Di solito inizio i giochi sapendo già di doverli prima o poi interrompere causa mancanza di tempo ( bella scusa, eh ? ), ma non mi era mai capitato che al contrario un gioco si ribellasse facendo di tutto pur di non essere giocato ! DQ8 e la mia Ps2 non vanno per niente d’accordo, forse perchè ormai è vecchiotta e la lente non legge bene i giochi, forse perchè… non saprei… ( Se avete idee postate nei commenti ! )

Fatto stà che questo rpg mi sta uccidendo in tutti i sensi, per poter esplorare una zona ci si mette un’eternità, i caricamenti per le battaglie durano tantissimo ed in genere il tutto scorre molto lentamente proprio per i problemi su detti: ma oggi ho avuto l’ennesima conferma ! Giusto il tempo di trovare una nuova strada gironzolando intorno all’ Abbazia Maella, ingolosirmi con un posto segreto con un qualche genere di enigma da risolvere, raccogliere una nuova moneta di bronzo ed il gioco si blocca… Che rottura.

Non sprecherò altri caratteri in questo post per raccontarvi quanto sia stupida questa situazione, ma ne approfitto per segnarmi due cosette che non devo dimenticare di fare nel gioco:

1. Roccia da abbattere fuori dal porto
2. Tesori sull’isola di fronte all’abbazia ( da raggiungere in nave ?! )
3. Tomba da spostare dietro ad una costruzione nell’abbazia
4. Posto “misterioso” con una casa distrutta e il terreno rialzato ( dopo l’abbazia, seguendo la strada subito a sinistra )

Dopo averne sentito parlare molto (sia bene che male a dire il vero) mi son deciso ad approvigionarmi di una versione fake da giocare in attesa di prendere la vera quando lo ho finito (-> pancino), e dunque ho finalmente potuto provare con mano; allora, whoa. Ho già perso 5 ore a giocare e non ho fatto altro che il primo dungeon, che per l’esattezza si trova a 20 secondi di distanza dalla prima città. Caspita è veramente molto curato, e sto riuscendo ad apprezzare molto anche i particolari delle varie ambientazioni / persone con cui interagire, lo scorrere del tempo e l’effetto giorno / notte che trasforma il paesaggio (nelle città le persone tornano a casa ed accendono le luci, nell’overworld si incontrano nemici più forti ed in quantità maggiori). Mi sto ambientando con il sistema in genere, e sembra anche un Rpg in cui bisogna fare attenzione ed essere strategici nei combattimenti, pena morte ultra-scontata a causa del numero di nemici elevato e boss che sembrano tutto tranne che stupidi. Ed è così che devono essere questi giochi… Il che non è sempre scontato visto la quantità considerevole di titoli assolutamente brainless in cui basterebbe premere A per andare avanti e finire il gioco :facepalm: Comunque andando in giro si vede che l’ambientazione è veramente molto molto curata e si possono ammirare tanti bei particolari degni di nota, soprattutto per un gioco di molto tempo fa (2004 uscita JP) che gira su una console ormai vecchia… Insomma veramente incredibile. Ora sono nel villaggio di Alexandria, e spero di riuscire a continuare il gioco (impegni permettendo)… P.s. vi saluta Rossone…

Information about Dragon Quest VIII:
Consoles Game is Available for: Playstation 2
Genre: Turn-Based RPG
Developer/Publisher: Level 5/Square-Enix
US Release Date: November 2005

When Dragon Quest VIII was announced way-back-when, it’s an understatement to say I was excited for it.  I’m a huge fan of the series, and while VII disappointed me a little, it looked like this next game in the long-running series was shaping up to be something great.  Also, it was the first Dragon Quest game headed by Level 5, so no one knows how it was going to work out.  Well, did it meet MY expectations? Read on to find out.

Let’s start with the story.  You’re the Hero (that’s the placeholder name, you can call him whatever you like), and well… you’re on a journey with your cursed king to un-curse him.  Obviously, the story’s more complicated than that, but that about sums it up.  Anyway, the one that cursed the king of Trodain is running around the countryside, causing mischief and killing people, and you spend a good deal of the game chasing after him.  Of course, as one would expect from a modern-day RPG, not everything is as it seemed, and new facts and plot twists will be slowly brought to light.  And I mean slowly: the game’s main story clocks in at around 70 hours, which is a hefty chuck of Dragon Quest.  That’ not really a bad thing, though; while there are times where you get little story for the effort, or just have to walk through the overworld for a little too long, you typically get storyline equal to the amount of effort you had to put for that walking or fighting through that last dungeon.  Also worthy of note is the game’s overall light-hearted demeanor: combined with the colorful graphics, the wise-cracks and comic relief make the game seem happier, even though if you look past that the story to DQVIII is surprisingly dark.  Overall, the story isn’t going to change your view on videogame storytelling or whatnot, but it’s an acceptable story that keeps the game going.

As for gameplay, it’s mostly what you’d expect from a Dragon Quest game.  The battles are turn based affairs, and the game has skills and spells from earlier Dragon Quest games.  What’s different, though, id the skill point system.  At every level up, the characters get skill points, which you can put into any combination of four weapon classes, or a character-specific class.  It allows you to customize you characters a bit, though even if you don’t put points into a weapon class, you can still use that weapon, you just won’t have any weapon skills or increased attack for it.  The skill system’s pretty simplistic, but it’s effective.

As for out of battles, like the series itself, it’s a typical RPG affair.  Run around town, talk to people for your next objective, move on.  The only problem is, “moving on” can sometimes take a bit too long.  The game world is pretty big, but not all of it is filled with places to go and things to do.  Especially before you get faster transportation, sometimes you’ll find yourself wandering the world map for a long time.  Seeing as I liked to explore other routes, there’d be a lot of times I’d explore the map for over an hour with nothing to show for it.  It gets better when you get the Sabercat and other transportation and spells to keep monsters away, but that doesn’t stop the annoyance of walking down a long path to get nothing out of it…

THERE'S TOO MUCH OF THIS

Even if sometimes it drags, and even though it’s nothing new, the gameplay is still solid, and the tried-and-true Dragon Quest play style still prevails.  Of course, that’s a bit hit-or-miss with most people… if you liked older games in the series, you’ll still like VIII, but if you didn’t… well, it’s more up in the air.  It’s worth a shot, but your opinion of the series probably won’t change by playing DQVIII.

Onward to the graphics and music… which are both simply gorgeous.  DQVIII upgraded its graphics greatly from the series’ previous games, which usually looked a bit outdated.  The cel-shading is done very nicely, and the graphics never seem to hiccup or give rise to any ugliness.  The music is also wonderful, with both redone tracks from previous games and new tracks played wonderfully by an orchestra.  It never got old, even when I heard the same battle music 2,000 times before.  Unlike any of the previous games in the main Dragon Quest line, VIII’s presentation is top notch.

Of course, now comes the question… should you buy it?  Well, this game’s four years old now, and on a “last-gen” system, so it’s not like you’re plunking down $50 for it.  Also, it ended up being popular among RPG fans, so chances are you can find a friend who you can borrow it from.  So, while asking to buy it may be a vague question, I personally think you should TRY the game if you like RPGs.  If you don’t, I highly suggest against it, since DQVIII is pretty much the definition of the RPG genre through and through.

After beating Persona 4, I wondered what I would play next. Eventually I decided I should finish Dragon Quest VIII, and then I’d probably move on to Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne after that. But for whatever reason that didn’t happen. I ended starting Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker instead, played that for 28 hours, and then switched to Dragon Quest Heroes: Rocket Slime. And after rescuing the last six slimes in the game, I didn’t stop. I just kept going, and I guess now I’m aiming for 100% completion.That’s a great way to remove all the fun from a game…

Oh, and I found out Dragon Quest Heroes: Rocket Slime’s credits are amazing. The slime puns never stop, even for the credits. It’s a shame you can’t watch them more than once. You could probably find some video on YouTube though if you want to see for yourself.

