Dragon Quest is the seminal console RPG, really. Enix's brainchild is the one that really launched the genre in Japan, and it was the first console-specific RPG to gain any traction at all in the United States (before Ultima fans get on me – that started on home computers). Quite a few conventions that are now hideously overused clichés began in this venerable series. However, despite being the progenitor of a very popular genre and being incredibly huge in Japan, the series clearly lags in American consciousness behind the Final Fantasy series (this might be because Enix was forced to use the name "Dragon Warrior" until recently, due to copyright restrictions). In fact, it was partly with this in mind that Enix pursued a merger with Square – Square's strong distribution channels in the United States and Canada would be perfect to get Enix's series across the Pacific much more effectively. Now, with the North American release of Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King, it's time to see if Enix's hopes for the merger pay off.
The game begins rather simply, with your hero (unnamed by the game) travelling with a ugly barbarian named Yangus and a squat green monster named Trode as they travel with their wagon in search of a jester named Dhoulmagus. As it quickly becomes apparent, Trode was once king of Trodain, and the horse pulling the wagon is his daughter. It seems that Dhoulmagus pulled out a powerful magic staff and used its power to curse Trodain and its inhabitants, and only one guard (our nameless and speechless hero) was spared from the curse. The hero, basically browbeaten by the king, quests with the companions he acquires to find Dhoulmagus and defeat him to break the curse and avenge those killed by the increasingly maniacal jester.
To be honest, the story really hasn't evolved at all from the one Enix used back in Dragon Quest III. Seriously, the game just replaces "killed your father" with "curses your king" and expects that's enough to send you on your merry, heroic way. It also follows the predictable plot threads found therein (real sinister evil lurking beyond, become legendary hero, blah blah blah). To be honest, pretty much every element of this game has not only been done before, as that's close to unavoidable these days. The problem is really that Enix already did these elements in previous Dragon Quest games, and they didn't even bother putting a different spin or interesting diversion on these elements. Apparently, one of the things resulting from the Square-Enix merger was an even greater desire to recycle old themes and plot threads than either company separately. Anyone looking for new ground is looking in the wrong game.
That problem continues onto the characters. There's not too many ways to put it – the characters are fairly flat overall. Most "personal growth" undergone by the characters is a rapid-fire shift when the character is first met (in the case of Yangus, this happens in flashback a few hours into the game) and is handled a bit ham-handedly. That's assuming that the characters undergo any sort of growth at all – Jessica is perhaps the most buxom flat character in video gaming history. It's like she's suffering from Lara Croft Syndrome: her bust size is inversely proportional to her personal growth through the game.
This might be a bit unfair, though, as the characters themselves aren't terrible despite being fairly monochromatic. To be honest, I loved Angelo. This is partly because he's the second coming of Ronfar (from Lunar 2: Eternal Blue, for the heathens who didn't recognize the name on sight). This is partly because he actually undergoes a bit of personal growth. And it's partly because he's got the self-assured style that's the hallmark of a good role-playing game hero. Yangus has his moments, although the game seems quite content to act like "reformed thief" is another way of saying, "watered down verbal punching bag." The characters all have their flashes of entertainment even while being emotional cutouts.
One warning while going through the story, you'll find yourself inundated with Australian and a host of other British Empire tongues. It's more than a tad annoying to have to sit there and translate half of what's being said by the characters – I could have just bought the Japanese version if I was looking to do that. On the bright side, Europe, given that you're much more likely to understand it than the west side of the Atlantic, you should be getting this DQ game at last.
Okay, so the plot isn't too much to look at. The important part is gameplay, right? Well, if anything, the game really shows its age here. The battle system is almost exactly the same as the one used in Dragon Quest III. Depending on the weapon or spell you use in a round of combat, you target either an individual monster, a group of the same monsters, or all monsters on screen. Each round is done in turns based on your agility, and you bash at each other until someone emerges victorious. Seriously, if you have played any turn-based role-playing games at all in the past 17 or 18 years, you already have most of the basics down.
There are three twists to the battle system, although they're not particularly new overall. One, you can power up individual skills upon level up, although that's not really different from what you see in Star Ocean or, in a more evolved form, Final Fantasy X. Two, you can use magic points to power physical attacks learned from powering those skills, but that’s just borrowed from the Grandia games. Finally, you can spend a round "psyching up" to make your next attack more powerful (at no extra cost beyond missing a turn) and can do so for several rounds, but this also has been used in other role-playing games (most notably in Final Fantasy V). While all of these work well in concert with each other in the game (psyching up is invaluable with healing spells, particularly early on), nothing really innovative is done with these twists and the end result is that you still end up feeling like you've done this a thousand times before (or, if you've played as many role-playing games as I have, a million or more).
