Dragon Warrior VIII Details Revealed

Thanks to GamePro for their article discussing new details about Square Enix's long-awaited Dragon Quest VIII, as revealed in a recent issue of Japanese magazine Shonen Jump. According to the article, this latest in the massively selling Dragon Quest/Dragon Warrior series, due for Japanese PS2 in 2004, will have battles "..rendered in full 3D, a marked departure from the static fight screens in the last seven games. Despite this new technology, though, the Dragon Quest-iness of the game will remain untouched - early screenshots show the hero picking up barrels and peering into random dressers for items." Although new in-game shots aren't yet online, the single previously released screenshot is very reminiscent of external developer Level 5's other signature titles such as Dark Cloud 2 and the forthcoming Xbox MMORPG, True Fantasy Live Online.

Re:Metal Slime is Dodging!

[Alaric42]

In my experience, the people who disliked DQ7 (except for the complete graphics whores), just didn't get the game while they were playing through it. The way the game's structured, you have to actively put together the storyline--It's not a bunch of fractured mini-stories, but you don't really figure out a lot of the islands' interconnections until late in the game. The people I've pointed that out to have mostly gone and replayed the game and gotten a lot more enjoyment out of it.

There's also the second issue of DQ being gone from North American shores for so long. Not only did this make it difficult from a marketing standpoint, especially given the meager budget EoA was given, but people seemed to be approaching the game like they would the original Dragon Quest: mindless leveling. The game doesn't require it--it's not that hard to beat the game with the hero only halfway through his first intermediate class--but if you think it does, and spend a ton of time doing that, you'll tend to forget those little interconnections mentioned above, and get tired of the game, which is pretty long by itself even if you don't spend an extra 20 hours walking in circles (or using Whistle if you were smart enough to be a Shepherd. Good ol' Stampede).

Dragon Quest VIII Pictures

[twootwoot]

Hi, I maintain a Dragon Quest-related news website. Yes, this is a plug. But anyways here are some of DQVIII pictures. Gamefront's scanned one of the images. [dqshrine.com] Also the Japanese website, Quiter has posted several images [biglobe.ne.jp].