Other games I’ve been playing recently at some point:

• Fire Emblem – I’m up to Chapter 26 playing as Eliwood. I’ll beat it eventually. Eventually.
• Super Mario Advance – Collecting several eggs for the Yoshi Challenge, currently at 28/40. Collecting the Yoshi eggs and then beating the level without dying can be tricky, especially since the Yoshi eggs often take the place of mushrooms.
• Mayhem Intergalactic – This is an indie game available on Steam. I bought it mostly for the achievements, but it’s not a bad game. Oh, but I’m still playing it for the achievements. I just have one left, and it requires 100 multiplayer wins. Guess what? I’ve never played a multiplayer game against actual people. There aren’t enough people playing the game, so I always have to go up against bots.

Foram os dois últimos jogos que joguei e, além de serem ótimos, merecem destaque em algo que conta MUITO para um bom game e que muita gente ignora: A trilha sonora. São perfeitas!

Algumas músicas aí embaixo que valem a pena:

Dragon Quest VIII por Koichi Sugiyama:

Travelling with Wagon

Peaceful Town / Quiet Village / Alchemy Pot

Strange World / Marching through the Fields

Chatting

Remembrances…

Heavenly Flight

Dormaguez / Great Battle in the Vast Sky

Super Mario Galaxy, por Mahito Yokota:

Egg Planet

Wind Garden

Super Mario Galaxy

Purple Comet

Rosetta’s Comet Observatory 3

Family

Yup, yesterday at approximately 1am in the morning I managed to beat Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King thus ending my year long battle trying to finish off unbeaten video games in my collection.

My strategy to finish the games started when I found a site called The Backloggery. It allowed me to keep track of the games I have left to finish as well as have a system whereby I could choose what I was playing and when. Even games like Double Dragon III and Shinobi were eventually overcome (there was a stage where I thought I could never beat them).

Of course the internet also helped a great deal with it’s abundance of gaming material such as guides and forums. There was also the Backloggery community who really encourage you to finish off your games.

The hardest thing to do is stop adding more games to your list and playing online games like Team Fortress 2. There’s nothing wrong with playing MMOs but when you got a backlog you want to finish then it becomes very frustrating.

The last few games that were left were excellent. Portal provided some real challenges towards the end and I finally managed to understand what “the cake is a lie” meme that was going around shortly after it’s release. Half Life 2 with all it’s expansions was epic and again, I finally found out why it’s rated so highly.

Needless to say, my pick of the bunch was Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King. It provided hours of fun that didn’t involve a lot of grinding unlike the other games in it’s series although the alchemy pot was so annoying I resorted to using a piece of wire on the two analog sticks and let the hero just around in a circle while I went and did other things. I didn’t use the pot until late on because I was struggling with some of the enemies especially in that floating place.

So there you have it. I’ve beaten all the games I’ve ever owned, I’m sure there must be a few games hiding in storage boxes but for now I’m happy that I finally got this out of the way.

Now this is from a purely light hearted viewpoint and is not intended to be of any scientific significance unless someone reads this and then decides they will tackle the idea for their Doctoral Thesis or something in which case I will be expecting royalties, credit etc.  Thank you.

I was sitting around with my brother working on Final Fantasy 12 the other night and I have to say that Square Enix did a really good job with this game.  Now I will say before I continue that I am not a big Final Fantasy player and have pretty much only the time I have spent with FFXII as previous experience but I do know that the series has gone through many changes and it is not as linear as I thought it was.

I guess my interest in starting to peak for Final Fantasy XIV but if it is a MMO game, probably not.  Regardless, I am straying from my blog topic into the vast realms of the Final Fantasy Universe and I guess the Square Enix Universe since I did actually play Dragon quest VIII – Journey of the Cursed King and I loved that game.  I may actually start playing it again just because, and on the PS3 to boot.  =)

So as I recall from playing Dragon Quest VIII, there was a lot to do and I mean a lot.  From a pure save your sanity viewpoint, you do have to save your game a lot.  A lot.  It is something that my brother and I joked about, “Wait, go back, you only saved it nine times, you have to save it one more time.”  =)

We were exaggerating of course but that didn’t stop him from saving his game twice at every save sigul.  I also noticed that when he was looking at his Status menu (FFXII) and the Licenses that he wanted to make sure he had an entire section opened before he moved on to another one.

This last tidbit drove me a little mad as I wanted him to buy the licenses for the Ether and Potion upgrades so that he can progress the game rather than stay in a section and comb the entire area before moving on.  LOL  I am the same way when it comes to a new game or a any RPG for that matter.  I haven’t played too many of them but I may play more of them now.  I might actually go ahead and see how far the FFXII playable demo will take me.

I might just wait until FFXIV comes out though too.

It made me wonder though when it comes to gamers just how much of our personalities are prone to obsessive compulsive behaviors?  It makes me wonder if you could treat OCD with a video game?

From my own experiences I think I can safely say that there are some compulsions when it comes to my gaming.  How many of you gamers have thought at the end of a level, “Just one more, it shouldn’t take long.”  Yeah it will take long, go to bed already.  I will spend hours trying to take an online road time just to see my name listed as owning that road (Burnout Paradise) but I am happy to say that as far as my OCD goes, I am doing pretty good.  Maybe we need to look at another acronym rather than the OBSESSIVE Compulsive Disorder, not do away with the OCD mind you but add another one.  One where the compulsion is recognized but it is not obsessive and you can function normally in Society.  I say that because OCD cases tend to stand out in a crowd.

Well, my sons came in and interrupted my train of thought so I am posting this now.  I think I got what I wanted down.

One of the biggest missteps that can throw a good RPG off-course is mis-valued numbers. Role-playing games are built around numbers; they determine strength, ability and difficulty, more directly than any other game. In many games, role-playing and otherwise, the definition of Hard mode is often defined solely by an increase in enemy stats, which is technically a poor design approach since leveling up is encouraged rather than increased tactical strategy and gameplay ability.

Of course, defining miscalculated numbers may be somewhat subjective to the player, as some people might simply want things too hard or too easy. Still, some errors should be universally apparent, but for the sake of argument let’s assume that the numbers should be balanced so the average individual can pick up a game and find it neither too hard nor too easy.

In my own case, one of the games I’m presently playing is Bioware’s Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood, a very well written and reasonably well designed game that I feel suffers from poor number management.

The first and most readily apparent problems rears its head early on, and that’s the issue of accuracy. For the most part, many of the characters cannot hit the broad side of a barn on the first attempt, gallivanting forth with drunken bravado only to trip and fall mere paces short of their target.

Because of this, half my combat rounds play out with both me and my enemies missing regular attacks routinely, though the game trends towards favoring my enemies by a hair, which isn’t helped by their higher damage values.

Damage has been my second source of contention with this game, as the game’s system for measuring damage dealt is simply incongruent to the point that the attack stat may as well not exist. Tails and Amy can hypothetically have equal attack power, but while the pink girl can do tens of points with every strike, Tails is lucky to get one point in before he sits in the corner and feels useless.

My third contention is the game’s measurement of PP, ability points for using special attacks and such. Values for PP start out low, and remain low for so much of the game that you’d think the developers loathed to includes special attacks in the first place and felt the need to punish the player for deigning to look at them.

Sonic Chronicles’ battle system is built around a system of timing and pattern following- meaning that when you go to cast a special attack you have to get the movements right before it goes off. The infuriating thing, however, is that if you fail you still pay the PP to cast it- whether or not you got any effects for the skill at all.

What all this results in is a very imbalanced game. Half the characters are outright useless (Tails rarely has a chance to do anything worthwhile, and Sonic sucks for half the game- which is not good since he’s locked in your party), while others, mainly power class characters, are right where they should be, meaning the game doesn’t really pick up until later on when you can include characters like Knuckles and Shadow in your party.

