Dragon Warrior VIII

[Guest wildpegasus]

Yeah, I don't have the game but c'mon it's Dragon Warrior. It needs its own thread.

[AndrewTS 0]

1up has a feature up contrasting the US "meh" opinion with Japan's rabid devotion.

 

It's funny how they talk about the FFXII demo maybe making it a bit more high-profile, and in the same breath talk about Brave Fencer Musashi and Tobal having demos...when virtually nobody bought those games for the games themselves.

 

I love Brave Fencer Musashi, but I'm not about to kid myself about where most of its sales came from.

 

The first US ads for DQVIII were terrible. You had those cgi vines shooting out of pipes making you think it's some sort of drain cleaner commercial. Then the main pitch of the commercial is "Japan loves it, so should you!"

 

The more recent ads are a bit better, though. I want to give it a shot, though, because the tone of the game and the gameplay itself is quite appealing.

Edited December 12, 2005 by AndrewTS

[stahl 0]

One of the greatest games I have ever played. I finished it the other day. It is quite long, much like DW7 was. I finished the main game and bonus dungeon in just over 92 hours.

 

The game is actually called Dragon Quest VIII, like the past titles in japan now since they trademarked dragon quest in america.

[chaosrage 0]

I was going to make a thread when I got it for Christmas. I can't wait. DW4 and 7 are two of my favorite games ever and unlike FF, there hasn't been a single bad DW game yet. If you ask me, the DW series is vastly superior to FF.

[Ced 0]

My buds at GameCrazy got the call from the higher-ups to push DQ VIII heavily because the fear that they grossly overestimated the US market's interest in the Dragon Quest series. I'm definitely picking it up after the inevitable price drop.

[AndrewTS 0]

I'll probably do 10x better in the US than VII because it actually is getting...you know...advertised.

 

DWVII's graphics looked like ****, too. That didn't help.

[BUTT 0]

I liked the Dragon Warrior name better than Dragon Quest. Thumbs down.

[Anya 0]

The commercial with the vines and the green fat guy is horrible.

[AndrewTS 0]

At least they didn't call this one Dragon Warrior V

[Matt Young 0]

I really want to play this game. I love the cel shading and DBZ art style, but I have way too many RPGs and other games to finish before embarking on an 80 hour quest. May as well wait and get it cheaper.

[chaosrage 0]

I'll probably do 10x better in the US than VII because it actually is getting...you know...advertised.

 

DWVII's graphics looked like ****, too. That didn't help.

 

Also it isn't competiting with a next generation system this time.

 

I fully expected DW8 to release after PS3 had already been out a year, just like DW7 was released when the PS2 had had been out for a year, and DW4 was released on NES after the SNES had been out a year. No one but die hard DW fans gave a shit about the PS1 when the PS2 had Devil May Cry, Grand Theft Auto 3, Final Fantasy X, etc.. sitting on shelves.

 

I liked the Dragon Warrior name better than Dragon Quest. Thumbs down.

 

Agreed. Quest sounds more generic than Warrior. Plus I grew up with the name Dragon Warrior, I'm used to calling it that. I don't like the name change.

[stahl 0]

At least they didn't call this one Dragon Warrior V

 

I don't get it? Maybe that would make sense if they hadn't already released Dragon Warrior 7 a few years ago.

[The Man in Blak 0]

At least they didn't call this one Dragon Warrior V

 

I don't get it? Maybe that would make sense if they hadn't already released Dragon Warrior 7 a few years ago.

 

He's cracking on Square's naming strategy for the Final Fantasy series in the US. The American release of Final Fantasy IV was called Final Fantasy II, because the original II & III had only been released in Japan.

 

DQVIII is a wonderful game. I'm not sure that the more recent advertisements are really that huge of a step forward from the original vine-riddled ads but, then again, Dragon Quest isn't easy to sell, especially in a market that is inundated with mediocre-at-best RPGs. Maybe it's a gross generalization, but DQVIII seems way too old school for the current wave of RPG fans.

 

The rentals will probably go through the roof, though, given that it's packaged with the FFXII demo (which is a pretty interesting playthrough in itself.)

Edited December 12, 2005 by The Man in Blak

[stahl 0]

He's cracking on Square's naming strategy for the Final Fantasy series in the US. The American release of Final Fantasy IV was called Final Fantasy II, because the original II & III had only been released in Japan.

 

I know he is, but it also doesn't make sense since Enix never did that to begin with since Dragon Warrior 7 was released in North America, and called that when Dragon Quest V and VI weren't.

 

Dragon Quest was also an Enix project, not square. I realize they are the same company now but Dragon Quest has the Enix influence.

[Special K 0]

It looks great, and I'd love to play through it, but I don't think I'll ever have the time. I've had Atelier Iris for two months now, and I'm only 3/4 through (and it's not a long game). I never beat La Pucelle.

 

Is DQVIII voiced? Because for once I want a PS2 RPG where I can read through cutscenes fast as hell, instead of waiting for VAs to spit out their lines. Dammit, there's a reason I don't listen to books on tape.

