Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King: Review

An unusual company comes out into a cozy forest clearing – a silent protagonist in a red bandana, a bandit-jokester with the accent of a London gangster, a troll similar to Master Yoda, who is actually an enchanted king. And a horse who is actually the troll’s daughter. From the very first seconds Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King makes it clear that it is about bright, um, people and their relationships.

The Troll King and the Screwtape Jester

The four do not travel for the love of fresh air. King Trod, having harnessed his daughter to a carriage, is trying to find Dhoulmagus, the jester-wizard, whose spell turned him into a little green freak. A pair of fighters of different weight classes accompany him on this reckless expedition. Reckless because Dulmagus also wanders through cities and towns, selectively killing important but unrelated people, and even well-fortified garrisons cannot stop him.

On the way, our party will quickly meet Jessica, a young eccentric sorceress, and Angelo, a knight templar and lover of young sorceresses. They lost loved ones due to Dulmagus and are ready to take revenge.

If this premise seems a little banal to some, a few plot scenes involving the bandit Yangus, Jessica or the troll king will quickly convince them. The characters are not just written – they are alive: we will see scenes from the past of our comrades, and each of them is staged in such a way that you want to watch to the end.

Yes and the world Dragon Quest VIII inhabited not by extras, but by very believable and original people and monsters – a drinking fortuneteller with a Russian accent who threw his crystal ball into a waterfall, a king who has been mourning his wife for two years and forcing the whole country to wear black, and many others.

They sometimes appear on camera only for Nonukcasinosites.co.uk/review/dream-vegas-casino/ half an hour, but with any of them you can make your own game (and a branch about Yangus actually came out in Japan, selling quite a lot of copies). The series has always been strong with its small tragedies, but here they are simply wonderful. Even passing “bosses” like the mole-musician are made with such care that you remember them, unlike the main characters of other JRPGs. And very often those whom we once met will appear later in the plot.

And the small team is supplemented by monsters, which you can catch and turn them into a whole combat unit, calling on the battlefield instead of four heroes. Moreover, in this version, compared to the original for PlayStation 2, there are two more people who join the party. Fans have long known who these newcomers are, but I won’t spoil the surprise for the rest.

Return of the King

Using the example Metal Gear Solid 3 And Tales of the Abyss pocket console Nintendo has already shown that it can handle PS2 games quite well. However, in the case of Dragon Quest VIII I had to sacrifice something. Characters of the famous mangaku Akira Toriyama (Akira Toriyama) have lost their original “comic book” outline, the grass in the field hardly sways anywhere, and the trees have become withered and sometimes appear out of thin air. The textures also let us down – sometimes they are much more blurry than in the source. However, if you don’t compare, then we have one of the most beautiful JRPGs for 3DS, working without technical glitches, albeit only in two-dimensional mode. Anyway, part eight Dragon Quest looks much better than last year’s seventh. And I didn’t blame that one for her appearance.

Another point that makes last year’s re-release akin to the new one is the soundtrack in MIDI quality instead of symphonic quality. For connoisseurs and aesthetes this is certainly a minus, but the music of a veteran composer Koichi Sugiyama (Koichi Sugiyama) itself is so good that even in the “old school” version it evokes only positive emotions and a desire to use the console as a player. Plus, without music compression, it would be impossible to preserve the excellent dialogue dubbing.

And in general there is only one fact that Dragon Quest VIII Now it’s in my pocket, it’s already a joy. Because the game is not only epic, but also truly huge – only the same seventh part is longer in the series by a hundred hours. Squeezing a huge JRPG with a world on several continents into a small cartridge, Square Enix compensated for the simplified appearance with new content. If two new central characters are not enough for someone, then a photographer mode has appeared, which allows you to receive valuable things and exchange screenshots with other owners of the game. Finally, random battles are a thing of the past – all enemies are visible on the map, so you can choose who to fight and who to run from.

Like in an old fairy tale

In general, the same as a decade ago, Dragon Quest VIII embodies the best of classic Japanese RPGs. Turn-based battles, alternating cities and dungeons, sailing on ships and entertainment in a branded casino are mixed in ideal proportions. In the eighth part Yuji Horii (Yuji Horii), the permanent screenwriter and almost permanent designer of the series, has found a balance where everything seems to be quite simple and accessible, but at the same time has depth.

Let’s take traditional fights in the “wall to wall” format. Just four fighters, each of them has their own role (from “tank” to “white mage”), taking turns beating monsters. But here the heroes’ moves depend on what weapon you gave them, which allows you to vary your tactics. Also, each of our players can skip a move by increasing the Tension parameter – due to this, the next blow will be stronger.

Or here’s the equipment. Buying the most advanced swords, whips and armor in shops is expensive and stupid. You can use an alchemical cauldron and make a cape from monster skins and tin sheets found along the way, which will increase the protection parameters much better than a store-bought cloak. Recipes for what to mix with what are in books. If you remember the seventh part, there reading literature only revealed the details of the plot, but here it was made useful for gameplay.

Magic world Dragon Quest VIII not overpopulated with monsters, so you need to “pump up” very moderately. Usually only when you rush through several story arcs without fighting at all. And at all the different locations they come up with some new tasks for us, surprising us with details. When you first discover that day and night people on the streets can say completely different, and sometimes useful, things, you want to stay in each hotel twice – before sunset and after. And in the pocket of the silent Hero lives a mouse, and several times only he can get travelers out of trouble. And there are dozens of such examples.

Tactics in battles are much more important than in the remake of the seventh part – you will no longer be able to win in automatic mode.

“The Journey of the Enchanted King” is one of those masterpieces that set the bar for quality for decades and hardly gets old. After him, you look at the characters and worlds of many JRPGs as funny and ridiculous attempts. The re-release differs little from the original, losing only some gloss, but filling the gap with new content. If you want to get acquainted with the series/genre in general or are just waiting for the next Game with a capital G – here it is, passing by under the guise of an absurd troll.

Pros: dozens of memorable, lively characters and thoughtful stories; an interesting world in the spirit of the European Middle Ages; classic gameplay for the genre at its best; new content – modes, heroes, locations.
Cons: when moving to 3DS, they sacrificed a little quality of graphics and music.