In some ways, the biggest appeal to the battle system isn't in a tweak but in something that has been consistently in the Dragon Quest series since the second or third installment – no matter how far you get in the game, you can still get usage out of stuff from the game's early moments. The spells you get early on are useful for attacking well after you get them, and your magic points spread out well over the course of the game. Items you get early on are often only replaced by a stronger version of the exact same item, and even then they can be used to forge new items (a staple of countless role-playing games, albeit more valuable in terms of money and effectiveness in this game). It takes only a little effort and time to turn a bunch of the weakest healing items in the game into one of the strongest – there's always a reason to go back and work with the stuff you started with.
Of course, the game's biggest asset is probably its graphics. Now, I'm really not one to be impressed with graphics. They improve, they get a bit cleaner, and they are usually just a distraction to make you forget other flaws in the game. However, the graphics in Dragon Quest VIII are so good that I actually have, at points, forgotten my issues with the game's story. The art, as it has been since the series' inception, is handled by Akira Toriyama of Dragon Ball Z fame. However, it's not so much his style being evident in the game (which it was even in the early days in the enemy designs) as it being rendered so well. I mean, I'm fairly neutral towards Toriyama as a whole, but I've never seen 3D rendered so well for any artist's work. It seriously looks like Toriyama drew the character designs and then sat down and designed the characters himself. While I'm sure it was just a case of him working closely with the graphics designers, the effect is stunning.
It's more than that, though. Cloth flows in movements realistically. Stray hair falls and sways in time to a character's cadence. Grass is brushed aside lightly when you walk through it. If there was ever an argument for standard polygonal graphics over cel shading, Dragon Quest VIII provides it. They even include small details, like the lines to indicate folds of skin around the knuckles. Even though they reuse many old enemy designs (I've fought those drackies, slimes, and skeletons since I was 11 – literally), they've made sure that each design takes on a new life while remaining completely true to the original art and the progenitors in the series. The art is so good; I can even forgive the one indulgence of Toriyama's most famous work (try psyching up the main character to the maximum allowed).
The sound, while fairly solid, isn't quite to the level of the graphics. The game's main score, played throughout your travels in the overworld, does give a grand and epic scale to the game. It feels much like the main theme to "Gone With The Wind," but without all the subtle racism and death. Okay, maybe not without death, but definitely without the subtle racism. However, the cave music and the battle music are a bit weaker, and I honestly still feel more inspired or nervous (as appropriate) when hearing the first game’s appropriate themes. Perhaps Square-Enix should have recycled more from the earlier games (beyond the title theme, the save music, the level up ditty, the town music...). While the game is certainly packed with snatches of solid music, it doesn’t quite have the solid soundtrack that others in the series have sported.
Of course, the game does have voice acting going for it, and that's fairly solid overall. This does naturally test your tolerance for variants of British Isles and Australian accents. I mean, it probably would have sounded worse if the actors tried to do the lines in the game with American accents, so the text basically locked the voice actors into delivering cheesy jobs. Even with that, though, the actors do well within the limits they're given and really only the actor for Trode gets hammy to the point of nausea. Surprisingly, Yangus is fun to listen to, despite the fact that his accent is the most blatant. Of course, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the minor character Ashmahri, who looks like Legolas and talks like Winnie the Pooh. It's performances like that (which pop up with odd frequency during the game) which drag down the overall quality of the game's voice acting.
Finally, on censorship. People naturally fret that there's going to be some censorship when a game makes the transition from Japan to the American market, but it doesn't appear like there's been too much, if anything done to water down Dragon Quest VIII. Sure, the women are flirty and busty, but it's not like it goes too overboard (given what parts of the female breast are shown in this game, Toriyama apparently doesn't believe the female form has nipples). The game is never blatant about sex, although quite a few characters (both NPCs and Angelo) get quite flirty. And one of Jessica's abilities you can improve upon level up is called Sex Appeal. While I'm not exactly an expert on the Japanese version, I don't think much, if anything, has been cut from this release.
Of course, I'm more concerned about what should have been added. Don't get me wrong, Dragon Quest VIII is certainly a competent job. The entire visual team put in a yeoman's job, and the sound crew managed the best they could. However, it really is all draped around a very old story and a very old battle mechanic. They're both serviceable, but both companies that merged to form Square-Enix as well as countless other developers (including Capcom, Nippon Ichi, Nintendo, and Namco) have managed to do much more with the genre than this game even tries to accomplish. Both in terms of plot and in terms of battle engine, this could have been easily done in the 8-bit days. While certainly a workman's RPG, it's one best suited for those who want something like they were fifteen years ago. It might be the prettiest role-playing game you've seen, but that's not enough to lift it beyond the pack.