 

On the plus side, I had really grave doubts about FFXII, but the demo's really fun. Combat's very fast and furious, much different from the MMORPG comparisons we've been hearing. Or you can put it on wait.

[The Man in Blak 0]

Is DQVIII voiced? Because for once I want a PS2 RPG where I can read through cutscenes fast as hell, instead of waiting for VAs to spit out their lines. Dammit, there's a reason I don't listen to books on tape.

 

It is voiced, but I believe you can skip through their lines. I didn't fiddle around with the config enough when I rented it to find out whether you could turn the voices off or not.

 

Funny you mention that FFXII wasn't very MMORPG-ish - I definitely got that feeling from the game, at least with the Active system. The Wait system, not so much (which is probably why I really enjoyed it).

[stahl 0]

It has voice acting but you can turn it off and just scroll through the text.

[razazteca 0]

How old school is it? Do you have to fight slimes for experience point to level up and collect gold for armor & weapons for 30 minutes before venturing outside the city?

[The Man in Blak 0]

Yeah, there are slimes. (C'mon, it's a DQ game. ) And yes, you definitely are going to be hanging around collecting coins for a while before you can upgrade your equipment.

 

The battle system can't get much more old school than DQVIII. It's basically the same battle system they've had in the series for years, but with a couple of new things (Psyche Up) and some interesting graphics. It even has the trademark "ding" bell whenever you win a battle.

[jwpeer 0]

Leveling isn't too much of a chore once you find the right places with metal slimes family monsters. Money can be annoying at times, but I don't recall at any point not having enough money for something I wanted, especially after I spent one big 3 hour trip leveling from the high 20's to the mid 30's.

 

It's a great game, with a -lot- to do, and some slightly challenging battles.

 

But it is VERY old school in mechanics.Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, because it has POLISH

[Special K 0]

Funny you mention that FFXII wasn't very MMORPG-ish - I definitely got that feeling from the game, at least with the Active system.

 

Well, it has similarities, but it seems much faster paced. You can switch characters very quickly, run from enemies while you cast magic, it's a lot like the Star Ocean games.

 

I'll probably play a lot of the game on wait, but for levelling up, active should add some fun, and quickness to the battles.

 

 

Does DQVIII have the extensive class-changing system?

[Spaceman Spiff 0]

Money can be annoying at times, but I don't recall at any point not having enough money for something I wanted,

Plus, there's the alchemy skill, where you can combine 2/3/4 things to create new/better items (i.e. armor, weapon, other items).

[jwpeer 0]

Yeah, alchemy makes finding the best weapons fairly easy, honestly. Which is nice.

 

no class change system in 8. They dropped that after 7 (Where it barely had any effect on the game, which was my biggest complaint with vii)

[chaosrage 0]

I read this at SA.

 

"Fought an enemy and he dropped a "Cowpat", it's just cow crap for use in the Alchemy Pot, i used it to see if anything would happen and this happens:

 

Hero grips the Cowpat tightly!

Hero deeply regrets what he just did."

 

Must play. Hurry up Christmas.

[Rendclaw 0]

After the frustration that was .hack, I crave an old school RPG engine.

[AndrewTS 0]

Considering DQ is far more obscure in the US than FF, it's odd that the FF games skipped over the missing games and the DW games continued as normal.

 

I rented the game...so far gameplay seems very old school (tried to rush through first dungeon without doing any leveling up prior--had a heck of a time as I progressed), but the presentation is very modern and polished.

 

Although a game filled with Toriyama character designs can be very repetitive. Yay, random townsperson that looks exactly like a blondTrunks, and bunny-girl barmaid that looks like android 18. I want Oliems' race of chicken-people to show up in a game somehow, darn it.

 

So far the humor works well. Cute, but not too cute, and you're not beaten over the head with it.

Edited December 14, 2005 by AndrewTS

[razazteca 0]

Considering DQ is far more obscure in the US than FF, it's odd that the FF games skipped over the missing games and the DW games continued as normal

What happened to Dragon Quest 5 and 6? Dragon Warrior 1-4 was on NES and Dragon Warrior 7 was on Playstation.

[Special K 0]

Both Super Famicom games never released here. I hear that VI is excellent, but the fantrans on it has stalled, I think.

[stahl 0]

VI is excellent, I have a walkthrough up on gamefaqs based on the english patch. I would recommend downloading it.

 

The translation is pretty much complete, you can beat the game with only finding the odd shop text untranslated.

 

Considering DQ is far more obscure in the US than FF, it's odd that the FF games skipped over the missing games and the DW games continued as normal.

 

Final Fantasy wasn't really popular or profitable to a huge degree until FF6. Final Fantasy 7 really skyrocketed the series as well as the RPG genre as a whole.

Edited December 14, 2005 by stahl

[Special K 0]

Final Fantasy wasn't really popular or profitable to a huge degree until FF6. Final Fantasy 7 really skyrocketed the series as well as the RPG genre as a whole.

 

FFIV and VI were quite popular on SNES. But FF has been huge from its inception in Japan. It's called Final Fantasy because Squaresoft was nearly bankrupt, and they figured it would be their last game. It was a smash, and the rest is history. DQ, to my knowledge, has always been the very most popular series in Japan, though.