/she/it was before entering the trail.

What is The Hero's greatest trial in Dragon Quest VIII?

I am not asking, by the way, in simple hopes to strike up a discussion. I seriously am having a hard time remembering which point of the game would be considered the Belly of the Beast. I know I will slap my forehead the moment someone mentions it. There is a siren going off on the tip of the proverbial tongue at the moment.

 

[Winters_Sorrow]

I didn't notice this thread at first but I did buy & play Dragon Quest VIII.......and I hated it!

Which surprised me.....a lot. I normally quite like these kind of games, FFVIII, Grandia, Dark Cloud etc.
What just got under my skin in this game was the difficulty ramp up. The very first quest was to retrieve a crystal ball thingy from a water fountain and there's the obligatory boss. So far, so normal. The voice acting was already getting on my nerves (the Ray Winstone one especially) but I probably could have got use to it.

The trouble was the boss was quite difficult to beat.
So I went round, fighting the usual assortment of random monsters and levelled up about 4 times and tried again. Same result. So I went and bought more healing herbs/better sword etc and levelled up another 3 times. Same result.

Not only had I wasted literally hours trying to kill the very first boss, I had to redo all 3 levels of the dungeon each time to even reach the boss. This annoyed me so much I returned the game. I regard it as very bad game design. The FF games were smart enough to offer save points close to bosses to avoid this sort of shoddy thoughtless.

All in all, I was very disappointed with the game. Apart from the cell-shaded graphics, there was no sense of innovation or even "fun" about this game, despite all the positive reviews about it.

 

[kyektulu]

So I take it this game is out now... YaY...

I feel a trip to the local GAME coming on today...

I will let you guys know what I think in a day or two...

 

[Aes]

I've been playing it for awhile, and I enjoy it despite the horrible Akira Toriyama artwork and annoyances regarding game mechanics. Specifically, just about anything involving the field menu is a bother. Also, I don't care for how lacking the character progression system is when it comes to informing you about what's what. There's certain characters I really wish I'd built differently, but oh well.

Winter, you are right about the first boss, too. He -is- overpowered, but rest assured the game's balance gets much better after that. Jessica is a tad on the weak side though, so consider saving your stat seeds for her. Oh, and doing save/reset to get the max from each is recommended:

Wisdom seeds: 1-3
All other stat seeds: 1-2
HP/MP seeds: 2-4
Skill seeds: 5 (always, fortunately)

Here's how I wish I'd built my characters:

Hero: swords (courage when swords hits the level cap) Carry a boomerang at all times though, as they are useful even without abilities.

Yangus: scythes (consider doing 16 in humanity to get nose for treasure, and a mere 6 in axes for the very useful helm splitter)

Jessica: staves (consider doing 30 in knives to equip swords...any excess could also go into swords to hopefully get her pitiful attack a bit higher, even though her knife/sword abilities are only so-so)

Angelo: swords (first, get bows up to 18 for cherub's arrow, an ability which can keep angelo's mp basically full while he keeps everyone enlse alive.)

 

[McMurphy]

If there is one thing that is a certainty, it is going to be hard for someone to enjoy DQ if they don't like Akira Toriyama's artwork. Since I am starting to collect original art of his, you can take for granted that I envision the toon shader route of the game as a positive path.

There are two things that the DQ franchise has purposefully prided themselves over in relation to how they conduct game playing in their series in contrast to their competitors:

1.) DQ refuses to hold your hand.

2.) Any hero's journey presented in the DQ franchise will not be a short one.

It is interesting that Winters Sorrow had such problems with the first boss fight because I had a hell of a time understanding the gameplay of FFVIII. I, if remembering correctly, had to restart my file three times before I realized that FF doesn't approach the games in the same fashion as DQ.

My introduction to turn based RP video games was Dragon Warrior IV, and, when I came back to the genre many years later, I, in great error, attempted to reapply my methods from DW4. Likewise, when applying the method to DQ8, I sailed through most of the game without being forced to repeat too much of the sequences due to character deaths.

My biggest criticism of Grandia II (I have review of the game floating away somewhere on this board....) was that it supplied a healing save point on every other screen, which swiped away the player's need to actually be forced to make any tough decisions or engage in the game in anything other than a linear way. While some of the story arches and the presentation may, at first, appear childish in DQ, I respect that, in regards to challenges and a player's ability to explore large, large areas of the map without being lead around by a leash, it never talks down to the player. It expects you to apply your skills. It expects you to be not rely heavily on your last save point. It expects you to form a battle plan before engaging a boss.

I must say, however, all the criticisms that have been cited in this thread, I have heard echoed by the critics, so you two may be right.

 

[Aes]

If there is one thing that is a certainty, it is going to be hard for someone to enjoy DQ if they don't like Akira Toriyama's artwork.

I don't know about that, as I can still enjoy a game despite how bad its graphics might be.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for challenging RPGs--in fact, many of the later FF games kind of piss me off because they're too easy. DQ8's problem is that it's just unbalanced. I don't know if it'll even out later, but right now, Jessica (the supposed offensive caster) pretty much sucks compared to the rest. Hero aside (they're always the strongest in DQ games) Yangus can take way more damage than her, plus he can deal more damage than her. When it comes to spells, Angelo has what seem to be better offensive spells -plus- recovery spells and the ability to restore his MP as he goes. Oh, and his physical offense/defense rules hers, too.

I don't know if this balance problem will change later, but right now, it's somewhat frustrating.

 

[Crymic]

I wasn't too keen on the silent hero at first (and tbh, I still don't like that).

Problem is alot of japanese rpgs are like this =/
take Suikoden V for example..
has so far been a great game also but, the main character is very silent and only speaks when events happen. A really good rpg I found is the Growlanser series.. very nicely done and the main character is very active in the story. You'll always hear what he's thinking.

 

[Aes]

The whole reason so many games have 'silent heroes' is because they're attempting to be role-playing games. Since you are playing the role of the hero, they (I'm guessing) want to leave what is said open to your interpretation.

That's just my theory, anyway.