As a result, my play experience with Sonic Chronicles has been very incongruent. While the writing is always enjoyable, I’m either having fun or wanting to snap my DS in half. Most of this could have been fixed by better measuring how damage is done, and rebalancing some of the character points so that everyone could be useful in their own way, which is ideally how things should be.

This isn’t to say Sonic Chronicles is the only game that does this (a full critique would likely mention design and interface issues as well). The early days of RPGs are indisputably the worst, though play balance as tended to settle a bit as time goes on.

One common problem though is the case of a difficulty spike- where the enemy stats suddenly reel out of control, often combined with some particularly nasty abilities. The original Final Fantasy did this with the final dungeon, throwing poisonous gas spewing dragons around so many corners that you would’ve thought you’d stumbled into their national convention.

Years later, Star Ocean 2 continued this trend, with a sudden difficulty spike near the end of disc 1 where enemy stats skyrocketed upwards (I refer to the PSX version; haven’t played the PSP one yet). Star Ocean 3 reiterated this idea, though more of the problem in this game was due to cheap AI that inexplicably focused on whoever the player was actively controlling, and proceeded to pummel that character with attacks while ignoring the party AIs.

This isn’t to say that rough stats necessarily make a game unplayable, but rather how the experience is treated is a result of everything surrounding them. Dragon Quest VIII ran on a difficulty scale that felt like an NES game; however, the game generally wasn’t unfair (a few odd enemies here and there notwithstanding), so while I did have to spend some time early on leveling up, the hundred hour experience was largely enjoyable.

Another aspect of number design that can seriously hurt an RPG comes in the form of items. Items are often essential to RPG design, but occasionally healing items such as potions are designated to heal too much or too little HP. I had this problem on Lost Odyssey for the bulk of the first disc, where my healing spells and items outright sucked for a while, and it wasn’t until I learned the second level healing spells that the difficulty finally started to balance out.

The worst culprit I ever saw, however, was the Working Designs RPG Vay. Not only was the game’s difficulty generally erratic, usually unfavorably so, but the game’s healing items literally worked at RANDOM VALUES.

Yes, that’s right, no healing item ever healed the same amount twice. There were two items, Healing Herbs and Strange Brews, and they were equally unreliable. Couple these with group healing spells that were too expensive to be cast more than once, maybe, and cripplingly difficulty bosses in many areas, and what you had was one of the most insanely imbalanced RPGs out there.

Most memorable (aside from the Air Elemental boss that just would never die) was the Dark Mage and his twin Ultragoyles: the Dark Mage was squishy and could die in two rounds, but the ‘goyles had HP up the wazoo, as well as a fire spell that burned off large chunks of HP on my characters.

After tanking the fight countless times, I decided to let the game’s AI handle it, just to see what it would do. After burning through dozens of healing items with the aforementioned random chance of actually healing anything at all, the AI did manage to best the Ultragoyles. With such an unstable element of design, I’ve had to wonder if there is a reliable tactic to deal with these enemies.

Of course, some things are meant to be hard, at times unreasonably so. The aforementioned Lost Odyssey also provided a downloadable dungeon complete with a boss armed with retardedly high HP. After clearing the 30 floors without rest or save points, I reached the boss at the bottom.

Provided no way to return should I leave, I was greeted with a boss whose HP staggered and could heal 1/5^th of his life every turn automatically. As my attacks also did virtually no damage to speak of, I was pretty much asked to die quietly, and I complied while sucking on my thumb. I’ve not tried to tackle this boss again, not because I’m intimidated by the difficulty, but rather by the circumstances to re-engage a boss whom I’d most likely lose against. As I particularly don’t want to descend 30 floors of random battles again I decided to take my achievements and call it a day.

This is a case where design complicates the problems in relation to the numbers- it’s not that the boss or the circumstance where necessarily unfair individually, but rather it’s the combination of the two. I’m sure people can and have beaten it, but only the most severe masochists will go that far, and I’m afraid I’m just not one of those people.

My statements here aren’t an advocacy for dumbing down RPGs, but rather encouragement of consideration as to what makes good design. It’s often my feeling that many designers don’t play their own game, or have played them so much that they know more tricks and techniques than they should fairly assume about their average player.

 I’ve played my share of RPGs in my time that I felt were too easy or that the difficulty was too easily bypassed with the right abilitiy or trick. As such, I hope more designers can show consideration as to how they rank their games in the future, and it’s the same consideration I intend to show one day when I take my own shot at making something epic.

After renting the game dozens of times and always managing to ignore it and run out of time, I finally caved and bought Dragon Quest VIII at the cheap price of ten dollars. If I would have just bought it early on I might have saved myself the occasional eight dollars that I spent every few weeks renting from Hollywood Video. Now I really want to just sit through it and finally beat this game.

I currently am helping a snobby prince named Prince Charmles be admitted to the kingdom. It’s been a hassle, but I hope the rewards will be worth it once I have helped him go fight lizards.

(Contenu original du billet déplacé vers la page épinglée pour des raisons pratiques. Vous pouvez par contre laisser vos commentaires ici!)

Je présente sur cette nouvelle page un peu plus de dix ans d’expérience en matière de RPG. Des commentaires concis que je rédigeais sur certains sites mais que j’ai entièrement réécris et corrigés. Beaucoup sont inédits. Je tenais à faire ce petit compendium, cette ludothèque personnelle, illustrée et commentée mais je pense avoir laissé une partie de ma santé dans la rédaction de ce billet. Après un tel exercice je sens la passion pour les RPG refaire surface.

Pour éviter un doublon et ne pas encombrer la mise en page des archives, je supprime le contenu de ce billet mais vous pouvez toujours le consulter sur cette page du blog. Quelques photos de ma collection :

Por: André Breder Rodrigues

Ficha Técnica:

Ano de lançamento: 2005
Produtora: Square-Enix\Level 5
Gênero: RPG
Número de jogadores: 1

Introdução

Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King foi o primeiro (e até agora único) jogo desta lendária franquia que eu joguei. Mas acho que eu não poderia ter começado de forma melhor, pois trata-se de um RPG simplesmente “fodástico”!

Lançado em 2005, de forma exclusiva para o PlayStation 2, o game se mostra como é totalmente possível fazer um RPG bem nos moldes dos clássicos mas trazendo ao mesmo tempo gráficos e sonoridades de cair o queixo! É quase como se pegasse algum RPG da era dos consoles de 8 ou 16 Bits e fizessem um remake em 3D, pois Dragon Quest VIII é “descaradamente” um RPG tradicional tão bom quantos os que eram lançados antigamente.

A história do jogo

O enredo de Dragon Quest VIII mostra o pobre rei Trode, que foi transformando numa criatura horrenda (bem parecida com o Yoda de Star Wars) por Dolmaghus, um bobo-da-corte que acabou dominado por um cetro maligno, que deu ao mesmo imensos poderes.

Para piorar a situação a (antes bela) princesa Medea também sofreu uma transformação nada agradável por meio das mãos de Dolmaghus, passando a possuir a forma de uma égua!

Juntamente com Trode e Medea está o protagonista (cujo nome fica a cargo de cada jogador), que misteriosamente escapou ileso de ser atingido por qualquer maldição.

Os três partem para uma missão onde devem encontrar e desafiar o maldito Dolmaghus, pois esta parece ser a única maneira de livrar, tanto o rei quanto a pobre princesa, da maldição que os aflige.

Batalhas por turnos… totalmente tradicionais!

As batalhas de Dragon Quest VIII são por turnos, assim como foi nos games anteriores da franquia, e os produtores não tiveram intenção nenhuma em inovar tanto nesta questão.

Fãs dos RPGs mais antigos não terão nenhuma dificuldade em travar batalhas no jogo. Há habilidades e magias que podem ser usadas durante os combates com os inimigos, naturalmente, e fazer o uso certo de cada uma destas formas de batalha é necessário para sair vitorioso de maneira mais tranquila.

