Dragon Quest VIII was one of the big PlayStation 2 RPGs, and it introduced droves of gamers outside of Japan to the franchise. It was a huge hit because of its traditional gameplay and polished graphical engine. With mobile platforms taking over the Japanese market the developer, Square-Enix, jumped in almost immediately with ports of their classic games. Turn based RPGs are perfect for playing on your cell phone, and they’re constantly releasing new ones and I don’t hesitate to jump right in. So what happens when they leap several generations forward, and release Dragon Quest VIII on the app store? It’s an impressive feat for sure, but unfortunately the results aren’t pretty. This is the full game, but it had to be downgraded in many ways.
As per franchise tradition you play as a silent protagonist whom you name. The game begins as the hero, accompanied by a buffoon named Yangus as well as a goblin looking king and his horse daughter. The latter two weren’t always deformed, and had their shapes changed at the hands of an archfiend named Dhoulmagus. The hero is a former subject of this king, and the four are on a quest to defeat the jester-looking archfiend and lift the curse. Along the way two additional characters join your cause, and outside of a third temporary guest (that’s basically useless) there are no others. By series standards this is very disappointing; the last time there were so few of characters was Dragon Quest II on the NES. There’s also no job system here which is a little perplexing. Characters instead gain skill points which you can allocate in a number of different ways. Generally these are used to teach battle skills, but most of these are utterly useless, and many others are there just for novelty sake. Jessica’s moves, in particular, are hilarious, unusual, and risque, but they don’t serve a big role. The skill system is simply too simplistic by modern, and even most retro standards. In this regard Dragon Quest VIII is a step back for the franchise.
The battle system is very traditional fare, but that’s a good thing. You view your enemies head on with your characters’ statistics are shown at the top of the screen. These sequences are divided up into turns where you select commands such as attack, abilities, spells, defend, and items. It’s pretty self explanatory, but the game does throw a twist into the mix. This comes into the form of the ‘psyche up’ which wastes a turn, but your character gains more attack power for the next one. You can stack this up several levels which allows you to unleash a significantly harder strike when you so choose. Some enemies, the later bosses in particular, can undo your psyche level as well as any temporary stat boosts so you will need to be strategic about when and where to use this. The game has a big emphasis on boosting your characters in battle, and if you make smart use of this there’s actually no need to grind levels despite popular opinion. The game is hard, but you can get by with smart tactics. The less strategically inclined can opt simply to fight tons of battles, but that can get old fast, and money is always an issue because equipment is so expensive.
One thing that makes this game spectacular is exploration and customization. The game is fully 3D and the environments are absolutely huge. Unlike most RPGs of its time this game has a fully featured world map. Generally this is just used as a means to get from one town or dungeon to the next, but it is epic in scope and has its fair share of secrets. It’s also beautiful which makes exploration completely painless when you have such nice scenery to look at. While I’ve mentioned earlier that the game is limited DQ8 does make up for this a bit with an alchemy system. Early in the story you gain the ability to fuse items when King Trode gives the hero an alchemy pot. Throughout the adventure you will find recipes and miscellaneous items that serve seemingly no purpose in the main game. Using these recipes you can throw items into the pot, and after a certain amount of time has passed they are combined into something that’s usually rare or useful. This is the only means by which you can acquire the most powerful weapons and armors in the game, and experimenting with this pays off a great deal. Alchemy keeps things interesting.
Dragon Quest VIII features excellent dungeon designs, a fun battle system, and a charming story. So why the low rating? This mobile port suffers some serious issues in the transition to phones. The first, and most noticeable difference is the fact that the game doesn’t play in widescreen. You can only play holding your device vertically in portrait mode, and because of this the viewing area feels rather restricted. This was obviously a means by which to allow gamers to play one handed, and this works about as well as can be expected, but this is a title that demands widescreen play. Because of the screen orientation the controls also suffer. You’re given a virtual joystick and can change its orientation to either the middle, left or right side, but it’s small and difficult to manage. I found myself constantly running into walls. Camera control is also difficult because it was tailored for one handed play. You have to slide your finger off of the joystick to the two arrows on the side, and it’s just awkward. Battle scenes fare a little better because the game, by default, allows autoplay. It’s a little clunky to input commands, but this becomes easy to manage as you get used to it. The loading times are also noticeably worse, and these cause the game to move at a snails pace when you’re entering buildings and new areas. For a game that clocks in at well over seventy hours this can be a pain, but by all means it’s still playable, but these issues are annoying.
The game looked absolutely amazing on the PlayStation 2, but unfortunately graphics are another area that has seen some downgrades. In screenshots it looks amazing with its pleasant and colorful cel-shaded style and vast draw distances. Even Akira Toriyama’s art style isn’t as intrusive as it usually is, and I rather liked the character designs here. Unfortunately it wasn’t designed with scaled hardware in mind, and the game struggles. The framerate tops out at about twenty frames per second which is quite a contrast to the original release. The entire game stutters because of this, and it ruined the presentation for me. Dragon Quest VIII does however benefit from an increased resolution and all of the edges look very sharp and I was noticing details I never had before. Unfortunately many of the cut-scenes are pre-rendered from the source material, and these look very blurry. The contrast between these and the main game is a little startling to be honest. Here’s to hoping Square-Enix eventually releases some patches for this title.
Dragon Quest VIII on the PS2 featured an absolutely incredible fully orchestrated soundtrack, and most of the story scenes were totally voiced. This was something extra Square-Enix did for the North American release, and it was greatly appreciated. Unfortunately this port is based more on the Japanese version of the game, and therefore the aforementioned additions aren’t in place here. Instead the music in this port sounds more like simple midi compositions. They are still enjoyable and sound really good, but it’s a stark contrast from the full orchestra in the original title. I really enjoy all of the town themes, the world map music, as well as the battle compositions. They just aren’t as memorable as they were before. In addition all of the voice work has been cut. A lot of the spirit and character is gone now, and the more I played the more I missed Yangus ‘cor blimey!’ and all of the crazy accents that were in the original versions. The realistic sound effects have also been removed and replaced with the classic bleeps and blips to signify an attack or spell, but I prefer it this way to be honest. The audio is still good, but the downgrade is noticeable.
So is it worth it? The game runs a premium price on both the app store and google play store at just under $20. I was really excited to have a portable version of Dragon Quest VIII because it just seems so unlikely, and I downloaded it almost entirely for novelty purposes. The original release runs less than that nowadays, and so you’re only going to want this version if you don’t have a working PS2, and if you haven’t played it before. Also, there are people out there who are huge fans of this franchise, and having a portable version, albeit a downgrade, is still a really cool prospect. Here’s to hoping Square-Enix re-release the game on the 3DS or Vita, but for now this is the only way to play it on the go. It’s a real shame, but maybe a few patches will fix the issues.
