good game but VERY annoying game at times...
having said that the game overall was good. DQ7 was kind of a dissapointment so I was happy that part 8 was differant. the story and characters was an upgrade from the other games with the voice acting and all the side quests you can do.
the music was fantastic. i would have given the music a higher score if there were more tracks. had some of the best musical scores ive heard in any game.
gameplay is typical old school RPG only real differance is you dont walk on the world map but instead you walk around 3D areas from place to place. this could be annoying because some times you dont know where you have to go or how far it is and with all the random battles it could become pretty annoying.
diffaculty - this game is hard. i dont really consider levling up a buntch as a stratagy to make a game easier. even if you did that it would take a loooong time get up at a high level. you have to use you abilities and spells to the fullest if you want to finish this game.
graphics - great character models and animations. only thing i have bad to say about the graphics is that some of the landscape looks pretty drab and generic. most of it looks pretty good though.
all in all this is solid game and what games should be. you should get your moneys worth for a game and DQ8 is definitely worth the purchase..