Dragon Quest VIII

In the relatively limited world of console role playing games, a game exists that has nearly as many sequels as the extremely popular Final Fantasy. This series is Dragon Quest. The eighth installment of the series marks the first game in the series to appear on the Playstation 2. Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King stars a young and silent main character whom his friends affectionately call “Guv’.” The four-person party is on a journey to restore humanity to a king transformed into a frog-like creature. As the journey continues, the party learns of a dark magician and a plot to resurrect a demonic god. One look at the characters and one might recognize the artwork: the character and monster design created by the extremely popular Akira Toriyama. Toriyama achieved worldwide recognition for his famous Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z series. The game’s mechanics consist of traveling from village to village and finding the next step in the quest. As the characters travel, they encounter various monsters, which they battle in a turn-based battle system. The characters achieve experience points that improve their strengths. In addition to this, an extra skill point system exists where the characters can be allotted strengths in certain weapons when they learn new battle techniques. Although the series is made by Square-Enix, the same company that made Final Fantasy there are a few distinct differences. In contrast to Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest is extremely difficult. While the former game takes little effort in beating, gamers are forced to take time and gain experience in order to fight a number of extremely difficult boss battles. It is altogether possible for the party to die multiple times in the very first boss battle, something that is virtually unheard of in recent mainstream RPG’s. Three-dimensional graphics accentuate Akira Toriyama’s artwork along with a rotating camera. The characters and landscape are cell-shaded. Composer Koichi Sugiyama returns to the series for creation of the soundtrack. Although the music is well done and sounds crisp, the limited number of songs can sometimes grow annoying, especially while the countryside song plays for the nth time. If it weren’t for the excellently performed dialogue, gamers might be tempted to turn down the volume and put a CD on during a long gaming session. One more important thing to note about the game is its length. Dragon Quest VII is extremely long. The time it takes to complete greatly depends on the player. However, with an extremely expansive world, the game is quite long in comparison to most console RPG’s. Despite a soundtrack that can become repetitive and the fact that the game can be difficult to the point of frustration, the world of Dragon Quest is vast and colorful. The game gives players a fun battle system and a huge number of enjoyable characters to experience.