Dragon Quest VIII

I wish I was actually getting a real christmas or some time off
seriously need to go update the resume and find something more cushy than this bullshit

A hipster points at Angelo.
Angelo is cursed!

I had a serious console rpg jones the other night and started playing Wild Arms 4 (picked up at super cheap Circuit City sale). It's decent but definitely no DQ8.

Also, when I finished the Mage Guild quest and became the ARCH MAGE OF TAMRIEL and no one seemed to notice, I got annoyed. Like, the guards around the guild were all "Oh, hey stranger, do you have business here?" Fuck you dude, I'm your boss.

http://db.gamefaqs.com/console/ps2/file/dragon_quest_viii_g_1.txt

I quite enjoyed the fact that casting Zoom in a dungeon resulted in hitting my head on the ceiling. That, and despite myself, all of Yangus' exclamations.

lol

somebody convince me I should not Buy this Now:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=170012658588&category=21188

The graphics have become my favorite graphics in any game ever. This game has me ready to finally admit that RPGs can be great in 3D. (emphasis on CAN BE). I'm consistently impressed with the number of frames in literally every animation (except for the boobs on Witches. I'm kinda disturbed by that actually. There is absolutely no good reason for a monster to have massive cleavage that jiggles around every time you damage them. FFS).
The music is somewhere in the top 10, but I'm not about to go buy the double CD set or anything.

If I were Square/Enix, I'd be looking at the engine on this thing, and drawing up some numbers on how much it would cost to update DQ3-DQ7 for this level of quality and localization. Because that, to me, would be free fucking money.

Last thought - having the Maps be relatively uninformative and undetailed is really nice, because you don't grind just to grind - you wind up doing all the grinding you need to do just because you're exploring big blank areas looking for goodies and people to talk to.

:(

there's some flash/anim demo out there of the chick running.

1. The oceans are rife with peril.
2. Alchemy is hard.
3. Great Sabrecats are not the easiest thing to steer.
4. The text explanation of why the Siren's Puff-Puff technique does not work on Jessica is the cherry on top of what is so far the best localization I have ever seen in a JRPG bar none.
5. If you have a PS2, but do not have this, you are wasting your time.

I'll get a new copy when it drops down to ten or fifteen bucks. - It's $19.99 on Amazon now.

Red Scarlet's FAQ goes into a lot more detail (and is the best overall FAQ for anything you need to know, dude played through the game over 10 times) - I've read part of this faq and it's terrible. this would be the reason I avoid walkthroughs; dude literally eschews fun completely and he tells you as much multiple times. It's like he's training you for a speed run. Ugh.

I still haven't got around to beating the Ultimate Dragon. I beat all the other ones and got all the prizes (the dragovian armor + helmet makes Hero look pretty cool, it's like a samurai outfit), but the only point to beating him is if you're going for 100% monsters and items, which I'm not even close to yet. There are other games, and that shit is tedious.

Nine hours?!?!? You ain't even got properly puff-puffed at nine hours.

1. axes instead of clubs
2. better distribution of skill points instead of just racing to 100 in a couple of them to see what happens
3. spears instead of swords
4. whips instead of staves
5. sabers instead of bows
6. more cheese
7. monster arena, as noted
8. more fastidious/obsessive-compulsive use of "nose for treasure"
9. actually follow through with minnie and dodgy dave

Finally playing this. Great soundtrack. Turns out the music composer is supposedly some rightwing japanese schmuck. I doodled blue slimes while having to sit thru cpr class today.

I want a slime controller. It's still only like $20 + shipping.

I figure slimes are cute to make up for their lack of strength. They are cute enough that adventurers like me don't want to kill them. It's an evolutionary advantage.

I have, I think, an hour left on this game, from like a year ago, and I've never finished it. (Last I battled was some weird vadge/flame boss?)

Should I go finish this up? Somehow I'm scared to!

yeah you have to finish it so you can start over again and give everybody different skills

or did you get pretty much everything on the first play-through? (my three golems, jessica's best gear, the underpants dance, etc)

dude wtf

huh?

started playing DQIV today, first DQ I've played

surprised by the scots accents in the first area : )

abbott did you fire it back up and end this thing or what, is what I was dude wtf abt

No, but I think about doing that every couple of hours.

I thought you were "dude wtf" about the username switching from El Tomboto to TOMBOT. I thought you had been hacked by psychotic teens.

Abbott, you have to beat it. If you don't, you'll regret it the rest of your life.

