Dragon Quest VIII

 

Have been playing Dragon Quest 8 since I finished Tales of the Abyss. At the moment I played around 144 hours and of those 40 hours are a second playthrough. Somehow I find myself enjoying this game more that I can spend over 10 hour playing a damn bingo game with a cheating little slime giving me wrong numbers all the time. Hate that slime. So I have wasted around 2 days straight just playing in the casino to get some special items and extra cash cause you are constantly in need of some extra money, leaving gambling as the only viable option.

But why do I find this game so captivating? Could be to the simplistic story which reminds me of fairy tales, meaning it's pretty cliched. You, the only survivor of a curse that has befallen the Kingdom of Trodain has been tasked by King Trode (who turned into a troll like creature) to find the jester Dhoulmagus who is responsible while protecting the king and his daughter Princess Medea (who was turned into a horse and pull around the wagon). On the road you meet the legendary cockney-speaking bandit Yangus, the femme fatal Jessica Albert and the womanizing, card-cheating templar Angelo, all with personal motives to hunt Dhoulmagus (well, except Yangus who just follows "the guv"). On the quest you encounter dragons (well, it is a Dragon Quest-game), sages, ghosts, bunny girls, slimes, a giant technicolor bird and more when you try to lift the curse and bring the culprit to justice... at first glance. True to Dragon Quest formula the main villain changes half way through and a larger plot of darkness unfolds in front of you.

Really, you can see the plot as early as the first town and this is gonna be spoilers. You are in hot pursuit of the criminal  when you gather information in a town where one person died, Master Rylus, Dhoulmagus teacher and apparently a descendent of a sage according to a priest. And there is 7 of them, who would have thought? Could they possibly sealed some evil away? Haven't I heard that before? Yeah, so the story is cliched, but with good characters it doesn't matter and here the game shines bright. I actually care for them and with the good voice-acting it really feels worth it helping them. The only one I had problems with was Angelo regarding his voice. He's to silent most of the time, but when he shows stronger emotions or just speaks a bit louder it feels perfect. I just have to mention that I love Yangus dialect. This in contrast to, say, Baiten Kaitos where the voice-acting more or less sucked. 

Back to silent, once again you have a silent protagonist and I don't mind that. Also notable how good this game is are the dialog where the character chosen names are mentioned and they just ignore it or use a stand in word like hero, he and so on making the dialogue run smoothly. Compare again to Baiten Kaitos where they just left a pause around your name completely throwing you out of the fantasy. Your character, a palace guard with close bonding to the princess since 10 years back. Sweet romance, but she is promised away to the prince of Argonia, Charmless... I mean Charmles. Yeah, you can see that's not gonna hold, but how could you, a mere guard ever take the hand of the beautiful princess? Well, I would have asked that question if I hadn't found out that the king of Argonia have an older brother who disappeared long ago searching for his true love and the first thing the king does when he sees me is saying he was reminded of someone. Come on, really? You going that way? All right, suits yourself.

The ending then? How did it go? It is a beautiful ending that would have brought tears in my eyes if it wasn't a small tiny bit that nagged me. The scene goes I'm escorting the princess to her wedding with Charmless who is ever so annoying, her disdain and sadness for this current event shows through and you can't even attend the wedding since you and the others aren't noble enough, forgetting that they consist of one descendent of a sage and a noble already before the game as well as saviors of the world (it doesn't count for anything does it?). So the other pushes you to do the right thing, crash the wedding with the princess happiness in mind. A peer pressure session later it's on. You storm the cathedral and prefer to challenge the templar guarding it when news come that the princess been kidnapped. Charmless accuse you so now it 's on. You escape and tries to reach the princess. Your friends have your back while you run down the stairs finding King Trode fighting of the guards with a twig (he would have been a bit more helpful if he had fought with us thinking about it than complain about it) making sure that Medea doesn't have to suffer. you arrive, she wants you to take her hand and you run of, eloping together. Damn, I'm weak for these love stories. 

And then the credits roll and it is afterwards the small problem arises. Back in Trodain you are finally home and the king apologizes for having forced Medea into this against her will and say he will respect her own choice, but it wouldn't be easy now that she rejected a prince. First thought is, who cares, she wants the handsome steadfast guard who have guarded her for over 10 years, took care of her and... what do you mean "who cares we are finally home. THE END"? WHAT, no statement like "who would want a prince when I have my personal guard, savior of the world, destroyer of Darkness"? What more do you ask for? No, apparently I have to be a prince, what kind of message is that? So now I have to play a second game since I screwed up my skill leveling system to be able to beat the bonus dungeon so I can get the happy ending. Oh well, beside from that little bit, it's a good game.