Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King

I've been playing Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King (DQ8) on the PS2 for two days now, enough for a short review. If I had to describe it in a single expression, I'd call it "Final Fantasy Lite". It is a fun game, great graphics, interesting characters, lots of humor, and easy to get into. But it isn't very innovative, instead preferring to step in the footsteps of classic console RPG gaming.

You are playing a hero and his companions, first just one ex-bandit named Yangus who in the European version has a funny Cockney accent, but gaining two further companions over the course of the game. The hero is working for a king and a princess, but as the title suggests they have been cursed, and the king is now a green goblin, and the princess is the horse pulling his cart. The game tells the story of how the hero goes on a quest to lift the curse, but it is a long story with many complications and mysteries. Besides the main story, there are a couple of side-quests, side boss mobs, and other other things to do, like capturing monsters for a monster arena.

DQ8 was developed by Level-5, and published by Square Enix. Level-5 is known for Dark Cloud (one of my favorite PS2 RPGs) and Dark Chronicle, and DQ8 goes with a cell-shaded 3D look similar to that of Dark Chronicle, but with thinner outlines. That works very well, and the graphics can only be described as beautiful and colorful. But the gameplay of DQ8 resembles more the Final Fantasy games from Square Enix, just without the jumping, and a bit less complicated with the character development.

You spend a good part of the game running around in the world or in dungeons, occasionally being attacked by random monsters coming out of nowhere, just like in Final Fantasy. How strong the random monsters are is determined by the area you are in, and the time of day, with monsters being more powerful at night. Unlike Final Fantasy you get an ability early on which "whistles" to attract random monsters, automatically starting a fight, so you don't have to run around in circles if you are looking for a fight. And you also get items and abilities which prevent random monsters from attacking. So you have pretty good control about how much fighting you want to do.

Combat is strictly turn-based. At the start of each round you tell every character what to do, whether it is an attack, a spell, or using an item. You can also try to flee or intimidate the monsters into fleeing. After you have finished your instructions, the characters and monsters hit each other in an order determined by their agility. Besides damaging each other with physical attacks and spells, there are a range of status effects combatants can inflict on each other, from the more classic poison and sleep effects to more exotic effects like uncontrollable dancing. Yangus list of abilities he can get later in the game includes "Underpants Dance: Paralyzes all enemies". :)

While with minor monsters you might have an interest to attack directly to get them out of the way, in longer fights you can also spend a round to "psyche up", up to 3 times early in the game, 4 times later, which gives a huge boost to your attack strength, enabling you to deal a lot of damage at once. So a typical strategy would have one character psyching up, and another one healing, until the big attack is unleashed. But apart from psyching up, combat is a relatively simple affair. And obviously a bit repetitive. That is lightened up by the funny monsters, like the bunicorn, a bunny with a horn on its forehead. The story and dialogues are also on the light, humorous side, which makes a welcome change from the often melodramatic Final Fantasy stories.

By killing monsters you gain gold and experience points, and the xp will raise your level. Character development is a very simple affair, most stats increases are automatic, your only choice is in which of 5 possible areas to distribute your skillpoints. 4 of these 5 areas are weapons, while the 5th is a character specific area, like courage for the hero, humanity for Yangus, and sex-appeal for Jessica. There is no skill "tree", just a linear list, opening up more spells and abilities the more points you put in an area. Obviously the weapon skills only work if you wield that specific weapon, but weapon skills tend to have a major influence on your damage output, while the character specific abilities are useful, but often less damaging. Depending on your style you can put more points into weapons and just beat the enemies into bits, or take a more subtle, magic-based approach with lots of status effects.

Your hit points and magic points don't regenerate between combats. You either need to return to a city and sleep in an inn to fill them back up, or you need to ingest various herbs and potions to fill them. Getting back to a city is easy, with teleport items and cheap teleport spells you get very early in the game. But then you'll need to walk back to where you were on foot. Items can be found from monsters, or in various chests, bags, and cupboards, even if the owner of said cupboard is standing right next to you. You can also combine items in an alchemy pot into new items, based on recipes found in the world, or experimentation (or from spoiler sites).

All in all very classic RPG gameplay. You follow the story, and if ever the monsters you need to kill for the story are too tough, you do some more random fights to gain xp and level up. I've found sites estimating a duration of about 60 hours, don't know yet how long I will take. I like Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King, and I'll probably play it until the end, but I don't think I would play it a second time. It is a more or less linear game, with little replayability. But as long as I have fun during the hours where I'm playing it, I don't mind. I have no need for another game threatening to take over my life, like MMORPGs tend to do. Games with a clear end do have their advantages. :)