Dragon Quest VIII

Game Info:

Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King (ドラゴンクエストVIII 空と海と大地と呪われし姫君, Doragon Kuesuto Eito Sora to Umi to Daichi to Norowareshi Himegimi?, lit. "Dragon Quest VIII: The Sky, the Ocean, the Earth, and the Cursed Princess") is the eighth installment of the popular Dragon Quest/Warrior series of role playing games from Square Enix (formerly Enix). It was developed by Level-5, who also worked on the Dark Cloud series for the PlayStation 2. Yuji Horii oversaw the project, while Akira Toriyama designed the monsters and characters, Akihiro Hino directed the project and Koichi Sugiyama resumed his role as composer.

Dragon Quest VIII sports graphics similar to those of Dark Chronicle (Dark Cloud 2 in North America) in that it has cel-shaded textures for the characters and scenery. Dragon Quest VIII's battles are not limited to a first person perspective like its predecessors. Instead, it contains some third person views as in the recent 3D Final Fantasy games but retains several key parts of the other Dragon Quest games. The first person views for attack planning and the classic victory riff are brought back from previous games. However, certain battle sound effects (sounds that denote character or enemy attacks, a familiar magic casting sound, etc.) were left out of the North American version for unknown reasons.

Dragon Quest VIII has enjoyed much success since its release, particularly in Japan. A survey conducted in 2006 by the magazine Famitsu earned the game the #4 spot as the best video game of all time after Final Fantasy X, Final Fantasy VII and Dragon Quest III.

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