Mesmo que a príncipio a força bruta dos personagens pode dar conta do recado, a medida que o jogador vai avançando no jogo ele irá encontrar batalhas que exigem mais inteligência e sabedoria em utilizar os golpes certos, do que simplesmente ficar apertando os botões a esmo.

Para deixar os heróis mais aptos para sair vitoriosos nas batalhas, cada um deles possui 5 quesitos que podem ser melhorados à medida que se ganha experiência, e consequentemente, melhora seus níveis: 3 correspondem às armas que cada um pode utilizar, outro para o combate com as mãos nuas e um atributo exclusivo de cada personagem.

Agora pelo menos houve uma grata novidade em Dragon Quest VIII para incrementar o sistema de batalhas: trata-se do comando “psyche-up”, que faz com que os personagens possam acumular suas forças para posteriormente desferir ataques mais contundentes em seus inimigos. Este comando pode ser usado até quatro vezes seguidas, fazendo com que a “tensão” do personagem alcance o nível 100, podendo então mandar ver ataques literalmente devastadores em seus oponentes!

Gráficos

Os gráficos do game utilizam o efeito Cel Shading, que é um conjunto de técnicas empregadas na renderização de imagens 3D de modo que o resultado final se assemelhe ao de desenhos em 2D! Ou seja, ao jogar Dragon Quest VIII você tem a nítida sensação de estar controlando um desenho animado! A oitava versão foi o primeiro jogo da série totalmente em 3D, e os produtores não tiveram preguiça em criar um mundo vasto para ser explorado pelos jogadores! Até mesmo um simples vilarejo é enorme, cheios de locais para visitar! Os cenários do jogo são os mais variados possíveis: o jogador irá se aventurar em cavernas, castelos, desertos, florestas, áreas com neve, etc

A riqueza de detalhes é imensa! Você poderá, por exemplo, subir em uma montanha e de lá avistar locais que poderão ser explorados, graças a profundidade do mundo de Dragon Quest VIII!

O design dos personagens e monstros do jogo não poderiam ser melhores: todos foram feitos pelo talentoso desenhista Akira Toriyama (para quem não sabe o mesmo da série Dragon Ball) que trabalha na franquia desde o seu início e portanto, faz com que Dragon Quest VIII seja totalmente familiar aos olhos dos jogadores veteranos que acompanham a série desde épocas passadas.

Sonoridade

A trilha sonora de Dragon Quest VIII é fantástica! Só para se ter uma noção do cuidado que os produtores do jogo tiveram em relação aos temas musicais do game, basta citar que cada música foi tocada e gravada pela Orquestra Filarmônica de Tóquio, sob regência do compositor Koichi Sugiyama, que é outra figura lendária dentro da franquia Dragon Quest! Tudo é tão perfeito que os temas musicais passam ao jogador a gostosa sensação de estar no meio de um desses filmes medievais e épicos que todos estamos acostumados a assistir!

As músicas são bem variadas, indo de temas mais calmos e leves, até músicas agitadas e extremamente empolgantes (como os temas de batalhas)! Koichi Sugiyama é tido por muitos como um dos maiores compositores de video games de todos os tempos, sendo que até mesmo talentos como Nobuo Uematso, que compôs as trilhas dos games mais clássicos da franquia Final Fantasy, é fã declarado do mestre!

Os efeitos sonoros também estão totalmente condizentes com clima divertido do jogo, sendo que não há do que reclamar deles. Agora vale destacar o trabalho na dublagem dos personagens na versão americana de Dragon Quest VIII ( na versão do game lançada no Japão os personagens não tinham vozes) que ficou muito boa! Como o jogo se passa em um mundo medieval, foram escolhidos de forma proposital dubladores ingleses para que o sotaque dos personagens fosse algo totalmente perceptível. Ou você acha que alguém que tenha vivido na idade média tenha um inglês com sotaque americano?

Jogabilidade e Dificuldade

A jogabiliade do jogo é bem básica e simples, onde qualquer veterano em games do gênero não terá problema algum. Os menus, tantos os dos períodos de batalha quanto os dos períodos normais do jogo, são todos bem fáceis de mexer.

Mas agora vamos falar do que realmente pode ser uma dor de cabeça para jogadores mais impacientes: a dificuldade do jogo vai aumentado de forma considerável a medida que se avança na história de Dragon Quest VIII, fazendo com que cada nova etapa seja bem mais complicada do que a anterior, o que acaba obrigando o jogador a passar horas e horas lutando contra monstros para subir os níveis de seus personagens e então melhorar seus atributos.

Procurar comprar sempre as melhores armas e armaduras disponíveis também ajuda, mas o que faz a diferença entre a vitória ou derrota do jogador está mesmo na questão de sempre ter que elevar o nível dos personagens para que ele esteja pelo menos no mesmo nível dos inimigos de uma nova área do jogo. Vale citar também que em Dragon Quest VIII existe uma bacana passagem do dia para a noite, e vice-versa, sendo que nos períodos noturnos os monstros são ainda mais perigosos.

Conclusão

Dragon Quest VIII é um RPG tradicional que utilizou de maneira sábia todos os recursoso gráficos e sonoros do PlayStation 2, fazendo dele um dos melhores games do gênero no 128 bits da Sony! Se você que está lendo esta análise é um fã de RPGs das gerações passadas, principalmente da era 16 bits, e ainda não jogou Dragon Quest VIII, tem grandes chances de amá-lo eternamente após jogá-lo!

Nesta análise evitei ao máximo dar grandes detalhes sobre o jogo e o desenrolar de sua trama para evitar desagradáveis spoilers, que em um game de RPG onde a história é o fator principal, se torna algo totalmente impordoável! Por isso tenha certeza que Dragon Quest VIII é ainda um game muito mais grandioso e profundo do que é mostrado nesta análise!

Ubisoft’s new Prince of Persia has led me to reconsider what defines a challenge in a game. The game’s structure is somewhat unconventional- you cannot die. Under any circumstance, in fact, as this game’s Prince is a snarky rogue accompanied by a magical girl who will save his ass in any circumstance.

This provided a very unconventional learning curb. For one thing, the game has no exact measurement for hit points; rather, when you’re in a fight, red marks surround the borders of the screen when you take damage, and intensify as the fight goes on. Only enemies have a clear life meter.

Both sides can regenerate. The Prince will do so if he avoids conflict for a time within the fight, effectively allowing to heal; also, if he pulls off some snappy moves at the brink of death. The enemy will recover a bit if the Prince’s magical girl has to save him from circumstances of certain death.

Outside of combat, any time the Prince falls or is otherwise ensnared in a lethal trap, the magical girl will once more pull his ass out of the fire.

Then where’s the challenge? Shouldn’t this be the most boring game on earth if you just cannot die?

Actually, it’s surprisingly fun. But this aspect of the game also makes it a hard sell, as not only do many people want the risk of death, but actively proclaim that it sounds boring without ever giving it a chance.

In this case, the game’s branding isn’t helping it, obviously. It’s not selling super well and has already seen price drops before Christmas has even passed (though one can also blame the combination of the economy and the timing of the release against so many other games this season). But I digress.

Back to the entry point, how is the game’s challenge defined if not with mortality? Should challenge be defined by risk of loss or difficulty of accomplishment?

If you stand by the second definition, Prince of Persia can still be defined as a challenging game- failing a section of an environmental puzzle sends you back to the last piece of solid ground you were on, which can sometimes represent quite a bit of work to retread.

Moreover, it’s not as if Prince of Persia is the first game to employ the idea of an immortal character within a challenging environment rather than an outright dangerous one. Years back, Nintendo released Wario Land 2 on the black and white GameBoy; Wario would be squashed, swelled and burned, but nothing could kill him or otherwise cause any loss to the character or the player.

