[PS2] Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King

I am currently working on beating Rank B. The whole monster arena concept is really brilliant and fun to play. I love Morrie and the prize winner guy's accents, especially when the prize winner says something like: "A most spectacular performance, here is the prize for winning Rank (?)". That line cracks me up everytime I hear it

iyou are right, and morrie is cool because he looks like to mr satan from dragon ball z?

I got this game a week after it released, and I played it non-stop and beat the final boss at around 80 hours, and beat it all in 114 hours, but not at max level yet. Yes, the story was predictable, the combat system wasn't excellent, but it was a well polished game with great music (The tower music in this game is awesome for such a slow piece.) and fluid graphics, I wasn't even a big fan of cell shading, but I was shocked.

I liked the characters, even with the mute hero bringing back memories of Crono. And the story had some good parts to it, even some funny stuff.

Overall, it's the best RPG I have played in a while, it must rank easily in my top 10.

I played 20 hours of it but I haven't enjoyed it that badly. Sure there are some fum parts but there are also A LOT of boring parts, especially all of those moments that have no relation to the game's story.

I was so far from being entertained that I dropped it in 20 hours and I will return to play some other time. My cousin who had already finished the game said the game get's a lot better at the point I was (The 2nd Island) but I was not paying to see it. Maybe at the middle of the year or so I'll keep going from where I left.

But if there is one thing I really loved in this game was the soundtrack, I simply loved it. There were times when I wasn't much in the mood to play it but I kept playing just so I could listen to it.

Don't get me wrong, I think it is a good game, I just get pissed off when you're playing something that takes forever for the story to move onwards.

Spoiler:

It's different from Final Fantasy 7 for example, where at the beggining of the game you are fighting Shinra but as the story goes you realise your real enemy is something else.

remember that the story of DQ8 is really straight forward(everything is about the quest of the cursed king to regain his former self) so, there are no surprises at least talking in twist manners.

Yeah. DQ8's story is about as simple as it gets. If you can't see the end result coming from a mile away you must be completely out of it.

Question: is the

Spoiler:

optional quest and 'true' ending

worth it?
I am about ready to beat the game, so I was just wondering.

Yes it is, because you can obtain the Hero's second appearance in it. But be warned, it's a pretty tough series of challenges. It'll make the end boss comparable to fighting a Slime at level 60. >_>;

You don't have to actually go through all of the challenges to trigger the second ending. Just, what, the first one?

Yeah, just one of 'em. But to get the costume....

Yeah, but the costume isn't really that great looking. I don't think it's really worth the time, but I am sure if I were a kid who had a ton of free time, it might be fun to try.

Random out of context comment: Toys R Us has dropped the price of DQ8 to $40, so if you haven't gotten it yet, your patience has been rewarded.

For the first time since I beat the game a few months ago, I played it again just to kinda mess around for a second.

I remembered that during my playthrough, I never hit 100 tension on any of my characters, but it wasn't from lack of trying. So this time I used the recipe for the Timbrel of Tension in the super alchemy pot, and a couple seconds later I had the Timbrel.

So I took it with me in to battle and used it, and in one battle got all of my characters up to 100 tension! Just thought I'd share. Heh.

Timbrel of Tension rocks.

I'm about 45 hours into it. Just passed the Dark Ruins.

It's a refreshing game. Not because it's innovative (because it isn't). Not because it has a deep, engaging story (because it doesn't). But because it's so unapologetically OLD SKEWL that it's taken me right back to the days I was playing my free copy of Dragon Warrior that I got for subscribing to Nintendo Power in my bedroom. Of course, I'm glad they left out some truly old school touches (like making you select "DOOR" or "STEPS" from the command list).

My wife hates the game though. Swears it's the stupidest, most childish game I've forced her to sit through. She just doesn't get it. She wasn't weaned on DW1 & 2, Phantasy Star 1, and Final Fantasy 1 as a kid.

I've only been wiped out once - by Dhoulmagus's second form. It was funny, my wife was all like, "So does this mean you're done with this game?" as her hopes were quickly raised. I just shrugged and said, "Naw. If I know Dragon Warrior games, there's another boss after this one." Sometimes predictable is good.

Ha, that's pretty funny about your wife not being weaned on the previous DQ/W games. I wasn't either -- DQ 8 was my first and I actually bought a copy of DW7 after I beat 8, which I plan on playing soon.

I played it trough now and technically it can't keep up with Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy games in pretty much every way of course but it's suppose to be an oldscool game anyway with all it's flaws and addiction for discovery and collection.
All in all it was more an average game for me which couldn't give me such a great 3-D feeling like Zelda did and the music isn't bad composed but too boring after a while and destroys sometimes the atmosphere with pretty lame cues in climatic moments. It's bad enough that the sequences aren't really good cut together and can look extremely cheap. The score simply can't keep up anymore with the high quality osts today but well, it's an oldschool game with all of it's flaws.
The slow leveling up and waaaaaaay to many random battle can drag the gameplay pretty down but I'm in such a high level now that I don't get them at all anymore with holy protection. Only have to beat the dragonian dragon 3 more times.

The two boss thing really came into its own with DQ3. DQ1 was all about the Dragonlord, and DQ2's Malroth only popped in long enough to fight you. But DQ3 was where the two boss model was perfected. Just as you start celebrating taking down Baramos, Zoma goads you into crossing over into the cursed world for a fight (which, of course, was the world of DQ1 and 2, tying the whole trilogy together nicely).

DQ has been a series of trilogies thus far, with 1-3 being a single storyline and 4-6 being another. Part of me wonders what the connection between 7 and 8 is that we aren't being told yet.

Dragon Quest VIII is clearly connected to a small degree with both Dragon Quest and Dragon Quest III, and possibly Dragon Quest IV if you want to reinforce the fact that the locations of the two cameo characters are even mentioned.

Dragon Quest IX may tie the two legends (Loto/Zenithian) together once and for all.

Originally Posted by Elrasiel

it can't keep up

Dragon Quest can more than keep up with Final Fantasy with ease, and ANYTHING can keep up with Kingdom Hearts.

Also, I don't know what you're smoking when it comes to the OST saying it can't keep up. Exactly how many games have fully orchestrated scores when they hit stateside?

It can keep up in the sense that it's the only one of the three RPG series you've mentioned that legally CAN'T be released on a weekday in Japan because it would promote too much absence from work and school!