Dragon Quest VIII

I'm ashamed (as an avid console RPG fan) that Dragon Quest VIII is my first Dragon Quest game. Ever. And, as a DQ newbie I have no frame of reference to compare against past DQ games. The first thing that struck me was the shocking amount of polish in some aspects of the game, such as the character design, world design, music, and voice acting. The next thing that struck me was the shocking LACK of polish on other aspects of the game, like the battle system, saving system, and inventory system. But let me begin with the good...

The RPG goodness is laid on thick in this game. There's plenty of different weapons to choose, armor to equip, skills to level, and spells to learn. You're rarely locked out of any area in the game, which helps improve the sense that you're on an epic quest and exploring a vast world. I found myself thinking things like, "This area is great, but how do I get across this river?" "If only I had a boat I could get to that island over there." "It's nice that I can teleport to areas I've visited, but wouldn't it be nice if I could fly to areas I haven't visited?" Exploration is fun. The story and bosses are fun as well.

An aspect of the game that showed a lot of potential, but failed to live up to it, was alchemy. You can take some items in the game, combine them with other items in the alchemy pot, wait a while, and then you get a new item that's often more powerful than anything you can find otherwise. The has great potential and, indeed, most of the ultimate weapons are only available through alchemy. Throughout the game you find recipes for your alchemy pot. However, the recipes are rarely ever complete, and this is the aspect that I regard as broken. They should have given complete recipes. I'm not willing to sit and try to figure out which item I'm missing through trial and error, especially since the interface is so very, very clunky.

This brings me to the menu interface, the most broken aspect of the game. Let me illustrate the problem by discussing how you save the game. Problem 1, saving can only be done from churches that are scattered throughout the land; why can't I just save anywhere I want? Problem 2, you go through no less than 6 steps each and every time you want to save. You're also faced with 8 screens of useless and repetitive text that CANNOT BE SKIPPED! You are forced to watch the text scroll slowly across the screen until it's fills up the text box, then press the button to continue the process. Every time you save you're given the option to quit, a useless feature that just takes you back to the title menu (and not quickly either). The problems saving are echoed throughout all other aspects of the game. Alchemy is cumbersome. Shopping is annoying. The inventory system is such a pain that it's almost unusable. It feels to me like someone took the interface developers from the SNES era of RPG games, froze them in a cryogenic sleeping chamber, and then revived them to work on DQ8.

What could have saved the game is a deep battle system: a battle system that's unique, customizable and fun. The kind of battle system that forces you to think about strategy and tactics. Unfortunately, a deep and rewarding battle system is something that you WILL NOT find in this game. The first battle I encountered I groaned. Having just come from Final Fantasy XII, I had begun to think that random battles were a thing of the past; we don't need them anymore because our consoles are advanced enough to render the enemies before we encounter them. There's really no excuse for having so many, unskippable, random battles in this game. And, to make matters worse, combat is not fast. Every action is chosen before a turn begins, so if situations change you cannot correct the moves you've chosen mid-turn. I often found myself healing the same character twice, while failing to revive a character who was wiped out near the beginning of the turn. The only way to fix this problem is to use preset, automated battle tactics to guide your party member's actions. While this allows your characters to react intelligently to arising situations during the battle, it does create another problem: boredom. With automated tactics enabled each battle is won merely by pressing a couple buttons just to get the combat started. For the rest of the battle I found myself sitting around for five minutes while my characters slowly won the battle for me. For this reason I say that combat in Dragon Quest VIII is broken and it needs to be completely redone if I'm ever to play another Dragon Quest Game.

Why the low score? The annoyances got in the way. I could have really liked this game. I could have loved it! But the game's flaws got in the way of my enjoyment. I was more compelled to play than enjoying play, thus is the curse of the RPG enthusiast.

So, what kept me playing for 96 hours: The beautiful, colorful world, the interesting characters, new costumes for Jessica (Va-Va-Voom!), and the RPG bug that compels me to get the next best suit of armor, and the next best sword, and the full set of spells. All of these aspects combined into an experience that was enjoyable. In the end I was satisfied with Dragon Quest VIII. There's enough good here to outweigh the bad. Trudging through screen after screen of useless, repetitive text every time I want to save is something I was willing to forgive since I really wanted to continue the quest. However, another game without as much polish, great music, and graphical beauty (DQ9 on the DS, I'm talking to you!) might not hold my attention. The makers of Dragon Quest may not have converted me into a fan, but they have definitely piqued my interest. I'll keep an eye on their future releases and see what develops.