Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King

"Meh..."

Yeah, I know what you're thinking. Why, oh, WHY must there always be that one guy who gives a game like this a low score? I mean, everyone and their momma loves this game (how many times must I hear "It has captured Japan!"), and knowing this, I sauntered on down to Best Buy to grab my own copy of this ostensible masterpiece.

Flat out, Dragon Quest VIII is not a masterpiece. It's a bad game.

Let's run down the list, and I think you'll see why.

Graphics: 10/10
I always like to start with graphics, since video games are essentially visual. People rarely buy games nowadays that don't at least *look* good. This game, I must say, looks fantabulous. Akira Toriyama is the man, lemme tell ya. His character designs (all done in cell-shade) are top notch (although the main character is a little bland...the rest of them look excellent). As I type this I can recall Jessica's boobs and Yangus's fat booty. *sigh* This is golden character design.

And the landscapes? Incredible. Reminded me of Star Ocean: Till the End of Time, another game with incredible atmosphere. Also reminded me of games like Zelda and Mario. Great landscapes, full of color and depth. You'll want to explore till you drop, seriously.

Once again, I have nothing bad to say about the graphics.

Sound: 5/10
If you love hearing the same song over and over again, then you can go grab the soundtrack which won't contain more than....probably 20 or so songs, I guarantee you. And some of them will be really short, like the little chime you hear when you win a battle.

Basically, all of the music in this game is orchestrated. A little TOO orchestrated, if you ask me. Every song is overwrought, every song is like a rhapsody, a little too enthusiastic, a little too....Star Wars. "Come on, I just entered a cottage in the the woods, not the 9th demension!" in the words of a fellow gamer. You'll know what I mean when you first start the game and you hear the fanfare theme. Why a fanfare theme for this type of game? The storyline isn't even....ok, I'll get to that later. Anyway, the music in this game is repetitive (you'll hear the same song in many, many cities and even out in the wilderness...the same song...yeesh!), and the orchestra was really unneeded. They could have easily gotten away with a few keyboards and a guitar.

Voice acting in this game is superb. My only gripe is that pretty much everyone has a British accent. Why? Does this game take place in Great Britain or something? Does my character (the silent protagonist) also have an accent? It just gets annoying after a while...but not annoying enough for you to hate the voice acting. Overall, it's really good, notwithstanding its lack of variance.

The sound effects are weird. You see, in order to enjoy them, I suppose you'd have to be a Dragon Quest vet. Most Americans aren't Dragon Quest vets (regardless of what people tell you on message boards...) but like to pretend they are. So they'll say it's good that the game includes all these "old school" throwbacks et cetera et cetera, since this makes the game feel nostalgic. Well, sorry guys, but this just confuses the heck outta me, and I'm a veteran RPG player. Why do you have 8 bit bleeps and bloops interspersed with high quality slashes and eruptions? It makes no sense.

But these minor gripes didn't make or break the game. So take them with a grain of salt, and let's move on.

Story: 3/10
The only reason the story earns a 3 is because of how well it is told. But come on, let's get real. The story in Dragon Quest VIII is horrendous. It's like they actually TRIED to make it suck. "Let's make a evil wizard dude who wants to kill people and take over the world for no reason!" Please, don't insult my intelligence. The story in this game actually makes me feel stupid as I write this...alright, time to stop!

I won't spoil anything for you. I'll just say that you're in for one heck of a disappointment if you buy Dragon Quest VIII thinking you'll experience an epic tale of friendship, betrayal, and humor. This game has none of these qualities. It actually reminds me a lot of Quest 64. They might as well have named it "Dragon Quest 64".

The characters are a great bunch of people, who seemed to have lots of potential, but unfortunately they rarely ever get a chance to shine. When they do (like Yangus and his stories...) it just feels awkward and forced, as if the developers said "Wow, ok, what should we have them do here until the next event happens? We could have them fight....or we could have Yangus tell another story!" Man, why must they insult my intelligence? Not just mine, but yours too, pal.

So anyway, the story is garbage.

Gameplay: 2/10
Good lord almighty, why must this game be a grind? I know, "old school" games were grinds....but that's because we were too stupid back then to actually care about other things in games, like, I dunno....how about story? This game has random battles, and while there's not that many of them, you'll still need to fight ALL the time (and cut off heads and flip out) in order to level up for the next boss. But the problem is that some of the regular enemies are just as strong as bosses, if not even stronger! What sense does that make? I'm fighting a 10 minute battle with regular enemies for paltry experience points when I could just go whack the boss. And believe you me, bosses are nothing to sneeze at, either. You'll constantly find yourself having to heal after every turn, as if this were some sort of DDR game (*and heal and slash and heal and slash and heal and slash).

And yes, yes, yes, this game is very repetitive. You'll slash. You'll heal. You'll slash. You'll heal. If this is worth $50 to you, then just give it to me and I'll let you play with my Bop It. I'm mean, seriously.

There are skills and things you can get, but none of them are really that useful. For instance, I remember leveling up swords with the main character, and it took forever to get a decent skill. I kept getting stuff that could only be used against certain opponents, like dragons and crap, when I had yet to face any dragons at all. It seems like I'd get the dragon killing skill around the time when I face a dragon, and something more useful in the meantime, but noooooo....this game has to make things too difficult.

The interface is very clunky, too. What's up with all this "old school" nonsense? Why does it take so long for me to save my game (you have to sit and listen to the preacher in the church go on and on until he/she finally lets you save)? Why does it take forever to organize my items? Why aren't there any save points? Come on, this is just ridiculous.

With a bad story, it's really hard to get motivated to level up for hours just to fight the next boss, go to the next village, learn more about some stupid wizard who is taking over the world, and then do it all again. I seriously would rather babysit the worst child in the world than suffer another playthrough of this game. Actually, as I type this I am babysitting the worst child in the world....but that's beside the point.

Overall: 3/10 (not an average)
Well, that's it. You know, I really wanted to like this game...blah blah blah, you've heard it all before. If you haven't, and you think my review sucks, then I'd have to question how "old school" you really are. But this isn't about the decadence of my ego, it's about Dragon Quest VIII, a bad game. Dragon Quest VIII is like that really popular kid in high school whom everyone loves, and they sit around kissing his butt and saying all these great things about him. Then you arrive on the scene, you're the new kid. You fail to see what everyone else sees in this popular kid, and you just laugh. Then you get beat up.... :)

Bottom-line, Dragon Quest VIII isn't worth your money unless you like repetitive games with no interesting story, pretty graphics, and a clunky interface.

Peace.

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 12/19/05, Updated 12/20/05