Video Games : Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King

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from: Square Enix

: Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King

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Binding: Video Game
Brand: Square Enix
EAN: 0662248905013
ESRB Age Rating: Rating Pending
Label: Square Enix
Legal Disclaimer: Warranty does not cover misuse of product.
Manufacturer: Square Enix
Model: 662248905013
Number Of Items: 1
Platform: PlayStation2
Publisher: Square Enix
Release Date: June 15, 2006
Sales Rank: 747
Studio: Square Enix

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Editorial Review:

Product Description:
Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King continues the mega-hit turn-based role-playing strategy of Dragon Quest - the worldwide hit, now available for Americans to enjoy. You're the last survivor of King Torode's army, and the king and his daughter have both been transformed. As his final warrior, you must track down the evil jester who stole his powerful scepter and caused this tragedy. The full-orchestral soundtrack, completely renovated GUI menu system, new battle abilities, and improved animations will take your breath away, while the living, breathing anime world offers a wealth of new places to explore. An epic tale of friendship, bravery, and adventure awaits you on the grassy fields, snow-capped mountains, and restless seas of Dragon Quest VIII.



Customer Reviews
Average Rating: out of 5 stars

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars - Beautifully rendered cell-shaded bliss.
This is the first Dragon Quest to make its appearance on the PS2 and quite a debute it is. You control a precocious young scamp named Hero who is in search of a way to reverse the spell that has plagued his world. You will recognize the characters as they were designed by the creator of the Dragon Ballz and are cell-shaded to produce that true anime feel. The game also includes a playable demo of Final Fantasy XII...though I bought mine used and never got it. Anyway, let's take a closer look at why this game is so popular.

Story:

The Kingdom of Trodain has been attacked by an evil jester named Dhoulmagus who breaks into the kingdom's treasure vault and takes a mysterious scepter....he then uses the magical scepter to inflict a plague across all the lands in an attempt to free Rapthorne, the prince of darkness. You control a precocious young scamp named Hero (you'll name him yourself, thus the generic name) who was unaffected by the plague and is asked - neigh - commanded by the king (now a monster) to retrieve the scepter and defeat Dhoulmagus so the plague will be reversed. Upon entering your first town you learn that an evil jester has been killing innocents who are mysteriously linked to each other, but how?

Gameplay:

As with previous Dragon Quest games, they don't really offer any revolutionary advancement in the RPG genre....just your basic turn based fighting system, but where the series shines is the amount of customization you're allowed for each of the playable characters. Each character also has a unique ability that when optimized will offer the party some intriguing abilities during battles. There are some tedious aspects to the game: leveling can take quite a few kills to advance just one level....and the gold distribution doesn't reflect the price of the weapons, armors, and items you'll need to progress the story. With many costing in the 1000s you will soon discover that the amount of enemies you'll need to fight just to acquire that amount is staggering. Another feature that is either hit-or-miss depending on your taste, is the church save system. If you want to save your game, learn about your characters, cure them, etc... you must confess your actions to a member of the clergy....but this is only a minor annoyance. The game is loaded with side quests like Monster Arena, alchemy, and collecting mini tokens that can be exchanged for some valuable prizes. While there are quite a lot of side quests, Monster Arena is by far the most fun. Monster Arena grants you the option to capture certain monsters to use in a 3-on-3 battle against other teams in the arena. This aspect of the game is highly addictive and more often than not you'll find yourself searching for monsters to capture rather than advancing the story.

Graphic and sound:

Being a cell-shaded game, Dragon Quest has some of the most stunning graphics around. The world, its characters and everything else that it encompasses is beautifully rendered and a joy to experience. The sound doesn't match the graphic's quality but is adequate for conveying the mood of the game.

Final thoughts:

Dragon Quest VIII is the very definition of RPG. It utilizes well-established aspects of the genre and introduces a few new ones. There is enough here to keep new and old fans of the series busy for weeks. However, once you do finish it, there isn't much in the terms of replay.