The game was received very positively, and went on to see a GameBoy Color port, as well as a sequel that honored the same gameplay devices very closely. Wario Land 2 and 3 relied heavily on intelligent level design, expecting the player to search and explore to find hidden exits and coins, rather than worry about some creep in a trenchcoat with a fixation on the word “STARS!” coming after them for going the wrong way.

It’s true that we don’t see many games that take this approach. Gaming probably would go stale if every other title out there flirted with unkillable characters. But is a break from form really such a bad thing? The last two Prince of Persia titles- Warrior Within and Two Thrones- felt like rush jobs.

The new, subtitle-less Prince, actually feels polished and complete- not like a last minute decision to rush a game out a door rather than implement some death animations. It feels as if the hurried and buggy products are getting more positive accord than the gorgeous “let’s actually put some time into this” products.

So when is it okay to make a game challenging for its actions rather than its executions? Certainly one might argue that Wario Land got away with its designs because it’s a GameBoy game, and by nature inherently low-key.

By the same token, RPGs have been pulling soft penalties for years- games like the SNES Breath of Fire titles to “Oh look! I’m an NES game masquerading as a PlayStation 2 game!” Dragon Quest VIII all operate on a design that sent the player back to town if they died, sans half their gold. Players could even circumvent this penalty to a point, investing their cash at a local bank for safekeeping.

Is the penalty fair if it takes something away from the player as punishment for dying?

What about the classic Lunar games? While it’s true you could ‘game over’ for losing a fight, the games also allowed you to save anywhere, rather obsessive-compulsively. In fact, only Lunar 2 on the Sega CD implemented a ‘cost’ for saving- intended in part so that people wouldn’t save every five steps- and it was met with apprehension and rejection.

Similarly, in the past I recall hearing regular arguments about the ability to save anywhere as being a reason as to why PC games were better than console games. Of course, many such games now allow the player to save whenever on the system- I have enough OCD saves from Doom 3 to Fallout 3 to show it.

Isn’t the option to reload exactly where you were a minute ago in many ways worse than being forced to start a feat of acrobatics all over again? If I was in danger of death but could save while hanging from a pole in the middle of the puzzle, doesn’t that defeat the purpose even more harshly?

After all, if the point of Prince of Persia is the environment (which if you’ve followed the series back from the olden 2D games, that’s what it always is) then wouldn’t such a design frame be just as bad?

It’s true, the series has soften a bit since the “Oh, you didn’t see that line in the wall! Now you’ve been cut in half!” days. Sands of Time introduced a limited rewind that allowed you to fix your mistakes, and fix more mistakes as you progressed farther into the game.

Prince of Persia (no subtitle) has supplanted that system for one that doesn’t allow you to try again in the middle of the puzzle, but rather simply wants you to get it right in one go in exchange.

That fact is, challenge doesn’t always make a game fun. In fact, if a game is too hard it can be very much not fun. Obviously if a game is condescendingly easy, then that’s no better.

Devil May Cry wouldn’t be much fun if Dante couldn’t die, but DMC is all about combat and overwhelming demons- and hell, when DMC3 came out, people bitched about how difficulty it was.

Prince of Persia isn’t about the combat, nor was it ever. Combat was only an aspect of that, and when the series shifted to Warrior Within, it was pretty clear that someone at Ubisoft missed the point, because while the combat system was an improvement, it was also often intrusive on the experience.

The definition of what a challenge is varies from game to game- they shouldn’t all fall under one ominously-colored umbrella. Otherwise, everything we’re playing would just be all the same, and who wants that?

Por Alexei Barros

Como já comentei em outras oportunidades, Dragon Quest VIII foi o único da série sem receber coletânea no piano. Mas se não lançou até agora é bem provável que nunca aconteça. Não tem problema. O usuário KM65536 fez um magnânimo medley de 13 minutos, passeando magistralmente pelas composições. Um dia eu termino esse jogo….

- Dragon Quest VIII Piano Medley

“Overture” ~ “Intermezzo” ~ “Pulling the Coach” ~ “Quiet Village” ~ “Boogie-Woogie in the Bar” ~ “Fun Casino” ~ “Big Prairie’s March” ~ “Raising the War Cry” ~ “The Cool, Dark Road”

“Break Through the Barrier” ~ “Alchemy Pot” ~ “Dormagus” ~ “Battle in the Heavens”

Por Alexei Barros

É impressionante como os fãs estão predispostos a atender os pedidos do Geraldo Figueras, a exemplo do que aconteceu com a “Final Take Off”. No meu post anterior, lembro que ele enalteceu a celestial composição “Heavenly Flight”: “…vale citar Heavenly Flight (world map voando). É de cortar o coração, e já me arrancou algumas lágrimas”. Embora o pedido não tenha sido formalizado, ficou implícito que ambicionava uma versão no piano, haja vista a sua preferência pelo instrumento, ainda mais que Dragon Quest VIII é o único da série principal sem um álbum nesse estilo. Pois então kgakira (pela qualidade, preciso dizer que é japonês?) antecipou a solicitação e nos eleva aos céus com uma performance enobrecedora:

The Playstation 2 is the undisputed champion of video game hardware. A consumer giant still managing to put money in Sony’s pocket, the PS2 reigned supreme over its console generation with a library of game software so awesome we just creamed ourselves thinking about it. With the PS2 on its final years of life, we here at the Peanut Gallery decided to start a series of Top 10s celebrating the gaming greatness available to its sleek black sexiness. First up, the Head Nut’s favorite genre: RPGs.

10. Rogue Galaxy – Starting with a game that took 2 years to travel over the great Pacific, Rogue Galaxy wins points for being a Japanese RPG with a male protagonist that actually looks like a dude. Top this off with perhaps one of the most intuitive control schemes ever found in an action RPG, and sprinkle in an ample serving of SPACE PIRATES, and you’ve got yourself a winning formula.

9. Shadow Hearts – Sure, JRPGs have a tendency for being a bit bizarre. But none can hold a candle up to this one. Shadow Hearts features such great ideas as: a gay acupuncturist, cutesy children who slaughter humans to sacrifice their organs, a priest trying to summon an alien – which mankind confused for God – to destroy the planet, a man wearing a cat mask who attacks ala Freddy Krueger, a dude who fuses with animals, a James Bond-esque spy with tits, and a bored Vampire. Did you get all of that?

8. Suikoden III – Broken in many ways, Suikoden III makes this list purely on the strength of its winding storyline. Viewable from a multitude of different prospectives and featuring a huge cast of characters just waiting to be discovered, the game demands attention…just ignore the slightly (read: severely) broken combat system…there’s more story on the horizon.

7. Valkyrie Profile 2 – Proof that “Hard as Ballz” doesn’t mean a game is bad, Valkyrie Profile 2 makes the list because we at the Peanut Gallery get huge stiffies from Norse mythology. Granted, the game is decidedly very Japanese…but it doesn’t matter because you get fight Odin, God of Everything, and explore dungeons using your Star Trek inspired Photons. Wait, none of this makes any sense. Ah, to hell with it.

6. Final Fantasy X-2 – Inspiring more weird fanboy art than any other game on this list, FFX-2 – the only direct sequel to a Final Fantasy EVER – decides to play dress up and places every prepubescent teenage boy in control of not one but three scantily-clad women, guaranteeing two forms of carpal tunnel for every boy who played this game. Aside from absurd and overly sexed-up appareances, the game’s return to the job system, giving fans a fun jaunt down nostalgia boulevard AND a sequel the doesn’t take a crap all over the game that came before it (cough::FF7-Dirge of Cerberus::cough).

5. Dragon Quest VIII – Proving that old school RPG elements could still rock our socks, Dragon Quest 8 managed to stitch every single genre cliche’ together to make a damn fine game. Well that, and the primary female protagonist has a huge rack.

