The old temple lies in ruins: ol' Draque-y can't take any more
In itself, Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King does not seem to be a bad game at first sight. Any casual player would look in, see pretty things, and then walk away with a new Draque, thinking the game would be remarkably awesome. And at first glance, it is -- but going under the pretty details (which are good, don't get me wrong), DQVIII falls flat on its face.
The ambiance of the entire game is remarkable, and there are very few times that I can recall ever playing a game with such aesthetic value as DQVIII's (the exceptions being The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker and Tales of Symphonia). In fact, I can safely say that character designer Akira Toriyama has outdone himself on this one -- all characters seem to be complete duplicates of Toriyama's impeccable artwork, as opposed to sprites, and animation itself is very well done, completed both smoothly and crisply. One really gets pulled into a game when the environment is created so vividly that it practically jumps out of the television -- and with DQVIII, the graphics are truly deserving of praise.
However, a successful environment is never well done without a good music score. Master composer Koichi Sugiyama returns to DQVIII with an amazing orchestrated, ultimately emotional score, with music that stands out completely from the rest of the role-playing game crowd. The Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra, who plays all of DQVIII's tearjerking tracks, creates an effect so incredible that it seems impossible to create any type of music -- orchestrated or otherwise -- that surpasses this amazing, amazing score. Literally overwhelming tides of emotion swept over me when my ears first heard the majestic sound of the Overture March, and the Battle! Theme quickly put my heart into a nonstop superbeat mode. There is no doubt about it here -- the newest Dragon Quest has the most powerful score of them all, and sets the standard for all role-playing games to come. There's no going back after this.
Actually, that last statement might have come a bit too soon -- because there is still a lot more to come. For instance, there is one amazing thing that has come at last for the first time in literally ages -- and believe me, the Dragon Quest series has had it coming. For seven games -- not including spinoffs -- Dragon Quest has had one recurring battle concept. A monster appears, the player kills it, the player gains experience. But before Dragon Quest VIII, the player never could see the party itself -- something that was always irritating to me, but something that grew on me nevertheless. With the advent of the newest entry into the series comes an extremely remarkable thing (for Dragon Quest) in a sea of intriguing concepts -- the fact that one can see one's party members in combat. Gone is the concept of only seeing the effects of your skills on monsters! Gone is the incessant elimination of monsters without seeing how they were obliterated! Now, one can actually see the might of one's party members in full, glorious view, and, oh, how mighty this is.
But not everything is all well and good in the land of Dragon Quest. With the elimination of an old battle visualization comes a whopping blow to the original Draque system, and it comes like an eternally stinging slap in the face to Draque fans -- for alas, the Jobs of Dragon Quest are no more. The Skill system -- a concept consisting of having characters learn remarkably useless, not to mention redundant, skills, and skills that are the worst in the Draque batch, at that -- is awful, and a huge imperfection in such a promising game. Out of all the skills that the Dragon Quest series had, Square-Enix has axed at least half, with almost none of the remaining skills being any good at all, or even being nonrepetitive (for instance, four of the skills in Dragon Quest VIII have the same effect of "Majin-Giri", from Dragon Quest VI and VII). Some skills require one to wield a certain type of weapon, and others require one to not wield any at all (those skills, even when maxed out at the highest level, will not deal much damage at all, so they are completely useless). The concept that was the very cornerstone of the entire Dragon Quest series has finally been pummeled down by Square-Enix, with the interesting skills eliminated and remarkably lame ones thrown in for a similarly lame attempt at variety that only results in redundancy.
Unfortunately, this new Skill system is a lot more disorganized than just having skills eliminated from the game. Because Job Classes are gone, characters now take on "unique" skills, attaining each new skill with Skill Points that they receive when they level up. Now, by itself this doesn't sound bad at all. However, coupled with the fact that half of the remaining skills are completely useless -- as well as the fact that the rate of skill progression is excruciatingly slow -- the Skill System is horrible. In a nutshell, no matter what one does, one will be stuck using the exact same skills for the entire game, time and time again, because of one single reason: those skills are the only SEMI-useful ones in the entire game.
One would think that gameplay would be similarly hindered by this setup -- in which case one would be correct -- but there are a few times that the once-glorious nature of Dragon Quest shines through. Dungeons are cleverly created, with the traditional postgame dungeon actually contributing something to the plot of the game, and the nifty "Alchemy Jar" system (a system that allows you to -- in a way -- cook items into new items) is very cool. Dragon Quest Monsters returns in a sort of minigame that allows you to capture monsters and use them to fight in an arena, and a new bonus called the "Battle Record" that allows you to finally keep track of all the things that you've ever done on the game.
Overall, though, one wonders why, with all the effort Square-Enix put into with the aesthetic and aural value of Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King, Square-Enix would leave fans out in the cold with the destruction of the Job Class System, as well as the inclusion of only four playable party members. Square-Enix sacrificed substance for shine, and this is a sin that one can never forgive, even for such a revered series as Dragon Quest VIII. As a certain guideline of game developers says, designers should not make their game so different from others of its ilk so that it will become alien to gamers, and ultimately distasteful to fans of its genre.
With such a respected series as Dragon Quest VIII, this idea should not only be in designers' minds, but burnt and branded into their heads, as well as flowing in their very bloodstream. It is a shame how Square-Enix failed to realize that gamers have never wished for more than just a good game -- ulterior things like graphics have always come after the gameplay in a role-playing game. Aside from graphics and music, Dragon Quest VIII does not live up to the standard that its own series has set up -- and unfortunately for fans, that fact makes all the difference.