Dragon Quest VIII(PS2) warning lots of pics

[Transient Link]

Publisher: Square Enix
Developer: Level 5
Genre: Role-Playing
Release Date: Nov 15, 2005 (more)
ESRB: TEEN
ESRB Descriptors: Alcohol Reference, Fantasy Violence, Mild Language, Suggestive Themes, Simulated Gambling
Number of Players: 1 Player

Dragon Quest VIII

   Quote, "A mysterious jester. A forbidden scepter. A fiendish curse. A once idyllic kingdom lies entangled in a web of enchanted vines, its king and princess hideously transformed, its castle and subjects frozen in time. Only one person has survived this horror unscathed: you!"

Story- The story of Dragon Quest VIII begins shortly after the horrors at Trodain castle. You are in a group with  King Trode, who has been transformed into some toad like creature, Princess Medea, who has been changed into the horse which carries their carriage, Yangus, a bandit whom you saved from his doom on a bridge and now is traveling with you forever in your debt, and of course you the hero. You are on a quest to bring down the evil jester named Dhoulmagus. Who has stolen a legendary scepter from Trodain castle and cast a curse on the people inside. Your story is basic at first. You chase down the evil jester from town to town having a few encounters with the fellow while gathering 2 more people in your party. As the story progresses however you finally catch up with the jester and manage to bring him down. Yet no the story isn't over it's only just begun. With the evil jesters defeat you are only about half way through the game. That's right it's not over. The story is compelling as well as amazing. You will find yourself rapped up in short comedy diolouges between Yangus and Trode whom don't get along. As well as multiple side stories that all weave together to make an intricate and interesting story.

Gameplay- The gameplay is interesting. You use the left joystick of your PS2 controller to move your character, and the right to move the camera around you. The controls are very fluid and easy. So there is no getting stuck in places or anything of that sort in this game. Every town has multiple things for you to look at to find items and clues for your quest keeping you very interested each time you enter a new place. The battle system goes by random battles. Battles are incredibly fluid and quite a show later in the game, as you will eventually learn skills that are flashy and a cool sight to see. The battles are turned based so you will have plenty of time to strategize your next move. There are multiple things you can do.....

The battle system starts out with 4 options
Fight: taking on the monsters yourself and choosing each and every command. Here are the sub options for Fight.

Attack: A basic move in which you attack using what ever weapon you have equipped, or fists, to attack and one monster. Unless you have a whip or boomerang which allows you to attack multiple enemies in the same group at once.

Abilities: You can select and perform abilities that your characters have learned and use them on your opponents. Abilities vary depending on how you allocate your skill points.

Spells: You can select and perform spells that your characters have learned and either use them to make your party stronger, attack the enemy, make the enemy weaker, or heal your party.

Items: Use items that your character has on his person to heal your party, use a weapons special ability, etc. (Note that the character your using cant use items in the bag or items the other characters are holding)

Defend: A basic action that increases your defense on the turn that you use it.

Psyche up: A great move. What it does is raise your characters "tension level" which allows there attacks to grow stronger. Tension grows more powerful the more times you use it in a row. (Note, your character will lose its tension if it dies, falls asleep, or can't move for a turn. There are also moves that lower your raised tension level) Tension increases like this, 5, 20, and 50. Once your character reaches level 20 it can reach 100 tension level. I will not give away what this looks like, but you will be amused.

The other 3 commands on the base menu are...

Flee: A move that allows your characters to flee. There is a chance that you will be unsuccessful and lose that turn.

Intimidate: A move that allows you to scare away monsters. This technique only works on weaker monsters. It is better to use intimidate than flee when facing a monster you don't want to face because they will sometimes drop treasure chests.

Tactics: This offers you a list of ways you want your characters to fight on there own. This feature is useful if you do not wish to battle an enemy yourself.

Other things on the battle system....
Dieing: characters that die can only be brought back by Yggdrasil leaves, and the spells zing, and kazing. They can also be brought back to life for a price at a local church.

Party wipe outs: if your party gets wiped out you lose half your gold. There are no banks in Dragon Quest VIII till much later in the game so be careful.