In 2005 I got to the very end of Xenogears, but I didn't finish. I forget what happened. There was some sort of bullshit problem where I had saved but I was near death with no possibility of recovery, or I was missing some item, or something. Either way, it stung. And to this day, when I hear the word Xenogears - and trust me, it's every day, every day - I cringe. Now go beat Dragon Quest VIII, NOW!

i feel bad about signing you up for that xenogears e-bulletin now

Well, I did go and beat the game last night. I had, seriously, just the one final boss battle to go (with hideous morbidly obese purple demon Rhapthorne). And I realize now why I let it languish so long – I didn't want it to end. I didn't want to say goodbye to that good friend.

I'm glad I did it, though.

Now you can finally move on with the rest of your life. Though, you don't have to say goodbye to that good friend. You could say hello to that good friend in a new way, a la Tom, by beating it in a more complete and exhaustive manner.

so this came out a week or two ago on iphone/ipad, and i'm finally going to play it (ipad style)! it's supposed to be a decent port (http://toucharcade.com/2014/05/29/dragon-quest-viii-review/).

if anyone else wants to join me on this epic quest it would be cool! please note that i am really slow and will not be beating this in 2 weeks or anything close to it.

I'm still waiting for this to be ported to a DS system or to HD more or less

from that review:

As for the iOS port, it's not quite as good as you might hope. Since this is just a translated version of the Japanese release, the orchestrated music and voice acting found only in the western PS2 release are out. The orchestrated music, I can live without, since it was recorded at low quality and bloated the game's loading times, but losing the voice acting hurts. Reading Yangus say "Cor Blimey!" just isn't the same as hearing it, and some of the jokes have a lot less punch in text, like the gags around Prince Charmles' name. Tailored for the train-faring Japanese population the game is played in portrait mode, which is going to seem like an odd choice for some people. I actually like being able to play one-handed, but there's no doubt the lack of horizontal space cuts down on the feeling of grandness in some of the game's environments. The controls themselves take a little getting used to, but after an adjustment period, I didn't have any problems with them. It's certainly a unique interface, but it ends up working out fine.

don't really care about the music because i'm usually playing ipad games on silent mode while my gf sleeps, and same with the voice acting. and actually i wouldn't care about the voice acting even if i had the sound on. i almost always hate voice acting in video games. bah humbug.

fuck this ipad shit hook yr PS2 up already and play it legit

i'm lazy man, so lazy

i never bought a ps2

i had a ps1 but haven't had a sony device since

i'm apparently about 10 hours in, although i don't trust the game clock. i don't think i've spent ten HOURS already (have i? oh god). i think i'm about to get angelo to join the party, except i'm embarrassingly having trouble finding the secret underground entrance to the sanctuary or whatever. they gave me clear instructions - head toward Simpleton but stay close to the river until you get to the ruins - but somehow, even though i see the little dot on the map where the ruins are, it's blocked off by the landscape and every 8 seconds i have to deal with a random encounter. maybe i should cast padfoot so i have some more time to explore. on the other hand i'm getting some much needed leveling up in while i wander. i fear that i spent too much time in simpleton village at the tavern and now i too am a true Simpleton.

my hero is named DIRKBURT.

the game itself is a lot of fun, and i like the characters. i feel like i probably don't exploit the tension system enough, and i probably rely on 'fight wisely' tactic way too much. part of that has to do with the menu system, and i'm not sure if it's in the original or if it's an iPad modification. but basically, any deviation from the fight wisely tactic results in several button presses. and it's especially cumbersome when switching weapons in the middle of a battle (which is often necessary to use certain abilities):

- tap DIRKBURT's options pane
- tap "items"
- tap the new weapon to select it
- tap the new weapon to equip it
- tap to close out of the options pane

it's not really a huge deal in isolation, it's that you have to do it so often. it would have been really cool to add a quick weapons switch button to streamline the process.

i especially enjoy how every village has a burly S&M guy wearing a horned mask.

Tailored for the train-faring Japanese population the game is played in portrait mode, which is going to seem like an odd choice for some people. I actually like being able to play one-handed, but there's no doubt the lack of horizontal space cuts down on the feeling of grandness in some of the game's environments.

bummer. this game is so pleasant and mainly because of the big, colorful environments.

I know the olympics are bad but pretty awesome to see all the teams march out to Dragon Quest music lol

I hope someone puts up a video of this

stopped watching but apparently they played some Sonic too!