Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King (PS2)

Just how big is Dragon Quest in Japan? It's very big indeed - in fact it's something approaching a phenomenon. It's sales figures point to this; in it's battles with Final Fantasy, it has regularly trounced its RPG rival. Dragon Quest VII was the highest-selling PSOne game ever, which is especially impressive as the game was never even released in Europe. Most brilliantly though, there is a law against releasing a new DQ title in Japan on a weekday, ...
.../> An impressive history, and Dragon Quest VIII: Journey Of The Cursed King, the first of the series 'main' titles to be released in the UK, continues to expand on the franchises eye-poppingly impressive figures. Its sold over six million units in Japan (apparently twice as many copies Halo 2 shifted in the US), is Japan's top-selling PlayStation2 title and has reached 'Platinum' status in the UK. But is this massive following justified?
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Just how big is Dragon Quest in Japan? It's very big indeed - in fact it's something approaching a phenomenon. It's sales figures point to this; in it's battles with Final Fantasy, it has regularly trounced its RPG rival. Dragon Quest VII was the highest-selling PSOne game ever, which is especially impressive as the game was never even released in Europe. Most brilliantly though, there is a law against releasing a new DQ title in Japan on a weekday, for fear that a substantial number of people would skip work or school to play it.

An impressive history, and Dragon Quest VIII: Journey Of The Cursed King, the first of the series 'main' titles to be released in the UK, continues to expand on the franchises eye-poppingly impressive figures. Its sold over six million units in Japan (apparently twice as many copies Halo 2 shifted in the US), is Japan's top-selling PlayStation2 title and has reached 'Platinum' status in the UK. But is this massive following justified?

In a word, yes. DQVIII is the best game I've played in a very, very long time and unquestionably the best RPG of its generation. Whilst PS2 versions of Final Fantasy, Star Ocean and Xenosaga all wowed with their technical proficiency, they failed to deliver that sense of magic or great storytelling that was once in abundance in the genre, complicating elements of the gameplay unnecessarily just to give the illusion that they were being 'next-gen', when in reality the genre felt like it had taken a step-backwards. Not so with Dragon Quest - it was five years in the making and it really shows. It proves an excellent expansion to its ageing predecessors; what was fine before has remained wisely untouched, whilst areas where PS2 technology allowed improvements have been lavishly upgraded. It is in many ways set out like a traditional RPG despite the high-production values, combining a host of great new touches with many of the ingredients that made the RPG's of old so great.

The story centres around an unnamed hero whom you give a moniker at the beginning (referred to as 'the guv') and his epic journey to help rid King Trode and Princess Medea of their rather unfortunate curses, which have turned them in a troll and a horse respectively. They are on the tail of a jester named Dhoulmagus, responsible for the curses and thought to be behind a spate of murders. And in typically grand RPG fashion, this is merely the tip of the stories iceberg, but marks the beginning of a chase across a ludicrously large world.

The core gameplay works as you would expect from a role-playing game - you explore towns, talk to people, buy things, raid dungeons for priceless artefacts and so on. However, delve a little deeper and you'll discover a veritable trove of excellent touches.

The design of the locations and the world map are outstanding. The scope of it all is mind-bogglingly - the world map is not simply a small representation of a route from A to B; there are huge expanses of grassland, deserts, mountains and forestry, with tonnes of hidden treasures, dangers and visual spectacles. Early on in the adventure, you can scale your way to the top of a mountain and, at the suggestion of a man living in a nearby hut, use the first-person view to look out over a waterfall as you search for a single red tree amongst a sea of greens, and it feels like you can see for miles.

Exploring towns and dungeons is made a far more enjoyable experience thanks to the intelligent controls. Moving the central character with the left analogue, you can swing the camera 360 degrees around the hero with the right stick. Not only does it show off the games amazing beauty, unerring smoothness and ease of use, but it works even in really tight-spots with an almost faultless degree of efficiency - it's the best manually-operated camera I've ever come across in a game, even beating that seen Grandia.

There are loads of other nice touches - it retains some of the great features that have been long-term features of the series, such as the day and night times, which are cleverly implemented and beautifully realised. Not only do the towns look different at night, there is different set of activities and people will tell you different things. The passage of time is clear as well; if you use the first-person view, you can see the sun set and the moon travel across the sky. And just to spice things up a little, the toughest monsters wait until nightfall to rear their ugly heads. Enix have also brought back their casinos (and I thought promoting gambling in gaming was frowned upon) and the highly-addictive 'mini-medal' collecting feature - by raiding chests, cupboards and crates all over the world you can accumulate medals and then trade them for a variety of weird and increasingly wonderful items. And you thought Grand Theft Auto's 'hidden package' challenges were compelling!