The skill system: After each battle you will receive experience points. Once you have enough XP you will level up. Once you do you may get skill points. You can allocate these skill points to different weapons styles for your characters. Some characters receive skill points faster than others. For example Yangus gets skill points much faster than other characters. The skill system allows your characters to perhaps have an attack boost if you have the particular type of weapon equipped that you allocated skill points too. Or to learn abilities and spells that your characters couldn't do without.

Other gameplay elements.....
Shops and money: Money is hard to find in Dragon Quest VIII and shops sell there weapons and armor for high prices. It will be necessary to train your characters a lot and obtain money from the monsters you slay. That is the best way to earn money. There are also special visual monsters that you will run into on the field. They are much stronger than others, but if you defeat them they will give a lot of XP and drop what's called a "monster coin" there are 3 kinds bronze(worth 200gp) silver(worth 500gp) and gold(worth1000gp) now that doesn't sound like much, but in this game it is.


Churches: churches are found in almost every town. There you can talk to the priest in order to do the following....

Confession: This is the save feature which allows you to save your game.

Divination: This allows you to see how many XP you have to get before you reach your next level.

Resurrection: Bringing one of your characters back to life (costs money)

Purification: This cures any poison your characters have on them (costs money) its better to just by antidotal herbs.

Benediction: Removes curses from your characters (costs money)


Over all the gameplay is very deep and enjoyable as you can see.


Sound/Graphics: The sound in this game is top notch and the character voices are a nice touch to the games enjoyablilty. You will enjoy hearing Yangus' talking and calling your character "the guv", to the sounds of striking and opponent in your battles. The graphics in the game are very nice. As you may notice the character shading looks very similar to Dragon Ball Z. This is because one of the head graphics designers made the anime. The world inside of Dragon Quest VIII is a lush beautiful land that you will enjoy traversing.


Characters-

Hero- This would be you. You are one of the castle guards and the only one who survived unscathed from the curse of the castle. You have a little pet name Munchy, who is some kind of unknown creature even in their world. You character never speaks in the game. The hero has a crush on the princess as you will see in some cut scenes later in the game, and is friends with Yangus whom he saved.

Yangus: The powerhouse of your party and a bit of a ruffian. He used to be a bandit before the hero saved him from falling to his death. Now Yangus in the hero's best friend and ally. Yangus and king Trode do not get along at all. You will see in the story there constant bickering and arguing. Quite amusing.

Jessica: The mage of your party. She comes from a very high class family. Yet is one of the rebels of her family. Jessica joins your party because she wanted revenge against the evil jester for slaying her older brother Alistair. She herself is sometimes hotheaded and spoiled. She will sometimes slap Angelo for trying to hit on her.

Angelo: An orphan as a child who found a home in what's called "the Abby" Angelo is a lady killer always looking at the pretty girls. Angelo is quite sophisticated and sometimes pigheaded. Angelo joins the party because he wants revenge against the evil jester for killing the leader of the Abby, whom he thought of as his father.

King Trode: The cursed king. King of the kingdom of Trodain. He and his daughter Medea were transformed by the evil jester Dhoulmagus after he stole the ancient scepter from the castle. King Trode cares very dearly for his daughter, but tends to be bossy to the hero. This causes Yangus to get annoyed and causes little arguments between the two often. Over time the king will have a revelation as to how terrible it is to be a commoner and ugly. This makes his character much different in the end than he is in the beginning.

Dhoulmagus: The evil jester whom stole the scepter from the kingdom of Trodain. He is a very cruel and evil man who kills many people as you chase after him. For what reason would he have to kill these people? To test his new power? Or for some other unknown reason? Find out for yourself in the epic story of Dragon Quest VIII


Well that's it for my review, here are my ratings..

Story: 9/10

Gameplay: 9.5/10

Graphics/sound: 10/10

Overall/ 9.5 out of 10


Here are some screenshots of the ingame.

[Triforce_Luigi]

Very good review, Marluxia. Your grammar is gettimg better, somewhat.

[Transient Link]

Very good review, Marluxia. Your grammar is gettimg better, somewhat.

Better than when I started thats for sure ;D

[Triforce_Luigi]

Yep! :-)