Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King (2004)

Dragon Quest 8 is one of those games that makes me wonder: Do I have such horrible taste in gaming or are simply a lot of games completely overrated? When you look at reviews and comments about this game, Dragon Quest 8 seems like the literal jesus of JRPGs. This game gets so much praise, so I was really excited to finally play it, but ooooh boy, what a letdown. I don't see any appeal in this game besides the beautiful visuals whatsoever:

• The story is absolutely boring and nothing surprising is really happening, besides maybe one thing (I won't spoil it though)
• The party characters are soo bland and boring. They don't really have any personality and oh boy the english voiceover is absolutely cringe.
• The game is extremely repetitive. Most dungeons are just some floors to walk around full of enemy encounters every two seconds. The bosses have very similar patterns and skills. Plus there is soooo much filling going on in the game.
• The game is extreeeemely stingy in terms of gold and experience. The price of new gear is really high compared to the amount of gold you earn from fighting monsters. And levelling up takes forever. I am aware that there are designated spots to grind experience or money, but at least one of them is extremely hidden and you get absolutely no clue in the game that it even exists. I only learned about it after I've beaten the game, and even if, I find it really weird if there are basically only two spots for you to grind in the whole world and that there is no real way for you to get stronger naturally over the course of the story.
• You can only save in towns. Who came up with that idea? I like the fact that you don't have to load a save when your party gets whiped, but you lose half (!) the money that you've earned so hard over the course of hours, and you have no way to save in the middle of a lenghty dungeon or somewhere else. Nope, you gotta go back to town matey.
• The game plays sooooo slow, I don't think I've ever seen anything like that. The animations in combat take forever to load, plus for SOME REASON EVERY GODDAMN ACTION GETS COMMENTED AND YOU BASICALLY HAVE TO CONFIRM EVERY SINGLE DAMN ACTION. I'ts the same reason why I gave up on the whole alchemy nonsense, even though it would have helped me a lot since some of the best items can only be acquired via alchemy. Even though the system is all about experimenting, every time your experiment/combination of items to mix fails, some NPC comments the same stupid message over multiple lines how you shouldn't give up and try again. And yes, you have to confirm several times before you can try something else. Ain't nobody got time for that.
• Weird difficulty spikes: There are I'd say 2-3 huge difficulty spikes in this game out of nowhere. You can go smoothly through the game most of the time without any real issues, however, there are three bosses who are just like "fuck you now you gotta grind with no exp gains in this game, have fun LOL". Two of those difficulty spikes almost made me drop the game for good. Maybe it would have been better for me to actually drop it.

So yeah, in summary, I have no idea why this game gets so much praise. I wouldn't say that it's a horrible game, it is a classic JRPG with stunning visuals, but it's at max an average game. DQ 8 for me is the very definition of overrated games. It just shows again that you shouldn't care about reviews or hype, all that matters is your own perception of the game.

You know what the worst thing is though? I've actually beaten the game even though I don't really like it. That's 100 hours I couid have spent on games I actually love. Screw you, completionist urge. Oh well, at least the game will now finally stop to bother me. Let that be a lesson to me.

J'ai acheté ce jeu sur Nintendo Switch mais, après avoir comparé les versions, j'ai finalement préféré jouer la version PS2 avec de meilleurs graphismes, une meilleure bande son et surtout moins de censure. De plus, avec l'émulation on a une résolution en 4k, la possibilité d'accélérer le jeu en 3x (très utile surtout pour les phases de levelling) et le jeu tourne excellemment bien.

Avec cette configuration, le jeu est sublime (4k sur la télé) et m'a scotché des heures durant (plus d'une centaine d'heures de jeu) pour le finir à 100%. Le scénario est juste l'un des meilleurs que j'ai jamais vu pour un RPG de ce genre. C'est un vrai coup de cœur !

Cela dit je comprends les avis qui trouvent le jeux lent dans sa version originale (sans émulation), auquel cas je conseillerai plutôt la version Switch. Je dois dire que ma note de 5 étoiles tiens à 70% au jeu en lui même et 30% au bonus conféré par l'émulation.

Contactez moi si vous voulez de l'aide sur la partie émulation, je serai ravi de vous aider.

During the first couple hours of this game, I was worried that it wouldn't live up to all the praise for me. I didn't grow up playing Dragon Quest, and I hadn't played the original version on PS2. However, I too succumbed to its charming characters, balanced combat, and gorgeous music, and after 78 hours of play time, it's earned 5 stars from me.

This is a textbook JRPG. Classic save-the-world story: unassuming hero, deities of good and evil, a princess, a curse, and battles with your traditional combat roles. It can be grindy and repetitive, but such is the genre. What makes you fall in love are the characters (accompanied by decent voice acting!), the story (which guides you but allows you enough open-world freedom to rarely feel like you're on rails), and the music, which was so good there were a few times I set my 3DS down in the middle of gameplay just to listen.

Combat, as I mentioned, can be grindy, but enemy design is creative and often humorous, and you can also speed up animations. Boss battles, on the other hand, were extremely rewarding. Without going out my way to grind, the wins I scraped by with after polishing my attack/defense/healing strategies felt amazing. The tension mechanic (which allows you to "psych up" for powerful attacks in later turns) is satsifying as heck.

The game did drag on a bit toward the end, but I guess I already had Stockholm syndrome by that point, because I didn't mind all that much. If you're a JRPG fan and haven't played this one yet, I highly recommend it.

I'll say it and I'll say it as many times as I need to - Dragon Quest is the master of beating the dead horse of simple JRPG mechanics. Even with this PS2 iteration's simple focus on only four characters (no random subbing mid-adventure) and straightforward skill point progression over previous class systems, you're still spending most of the adventure grinding slimes, zombies, and other folk.

The real big change, though, is the presentation. Gone are 2-D graphics; everything is sublimely acted, beautifully portrayed in 3-D cel shading, and set to an impressive orchestral soundtrack. The story is simple and shorter than its predecessor VII, but manages to weave a fun and memorable tale.

Based on looks alone, Dragon Quest VIII would get five stars for all the production values it's spotting compared to its previous iterations, but seems comfortable not to shake the JRPG mechanics and pacing most would find god-awful boring at this rate. Perhaps it's my jadedness from playing so many Dragon Quest games in a row.