Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King is a fantastic traditional RPG that is both challenging and endearing.
Dragon Quest VIII is focused on retaining its classic nature by having a simple yet interesting story filled with charming characters. In this story, an evil wizard named Dhoulmagus has stolen a valuable scepter from the Kingdom of Trodain. Shortly afterwards, he places a curse on the King Trode by turning him into a green goblin-like creature. Dhoulmagus also turns the king’s daughter, Princess Medea into a horse. Only a palace guard (the main character played by you) has survived the ordeal and therefore sets out with King Trode and Medea, meeting new friends along the way, to defeat the evil Dhoulmagus.
Unlike other RPGs, in Dragon Quest you will only have three companions to join your party. The strong and burly Yangus is an expert at dealing great damage and stealing from the enemy. Jessica is a great user of offensive magic spells and her sex appeal will literally leave the enemies open for attack. Angelo is a holy Templar knight that happens to like flirting with the ladies and has a knack for healing allies. With only four in your party you will definitely learn to use each to their advantage during battle.
Battles in Dragon Quest remain true to the traditional turn-based formula and random encounters in the overworld and dungeons. You simply choose to fight, flee, or intimidate the enemy. If you are strong enough, you can intimidate the enemy and they will run away leaving any treasure on them behind. Flee might be a good choice if the enemy is too strong and you just want to save your hide. But that choice will leave you with no gain except for saving your life. Of course, you will more than likely choose to fight.
Choosing to fight will net you experience points and help you level up your characters to become stronger and gain new abilities. Aside from the standard melee attack, your characters can cast spells, use special abilities and specific weapons-based attacks depending on your character customization. Your characters can also “psych up” during battle to increase their “tension” and make their spells and attacks more powerful. That means more damage and better healing.
Part of the fun is that each character in your party can be customized by leveling up and investing skill points into five different categories. Three of the categories pertain to a specific weapon for that character. For example, Angelo can master the bow and Yangus can master the scythe. Every character also gets a category for skills in weaponless fighting. Furthermore, each party member gets one unique character-based category. For example, Jessica has a Sex Appeal category that the others do not get. Mastering this skill not only teaches Jessica some cool new moves for future battles, but the more points she has in this category, the more likely a monster will fall in love with her in battle and lose its turn simply by being in her presence.
All these abilities and attributes do not make the game a cakewalk either. There is plenty of challenge to this game and you may find yourself finding what should be routine battles turning into a fight for your life. Some of the monsters will call for backup each round, causing you to falter and waste resources such as items and even your magic points as you try to heal and keep up.
Dragon Quest VIII also has a day and night system. You will find even more dangerous foes under the moonlight and battles will become fiercer than before. If your whole party is defeated you will wake up in the last town you visited with only half your gold. Another downside is that you can only save at churches which are only located in towns. So you cannot save right before that big boss battle. But do not let the challenge worry you because that is what keeps the game interesting and fun.
It is obvious Square-Enix put a lot of effort into the battles as well as into the visual style. Akira Toriyama (of Dragon Ball fame) is once again at the helm as character designer and Dragon Quest VIII really brings his artistic renderings to life. There is a huge colorful world to explore and you really get a good sense of that as you travel by foot, boat, or even sabrecat. The characters literally look like they are in an animated world and the vibrant colors really help the game’s charm shine through. This is also thanks in part to the animation. The characters all move fluidly and it is readily apparent how much time was put into this. During battles, the monsters are great to look at as they move around. And you will notice some nice little touches like cats licking themselves and baby squids drawing on the floor. This helps give a lot of personality to even the enemies that is lacking in other RPGs.
The music present in Dragon Quest VIII is also great. The music is appropriate for every situation whether it be a creepy dungeon, a sleepy town at night, or a hectic boss battle. And the music is all orchestrated giving it a great sound throughout the game. The voice acting is also commendable. During story sequences, the characters are given voice-overs and it really adds a lot of personality to the cast. A lot of the characters actually sound English which surprisingly works really well. For example, it helps get those humorous moments over when Yangus yells, “Gor blimey!” every time King Trode pops out of nowhere.
Dragon Quest VIII is also a lengthy game at 50+ hours if you only do the main quest. You can easily spend many hours throughout the game using the alchemy pot which allows you to mix items to create new ones. It is the only way to aquire some of the more rare and extremely useful items in the game such as an item that psyches up every party member once during the round it is used. There are many sidequests as well. One of the more time-consuming quests is the Monster Arena. You can whittle the time away recruiting monsters to fight for you in a stadium to win prizes. There is also a casino that is worth investing a little time into. Even after finishing the game, there is an additional quest you can do to gain more items and earn a secret ending. Those who enjoy fully completing a game will find a lot to do in Dragon Quest VIII.
Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King is a fantastic traditional RPG that is both challenging and endearing. The sense of adventure will draw you in and the wonderful art style will win you over. Dragon Quest VIII is truly a gem worthy of any RPG gamer’s library.