4. Dark Cloud 2 – Perhaps the most unknown title on this list, Dark Cloud 2 gives you the power to kick ass, take names, and…build cities? That’s right, you literally have to rebuild the world around you in order to advance in this game, lending a purpose to RPG gameplay that is both unique and satisfying…kinda like a $1,000 Asian prostitute…not that we would know these things.

3. Kingdom Hearts – Apparently someone decided that Square Enix and Disney needed to have a love child. Boy, were they right. Sure, the control scheme was broken and the plot made little to no sense, but this was a gigantic heap of handjob servicing to fans of both companies’ casts of characters. Apparently, watching Disney characters run around hand-in-hand with teens sporting big hairdos and ridiculously oversized weapondry is every person’s wet dream. if only Disney’s next cross-over was with Grand Theft Auto…

2. Final Fantasy X – Surprise! Let’s face, FF10 had it all. Severely effeminate male lead? Check. Severly effeminate male antagonist? Check. Dude with bid sword? Check. Chick with big tits? Yup, got that too. Jail-bate chick? Uhuh. Chewbacca/Animal sidekick? Well, he’s blue, but yea, got it also. Evil Church, swerve ending, partial plot resolution at the end? Check, check, and emphatically check. Combine this with graphics that are still sexy to this day and a kickass storyline, you’ve got yourself a winner. Did we mention the guy with the really big sword also kills people with what can only be described as a Sake’-bomb tornado? Sweeet.

1. Persona 3 – Do we really need to say anymore than this: By day, you’re a mild mannered high school student, but at night you have to BLOW YOUR OWN BRAINS OUT to fight the strange and occult. And this happens with great regularity. Point gun at head, pull trigger, summon Persona. Sleep, go to class the next day. Above all else, Persona 3 also sports a mature plotline and a bizarre combat mechanic that makes it truly shine as the greatest RPG on the PS2.

Continuando a falar de pessoas que são viciadas em Internet e gamers, descobri exatamente a coisificação do “SER” NERD.

Este objeto que pode ser observado nessas fotos abaixo, é o Game-POD.

O que é o Game-POD?

Uma caixa com menos de 2 metros quadrados onde o NERD vai ficar completamente isolado do mundo exterior onde poderá jogar, navegar, punhetar ( nerd só faz isso mesmo) etc.

Será que é por causa de adventos como o Game-POD, que os Gamers são tão “injustiçados” e levam à fama de ter comportamento anti-social?

Imagina gente: não tem nada de mais alguém passar horas, dias ali dentro. Tudo é absolutamente normal.

Para saber mais veja aqui e aqui.

My apologies, dear uncertainites, for the downtime these past few days.  Excuses include: I’m nowhere near E3, but I’ve been covering the convention from afar on the Ace Gamez blog.  And I totally called it.  Animal Crossing on the Wii; lots of Little Big Planet; downloadable Ratchet and Clank episodes; and more besides.  But the point isn’t to boast – I have no particular insight, yet the only real surprise of the electronic three was Final Fantasy XIII on the Xbox 360.  And that, in itself, makes perfect sense.  Squeenix have a history of platform loyalties that aren’t loyalties at all, but canny decisions.  This is just the next decision.

For all that could have been, then, a toast.

If there’s a conference next year – and sadly, it really is a case of if and not when – I think I might make the trip.  I’d get press credentials, but I’d need a laptop, airfare, commitment.  In the twilight years of E3, I’m certainly not alone in wondering: is it still worth it?

E3 was once the axis around which the games industry spun, the great stationary star at the centre of an elaborate mobile.  The publicity machines all began there, with an announcement at one press conference or another or a demo on the show-floor.  Games began their time in the media at E3 by necessity, though, not choice.  There was no better network to begin diffusing whatever information publishers opted to share.  There was no Kotaku; news was slow.  Broadband was just a binary glimmer in some techhead’s beady eyes; there were no streaming conferences, no game-video aggregators for fans to frequent.  Largely, it was E3 or nothing, and amid the craven crowd, so many brilliant little games simply didn’t show right.  There was no time for depth or complexity, subtlety or artistry of any sort.  At the end of the day, if a game didn’t sell itself in a two-minute trailer or a quarter-hour demo, it was dead on arrival.

It didn’t work, then.  But however negative an experience it may have been for publishers and developers, for those of us on the outside, E3 was a joyous spectacle.  And I don’t care how many massive LCDs Sony daisy-chained for their press conference – it’s lost that grandiosity.  Development budgets have blossomed into behemoths in every other sense but for the LA presentations that used to be so pivotal.  Enthusiasts are better equipped now to learn about a new game, no matter the season or the mainstream press coverage.  And there are other events: Leipzig, E for All, PAX, the Tokyo Game Show, to name just a few.

Industry yuppies Gamecock threw an attention-seeking funeral march for E3 last year, and I despised them for it.  In 2008, I wonder if, all their hateful, juvenile shenanigans aside, they mightn’t have been mistaken.  All that the conference serves to do these days is showcase the next few months of the gaming calendar, and there are easier, cheaper, more appropriate ways to do that; ways that don’t see tens of developers wasting precious time on imagined milestones; hundreds of perfectly worthwhile games slip through the cracks; thousands of journalists swept off their feet in all the madness; and millions of fans disappointed, time and again.

But don’t misunderstand me.  There were some absolutely brilliant games at the convention this year; more, I think, than in 2007.  The horror genre in particular looks to be seeing something of a renaissance, with Dead Space leading the charge:

For all the wonderful perversity of scoring your teaser with a terrifying rendition of Twinkle Twinkle Little Starl, however, there’s another, more traditional horror game on the way that has my (proverbial) panties well and truly twisted.  The newly christened Silent Hill: Homecoming is the fifth instalment proper in the franchise, and after the disappointment of the next-gen debut of Alone in the Dark, I couldn’t be more excited to see the genre’s best and darkest return to the fore:

I won’t get bogged down in the particulars of whether or not Pyramid Head has any place outside of Silent Hill 2.  I won’t mention that Pyramid Head, as the embodiment of James’ guilt over slaughtering Mary, shouldn’t exist now that the town has held him accountable for his hateful sins, because if I’m honest, my reaction to his promised appearance in Silent Hill: Homecoming was basically profuse pant-wetting.

There were, too, a few noticeable absences.  There was nothing to be seen of the 360 motion controller that’s had the interwebs all abuzz lately, and for that, I’m grateful to all that’s holy.  There was no New Super Mario Brothers 2 or Wii Zelda.  Neither were Level 5, the fan-favourite developers of Dark Cloud and Dragon Quest VIII, anywhere to be seen, and with Metal Gear Solid 4 come and gone and the next Final Fantasy no longer platform exclusive, their latest effort, White Knight Story, stands as Sony’s strongest trump card.  Excepting, perhaps, the absence I felt most profoundly: anything new from the Ico team.  Shadow of the Colossus is still the greatest game of all time – never have I been touched or played by a game in quite the same way – and it’s been too long since I wandered that masterful world.  Much too long.

I still miss Argo.

TGS and the inevitable reveal can’t come soon enough, then, but until then, the new Prince of Persia is an obvious homage, and so breathtaking I can hardly conjure the words to do it justice.  I’ve already tried once and lost a post amid my procrastinations, so.  Without further ado:

If you’re still hungry, there’s a few new articles over at Ace Gamez for your enjoyment.  In my Space Invaders Extreme review I suggest that even girl turrets stand a chance, while in the Ticket to Ride piece I talk a little about cock-blocking, which is always fun.

And there’s a bunch in the pipeline for All Things Uncertain over the next few weeks, including a review of the Blu-ray of There Will Be Blood, a look at Tana French’s forthcoming In the Woods follow-up, and something about Yoko Ogawa’s The Diving Pool, which the lovely folks at Harvil Secker sent along this morning to tide me over until galleys arrive for the next Murakami.  I’ll say this much already: it looks startlingly original.