Elsewhere, you can now combine items and weapons in an alchemy pot to create new ones - recipes can be discovered all over the world via bookshelves. And as if all this wasn't enough, you can recruit monsters from around the world, creating teams and fighting against others in a number of leagues in the Monster Arena. There's certainly no shortage of side-quests to tackle, that's for sure.

What Dragon Quest lacks in character development (don't expect any long-winded flashback sequences here), it makes up for with its uncommonly good sense of humour. There are a host of memorable figures who raise a smile - there's a muddled fish-like boss who has been struck on the head by a crystal ball and is especially aggrieved by the 'tortune-feller' who did it to him; then there's Morrie, the extrovert Italian owner of the Monster Arena, who surrounds himself with Bunny-girls (referred to as the Super Morrie-O Sisters), and also a pair of siblings called, rather comically, Cash and Carrie. Pleasingly, it also isn't afraid to point the odd subtle dig at itself and its genre, and this if anything enhances the feeling of its light-hearted and endearing, as fans will no doubt we able to identify with the comments made.

DQVIII adopts an excellent new feature to neatly side-step a great frustration of role-playing games - getting stuck and not knowing what to do next. By pressing 'start', you can chat with the other members of your party at more or less any point in the game, and they can recap what you have been doing, where you want to go next, or just deliver some funny anecdotes - it's a fantastic idea and I'll be amazed if it isn't used again in the near future.

With the battle-system, Dragon Quest has used simplicity to its advantage. The turn-based battles have changed very little in the series history, mainly because they work so well - in some instances they can be tackled with a minimal level of effort via repeated use of the attack command, but there is also a great deal of depth to be found as you can uncover new spells, abilities and attributes as you gain experience. Fortunately, given the history of randomly-generated battles, DQ does not heap them upon the player, using them sparingly in dungeons - the developers have clearly recognized the need for the player to have more time in the field of play solving puzzles than getting bogged down in fights.

DQVIII's downsides are few and far between, though there is the odd inconvenience along the way. Inexperienced gamers may find things a little tricky in the early stages and as you can only save game in churches, there are no checkpoints within dungeons. The 'Flee' feature can also prove a pain, as on occasions you will want to avoid confrontation and the game won't let you escape immediately, usually resulting in the enemies causing a fair bit of unnecessary damage. Another irritation is how amazingly tight-fisted the game can be with giving you currency. Even when you reach the latter stages of the game, defeating monsters rewards you with hardly any gold to spend on items, armour and weaponry, and as a consequence, you often find yourself having to sell things you would have preferred to have kept. Still, in the scheme of things, these are not overly significant problems.

Whilst the series had previously always looked a little plain next to the Final Fantasy's, DQVIII's cel-shaded graphics are surely the series most striking to date. Designed by Akira Toriyama, the man behind the Dragon Ball Z manga, the visuals represent an all-too-rare example of the art-form holding up perfectly on the PS2. As a result, it looks unique; stunning use of colouring and lovely character animations are backed up by some fantastic lighting effects and with a minimum of jagged lines - it's feels like you're playing a part in the most beautiful comic ever made.

Another area where it is noticeably better than your average RPG is in the voice-acting. Whilst a lot of titles are given shoddy, done-in-a-weekend translations with ridiculously high-pitched American accents and a complete lack of emotional connection with the story (don't really need to give any examples - almost every other PS2 role-player is guilty), DQ well and truly breaks the mould. It is unusual in the respect that most of the voicing is British - but there's a remarkably diverse mixture that includes dialects such as Welsh, cockney, Scottish, mock-Italian/Spanish/Russian and last but not least, the good-old Queen's English. It's another sign of the work that has gone into the game, and stands head and shoulders above its peers in this department.

The music and effects remain faithful to the series roots also. Rich, energetic tunes are laced with trumpets and harps, giving proceedings a suitable retro-chic, and the sound effects are functional though provide little cause for complaint.

How long is it though? Well, I've never come across any game that has quiet as many places to explore as this - the world map brings a whole new meaning to the word vast. As well as the main adventure, there are of course a fair few sub-quests and challenge to immerse yourself in, and even accepting the fact that talking to your party helps with many of the puzzles, it will still take around 75 hours to complete. Doing, seeing and getting everything may take in excess of 100. There's value for money!

Ultimately, Dragon Quest VIII: Journey Of The Cursed King is a game of immense class and quality. It has echoes of its great predecessors providing a constant reminder of tried-and-tested gameplay that remains faithful to its dynasty, but DQ succeeds as a modern-day RPG because it goes the extra mile in so many areas. It's looks, innovations, attention-to-detail and breathtaking scale suggest that the five-years it spent in development were not wasted. Epic, and only about a tenner now that it's 'Platinum' too...  

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