Rating: 5 out of 5 stars - Great old-school RPG
I haven't been able to stop playing Dragon Quest VIII.

I'm a big RPG fan, but over the last years, all japanese RPGs have been invaded by whiny androgynous spike-haired prettyboys with amnesia and a knack for giant swords, roaming around a techno-magical world, and never seeming to get a grip about the feelings of the lovely but klutzy female party member who was also a childhood friend.... Mind you, I loved Final Fantasy VII, but I'm getting tired of playin the same story with the same stereotypes over and over again.

DQ VIII is a throwback to the good sword and sorcery RPG games of the NES/SNES era, with colorful and likable characters, and decidely evil antagonists. It makes for a prety straightforward plot sometimes, but is a refreshing change among hundreds of games filled with convoluted plots and non-sequitur filled conversations. Plus, the dialogue with the NPCs and specially the interacions among the party members (a feature often overlooked and sorely missed since the Grandia series) is often funny and even hilarious, but is also very endearing and touching when it needs to.

Graphically, the game is totally gorgeous, and the expressive and cartoon-like graphics will likely age very well overtime, unlike many other games (RPG or not) that tried to be realistic in their time, but look like total crap nowadays. I was never a big fan of DragonBall, so it's not a fanboy statement when I say that the character designs from Toriyama fit the game atmosphere so well, and while the enemies are sometimes too cute to look truly menancing, it gives the game a distinct look and feel among the gritty gray-and-brown-only palette of so many current-gen games.

It certainly has some flaws, some of them related to the retro-feel of the game, such as the savegame spots being scarce (although you can teleport with a spell you learn pretty early in the game, solving this issue), and the inventory system feeling pretty clunky and unfriendly sometimes... but most of those problems don't ruin the overall experience, and may even feel like a reminder of how things were in the old days of gaming, so count them as a plus if you are a retrogamer.

I'm liking it pretty much. I almost never play my RPGs from start to finish, usually leaving them to play something else for some time before jumping back and finishing them. But this may be one of the few games that I'll play throughly without distractions, because it just keeps pulling me in.


Rating: 5 out of 5 stars - Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King
This is a riviting, fun game. Challenging and hard to put down once you starts. Time just slips by. Thoroughly enjoy it. I wish they would make more of this type of games for the older systems.


Rating: 2 out of 5 stars - I guess I should read product info instead of just box cover
Nathan A. Webster "Musical anti-snob" has a great critical review, so I won't say anything more on the actual game set-up, especially since I played the game through about, well let's say just the first couple of battles one must go through in the instructional introduction. I changed the game disc at that point, and this now sits up in the stack of my things that I will probably never do anything with ever again, except to put them in a box when I move them to my next home.

I totally bought this game because of Amazon's delightful way of making recommendations for you based on what you purchase. Since I read a lot of Fantasy books with Dragon in the title, plus I have PS2, this was a sparkling jewel that has no real value, now that I have seen it for myself. I guess, this could all be due because I have already played through twice Final Fantasy X and both the Kingdom Hearts, plus I'm currently playing FFXII and Fantasy Star Universe. So you can imagine that seeing little tamagotchi characters showing you how to defeat your enemy, made me feel almost insulted (I realize that Kingdom Hearts and Fantasy Star U are RPG-just not turned based, but take a look at FFXII which was being developed and already was included as demo in one of the US releases of Dragon Quest and you see huge differences)

So, I guess I should have looked at the original release date (which is actually October 2004 in Japan, the 2006 date refers to US only) and the TEEN rating, but to tell you the truth, it should at most be 'tweener' since apparently battling with brightly colored fun little pokemon animations has no real basis of what defeat in real life would be. Also, this is now the second Square Enix game I've bought that, to me, doesn't live up to it's reputation. I guess my Quest to find a captivating game these days is like a Journey of the Cursed



Rating: 5 out of 5 stars - Very fun game!
I love Dragon Quest VIII. It is a great RPG. It a game one can lost track of time playing because it is so much fun. I heartily recommend this product!

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