For now, though – that’s all, folks.

***

Soundtrack to this entry: Filter – Title of Record

…is in my hot little hands and I nearly died of SQUEE when the Dragon Quest and Save Screen themes played in all their beautiful orchestral glory.

So, uh, I shall tell you how it goes if and when I ever resurface.

Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King is the first Dragon Quest game I finished since the original Dragon Warrior. It was one of those games I started, got distracted and nearly gave up on. But once I returned to it, I was completely hooked and played until I finished it. Here are my final thoughts.

Story

I have to admit that I wasn’t particularly gripped by the story at first. Sure the characters were funny and Dhoulmagus was an interesting villain but I wasn’t sure why he had cursed King Trode and stolen the sceptre. It took awhile for the story to develop but once it did, I was much more involved and wanted to see what happened. It was pleasantly surprising to realize why Dhoulmagus had been killing people and the revelation of the actual evil presence behind the story was a lot of fun.

The story was fairly simple (or should I say straightforward?) and ultimately boiled down to “bad dude wants to destroy the world and good guys must defeat him.” There were no complicated, interweaving subplots and things seemed almost grade-school level compared to something like Final Fantasy VII and its complex and confusing narrative. But that was fine with me as DQ8’s story was told well, with a lot of personality. It’s nice to not have an angsty, dark hero at the center of things.

The real charm of DQ8’s story lies in its characters. All the major characters were great and I enjoyed finding out their backstories and watching their interactions. I think the developers did a great job of creating a party of three supporting characters that were distinctive and enjoyable to spend time with. Yangus, in particular, was a riot and I’d overhear my children saying “Cor blimey!” from time to time.

Dragon Quest VIII’s towns and their inhabitants were also a highlight of the game. I enjoyed all the side stories from Prince Charmles’ adventures to Yangus’ interaction with his love/nemesis Red to relatively minor characters like the ultra-virile Morrie. Usually I hate running through towns in RPG’s and talking to the residents there but I thoroughly explored every town in DQ8 and enjoyed speaking to every resident.

Dragon Quest VIII’s story gets a 9 out of 10.

Presentation

What can I say? I love cel-shading when it’s done well. Ever since I played Jet Grind Radio on the Dreamcast I liked the look of a cel-shaded game, and Dragon Quest VIII has to be one of the best examples of the technique. Playing through the world of DQ8 is like taking part in a high-quality anime, like a Miyazaki movie. Everything has this distinctive, consistent style from the cities to the characters to the monsters.

And I have to say the crazy monsters were one of the best things about Dragon Quest VIII. I couldn’t wait to find a new creature and my kids and I would grin at the silly animations. How many RPG’s have monsters that turn around and spank their bottoms, leaving your party members shocked and unable to move for the rest of the turn? The quality of the humor and the animations were definitely a high point of the game.

I understand that some gamers were turned off by the silly design and humor and wanted a “serious” game. That’s fine. There will always be games like Oblivion for them. But games overflowing with style like DQ8 are rare and something to be treasured.

Also remarkable is the draw distance in the game. I noticed this early on when I could see an object off in the distance and gradually work my way over to it, with no loading whatsoever. That’s just an amazing feat of programming for a system as “simple” as the Playstation 2. And even when there were loads, such as when we entered a city or a dungeon, they were brief and infrequent.

Almost as impressive as the graphics is the audio in DQ8, particularly the voice acting. With the exception of King Trode, who always had an irritating voice, every character was voiced in a very professional, brilliant way. Yangus was particularly great, but even the run of the mill characters were well-voiced. I don’t understand the reasoning for the Hero remaining silent, so the game gets a small knock for that. But otherwise I almost never skipped past a character’s speech and I usually get bored with dialogue and can’t wait to move on. Compared to Final Fantasy X, the voice acting in DQ8 was nothing short of a revelation.

Last comes the music. I know the Japanese version of DQ8 didn’t have the symphonic score that we North American types get, and that’s a shame for them as the music was uniformly great and the orchestral score really gave the game this grand scope, making it really feel like an epic adventure. It’s a testament to a game when I find myself humming tunes through the week while I’m at work, and that happened all the time with DQ8.

Dragon Quest VIII set a high water mark for presentation for a role-playing game. I give it an amazing 10 out of 10.

Gameplay

Here’s the thing about Dragon Quest VIII’s gameplay: it is, for lack of a better term, old-school. There are random monster encounters that happen frequently. Not so frequently that you can’t take ten steps before fighting but it’s definitely not a system like Final Fantasy XII where the enemies are visible and you can choose how to approach them. Battles are turn-based and can take a minute or two to resolve. This drives some people crazy but DQVIII allows several different strategies during combat. Do I put my enemies to sleep, beat the crap out of them, hit them with a fiery inferno or perhaps do the underpants dance and shock them into submission? I like this system but I understand that others don’t.

Character development is also a bit… barren. You can equip armor and weapons. You can spend points on any of the four different skill tracks for your characters, making them better at swords or bows or even magic abilities. You get new skills at prescribed times based on your level or your skill points. But that’s about it for character customization. There are no classes to change and no jobs to develop. You don’t really have a lot of choices that will influence the story or even some of the subplots.

DQ8 also suffers from being unnecessarily vague and could have benefited from more information given to the player. The alchemy pot was a big mystery and I spent (wasted) a lot of time trying to make something useful. Though the recipes were helpful, more clarity would have been nice. I also didn’t know what skills my characters would develop as they progressed up certain skill paths. I would like to have known more clearly what I was aiming for with my skill point allocations. I chose to specialize rather than spread my points among the four options so I was happy but I could see being really frustrated if I hadn’t done that and didn’t have access to some of the higher-level skills at the end of the game.

But despite all this there’s something very compelling about Dragon Quest VIII. The developers have managed to tickle that addictive nerve in me that makes me want to keep playing just a bit more. Part of it is that your characters are always learning new abilities and attacks. Part of it is the ability to make things in the alchemy pot that can give you a tremendous advantage in combat. I personally got quite addicted to the monster arena and enjoyed scouting around for notorious monsters to recruit and improve my monster team. And as I progressed I could take my monster team and call them into a battle which helped a lot with some of the later bosses.

It’s difficult to specify what makes DQ8 so addictive for me, besides just listing the things I liked. Part of the charm is just how “traditional” the game is. There’s a certain simplicity that I found really appealing. Compared to the overly-complicated systems in a game like Final Fantasy VIII, DQ8 almost seems juvenile but there are layers of depth that I discovered as the game progressed.

Dragon Quest VIII gets an 8.5 out of 10 for gameplay.

Conclusion

The true test for me of how much I liked a game is the replay factor. Would I ever want to replay this game again? And with Dragon Quest VIII the answer is definitely “yes!”. Even as I was going through it I was thinking of things I’d like to do differently on a second run-through. All in all, Dragon Quest VIII was a very polished, fun and surprisingly deep game. It had characters I liked, looked flat-out gorgeous and gave me a large world to adventure in. It’s honestly one of the best role-playing games I’ve had the joy of playing.

Final score: 9.2 out of 10

(Note: This review originally appeared at Game-Vixen.com in 2006.)

For the first 10 hours, Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King was one of the best RPGs I’d ever played. But I started to have my doubts about it as the pace of the story slowed down. By hour 30, I was just hoping that the game would end soon.

After more than 75 hours of gameplay, I finally completed the interminable game. I couldn’t get the disc out of my PS2 fast enough.

For fans of the Dragon Quest series, this game was a long time coming. The seventh installment in the series, called Dragon Warrior VII in the U.S., was released in 2001 on the original Playstation. To many Dragon Quest fans, the opportunity to spend up to 100 hours playing the latest title must have been considered a gift. But for those of us new to the series, Dragon Quest VIII is an awful introduction.

As the subtitle suggests, the characters in the game search for a way to reverse a curse placed upon a king (and his daughter) by an evil magician. Like most every console RPG, the characters eventually discover that the immediate problem is part of a larger catastrophe that could destroy the world.

