Dragon Quest VIII

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.

Does it still have the optional/compulsory free-roaming plains around the towns with nothing to do but fight piss-takingly lame baddies, through darkness or grass and on and on and on for no reward but some pittance of experience or gold? Is it all bad guys and levels and dungeons that are impossible to beat until you engage those endless tedious battles and up your levels? Is it all "you have encountered 3 GREEN SLIME. Do you attack, defend, run? You have defeated 3 GREEN SLIME. You gain 3 GOLD 3 EXP.) for hours and hours and hours?

DUEDS this is what I LOVE about Dragon Quest/Dragon Warrior!

Tho admittedly VII has much better shit in it.

uh...VIII

shoulda gone w/Arabic numbers, they're hard to misspell

OMG I am loving this game. Just up to the DARK RUINS and have died at the hands of DHOULEMAGUESYUS.

I broke this out because I broke my collarbone and need to not move around much and boy howdy did it work. Only problem is via roomy seeing me play it he's decided he wants to REplay it and is on the fucking thing like 10 hours a day and I am not getting any playtime and I have to constantly remind him that I'm the one with the broken fucking collarbone and dude please just be fair.

I love ALCHEMY and MAKING GNARLY SHIT. For the longest time also I was certain Trode's voice was the guy who was Hoggle in Labyrinth. Alas.

Also BOUNCY BOOBS! This is the best game.

I've been trying to spread out my skill points between a variety of things but now I'm wishing I had dropped them all into one weapon each.

I'd be playing it right now instead of digging up old threads about it on ILX if I had my way.

Okay I am going to go lay a guilt trip on a motherfucker again.

Have fun with alchemy but be careful with the Slime Crowns, there's only like 2 in the game.

Also BOUNCY BOOBS!

you're talking about slimes, right?

I'm not even about to alchemyize the one slimecrown I've got; in fact I'm completely resisting the urges to get massive alchemy & skill lists online because I am enjoying so much doing it myself.

ALSO: I had been making crazy cheeses in the alchemy pot for like 10 hours of gametime before I realized exactly what to DO with them...and NOW I am REALLY enjoying the CHEESE IN BATTLE OPTION.

Also where are the best monsters for my team? Right now my best 3 are the goldman guy, an orc guy and a chicken guy with a sword.

I'm playing this again from scratch. It's still a blast.

important discovery: axes better than clubs

Scythes better than both, though.

I like the boomerang.

is the scythe really the best weapon for yangus? even in the endgame?

what should I do with the templar this time around? last time I had him with the bow & arrow, I dunno what should be his steez.

For scythes its only 70 points to Stainless Steel and 80 points to Attack +25. I can't remember what the modifier is for the ss attack (+30% maybe) but that's still a really good increase for an attack with 0 cost. With an axe you only get an Attack +20 boost that requires 82 points + the special moves cost 2/3 sp. Also, you can get the second-best scythe relatively early via the Monster Arena.

I think the best weapon for Yangus in the end game is the flail you get from Minnie but that takes a v. long time to get and you can stop leveling scythes after 80 points anyway.

I level staves for Angelo but maybe not actually the best? Level whatever you want him for e.g. I use him mostly for healing/defence so Staff of Antimagic (which you can get pre-Trodian) + the MP +20 skill works for me until after Baccart at least. If you need him for attack then swords is best since you can get an A+ rapier v. quickly as well. Bows are a good compromise of the other two esp. if you're leveling knives w/Jessica and thus cannot get Liquid Metal Swords for both.

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!