Dragon Quest VIII is by far my favorite game on the PS2 and I’m trill to see it coming back on mobile device. Hundred of hours of story, fight and grinding in a beautiful and massive world.

Dragon Quest is well-known to have defined the JRPG genre so don’t be surprise by finding everything’s know from your beloved JRPG. DQ VIII battles reflect that more than anything else, the encounters are invisible and random, and the fights are turn-based. However DQVIII added an useful new thing called the tension meter, which allows you to use a character’s turn to charge up for a powerful attack. Tension actually makes this one of the easier Dragon Quest games, but you still have to remember to use buffs and debuffs to your advantage if you want you don’t want bad surprise.

Battle & Skills system
Unlike some the proceeding and following DQ game, there isn’t a job class system in Dragon Quest 8. Instead, when you level up, you get points that you can put towards any of five different categories. When a certain number of points are put into each category, your character will learns a new skill or ability.

Skill trees should be planned for the whole party. Thin air is a great move but getting it for three character is redundant. Not getting a critical hit move on just Hero or just Yangus is perfectly fine but getting critical hit skills for neither of them can cause trouble in the postgame, especially if Angelo did not get charming look. A staves build in which Jessica can use caduceus has more value if Angelo has gone down swords which has no focus on Angelo’s healing role. Your party is a team, not a sum of individuals.

Check out this post from gamefaq for more info on skills.

There much more than that, the classic casino is there, there a battle arena, a hand full of side quest and the Alchemy system to bang your head on.

Dragon Quest VIII is a solid game that will take probably 70 hour & more to complete and probably 100hr + if you want to complete all the post game quest. Some might say the game is a slightly strange fit on mobile devices, specially with to lost of voice acting and the hardware limitation, but it’s definitely worth playing.

Review of the PS2 Game by Clan of the Gray Wolf

Game Play Video by Touch Arcade

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