Plenty of games have been successful using this story formula. Final Fantasy VII is perhaps the best example of a local issue blooming into a worldwide crisis. But the heart of every Final Fantasy game is its characters, and Dragon Quest VIII simply doesn’t have the heart.

The lead character in the series is The Hero. He’s a guy without a pre-set name, and the player never hears him speak. This technique is not uncommon in Japanese games, but it’s a little jarring for American audiences. It can be hard to get swept up in a story in which lead character is mute. (Not always *cough* Chrono Trigger *cough*, but often.)

We meet The Hero as he’s traveling with the title’s cursed king, Trode (who’s been turned into Yoda’s less sexy brother), the princess Medea (now in horse form), and a reformed thug, Yangus. Along the way, the party is joined by adventurers Jessica and Angelo, who are also looking for the magician that cursed Trode, for their own reasons.

These characters are united by a common goal, but they don’t seem joined by friendship. If the Final Fantasy series has taught us anything, it’s that you can’t do anything without your buddies. Jessica, Angelo, Yangus, and the voiceless Hero rarely interact unless it’s to discuss where the magician’s trail leads next.

Also crippling the characters’ interactions is the incredibly slow-paced voice acting. Nearly everyone speaks as though talking to their 90-year-old grandmother. It ruins the pacing of the game and encourages players to hit the ‘X’ button just to skip the talking and speed things up — a shame, since the quality of the voice acting is otherwise very good.

The story speeds along through its early hours, as Jessica and Angelo join the party, but then stalls out as the characters are forced to undertake numerous pointless sidequests. Find the magic mirror, cheer up the depressed king, find this lady’s son — all as part of the main storyline. Sidequests are fine if they reveal something about the story or are optional tasks, but in Dragon Quest VIII, they don’t and they aren’t.

Along the way, strange things happen that the player can assume are part of a larger mystery, but the story takes too long to reveal what the mystery is. None of the characters even acknowledge that something bigger is going on until almost two-thirds of the way through the game. Revealing the mystery at that late stage without much build-up makes it nearly impossible to provide a satisfying conclusion.

Sound
The game’s best feature is its music. It’s absolutely beautiful and entirely orchestral, sounding like a professional film score. Despite frequent repetition of the overworld, town, and battle themes, I never grew sick of the compositions.

Graphics
Rather than aiming for something realistic and winding up in the uncanny valley, Dragon Quest VIII is straight cel-shaded cartoon. The characters are cute without being cutesy, and the landscape is colorful and inviting.

Gameplay
One of the nice things about Dragon Quest VIII, at least early on, is that the battle system is fairly simple, especially compared with other RPGs. Though you always have precise control over The Hero’s actions, the other characters have autopilot options, which can be switched on and off throughout each battle. It’s refreshing to be able to choose whether you want to take your time micromanaging your characters, or whether you simply set them to automatically beat the tar out of the bad guys.

The character improvement system is simple, too. Apart from allotting a few skill points at each level, most character building is done by upgrading weapons and armor, which can be bought at shops or created by combining items found throughout the game.

Although the easy gameplay features are nice, they also emphasize the weakness of the plot. Eventually, every non-boss battle becomes nothing more complicated or interesting than a couple minutes of pressing the ‘X’ button until it’s over. But you need to grind and endure as many of those battles as you can, just to ensure your characters have enough experience to survive the fights that really matter. Unfortunately, those fights, and the plot advancements that surround them, are far too infrequent.

RPGs like Xenosaga have shown that stripped-down gameplay can be successful when paired with a compelling story. And games like Disgaea have proven that complex gameplay can keep a player’s attention for over a hundred hours, even with a thin storyline.

But Dragon Quest VIII, with its plodding plot and simple battles, ultimately makes for a tedious gaming experience.

The Playstation 2 was first introduced back in the fall of 2000. Since then it has been redesigned to include online gaming and it not the big and bulky system it used to be. The Playstation 2 is the most trustworthy system, being known for the PS One as one of the hottest video game systems of its time. So why wouldn’t you trust the Playstation 2?

The only thing holding the Playstation 2 back is its successor, the Playstation 3. If you or your children are not ones that have to keep up with all of the latest systems the Playstation 2 is perfect for you. And with all of the endless games available there is a game out there for every member of the family.

The Playstation 2 can be purchased at a bargain price of $150.00. This is nearly half of the initial selling price. This game system has the most units sold and the most games available. It can play both DVD’s and the original Playstation 1 games. This is definitely the most popular system out there.

One of the downfalls to the Playstation 2 is the inferior graphics and the ability to only allow 2 players to play at a time. Whereas the newer game systems allow for up to four players at one time.

If the little things like the newest graphics don’t bother you, then you will enjoy the readily available accessories and thousands of games that await the Playstation 2 gamers.

One extra perk for PS2 owners is the early release of some game titles compared to the other systems. In general PS2 has exclusive titles and other titles that get published up to a year before the other consoles. The prices of games are usually a bit less expensive and cost anywhere from $10.00 to $50.00.

The Playstation 2 offers a 300 MHz processor, 128-bit, Dolby Digital 5.1, and unbelievable sound and realism as you play the games.

As stated before the accessories are endless, but here are a few to make your gaming experience more enjoyable:

- PS 2 eyetoy-usb camera
- USB headset- offers voice recognition and online chat for compatible titles
- Multitap for PS 2- allows you to plug in extra controllers and memory cards
- DVD Remote- allows you to play movies without wires
- Memory cards- save your game progress and other information with 2 8MB memory cards
- Logitech NetPlay Controller- chat and play at the same time on your PS2
- Logitech Cordless Controller- play anywhere you want with this 2.4GHz cordless controller
- DUALSHOCK 2 analog controller- this controller has pressure sensitivity on every action button

The Playstation 2 console system includes one black video system, adapter, cables, and one controller. Generally the Playstation 2 does not come in a bundle pack. Although you can purchase games, especially the older edition, at a very low cost. Below is one list of the top ten games in the past year. It doesn’t include games released in the past couple of months.

- Psychonauts- This is a very original game with bizarre imagery and humor that will bring a smile to the most sarcastic face.
- God of War- This game has awesome graphics and intense game play. This game also has a very compelling story, but should warn you about the gore and violence throughout the game. This should only be played by adults.

- Soulcalibur III- This game has a deep character creation that unlocks countless artifacts and other items for your fighter to use.

- Gran Turismo 4- This game is rated E for Everyone, so let the whole family join in on the fun. There are several race courses and cars available for every player and the graphics are out of this world.

- Dragon Quest VIII- This game is comparable to Final Fantasy and is full of good humor and quirkiness.

- Shadow of the Colossus- This game puts you in a colossi where you battle to save your one true love.

- Socom III- You have to maneuver through Morocco and other areas with your troops.

- Guitar Hero- This game offers loads of licensed music for you to play the guitar, and participate in a battle of bands.

- Peter Jackson’s King Kong- This game has top of the line graphics and allows you to play as King Kong.

- Madden NFL 2006- Madden has always been on the top ten list year after year and keeps getting better with age. Madden 07 is sure to replace Madden 06 on this list next year.

For families with younger children who want to keep the games rated for everyone to play there are some favorites among the several available. Most of the sport games are rated E with popular titles like;

- Fifa 06- a great game for any soccer fan with amazing graphics
- Madden NFL 05 & 06- sure to attract fans of all ages with the realistic player control
- Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban- basically all of the Harry Potter games are on the top of the lists for children’s favorite game
- NFL Street- this game gives football a new twist and different rules to the game

Deciding on which video game system is right for your child is a big decision, but with Playstation keeping up with the other console systems it looks like they’re not going anywhere for quite some time. With over 2000 videos games available and more releases coming soon the Playstation system proves to be the most popular after all of these years.