Old school meets new school to give us one of best console RPG ever made!
Dragon Warrior 8 retains this but offers an incredible Cell-shaded game engine that makes everything come to life. The world map is HUGE and beautiful. All the characters looks and sounds great. You only get 4 allies in the game but they have so much personality that you won't even mind.
The combat , like all other DW game, is turn-based. The enemies all look great and there's a huge amount of diversity. Their attacks and such are all animated... this ain't the static images of DW on the NES!!
The quest is long (It took me 60hrs) and offers a lot of surprises, the story ranks as one of the best. You will get attached to these characters! As for the power leveling that is required in past DW.. you will somewhat need to do that in this one, but it's not as tedious. If you stray to far of where you are suppose to be... you'll get your butt handed over to you in no time. Compared to other console RPG, this one is actually challenging... which is nice! The game offers lots of great stuff you can do on the side. You can use an alchemy pot to try and merge two (or even three) items and make another one more powerful. You can collect certain monsters on the world map and pit them against other teams in a Battle Arena. You can gamble for money and loot and the game's 2 casinos. You can search the world for tokens that a certain princess collects and she'll give you great loot. The game keeps track of all sorts of stats... how many times you fought, how many monsters you killed and how many times you ran for example. It also keeps track of every enemies you encounter which is awesome since it makes you realize how many of them there is.
Dragon Warrior 8 is without a doubt, one of the best games i have played in my life. If you love RPGs you will fall in love with this one! I've seen used copies of this game going for 20$ at the local video game store.... THAT'S A STEAL!!!