Dragon Quest 8 (Android and iOS) review

Dragon Quest 8: Journey of the Cursed King is the adaptation of a classic PlayStation 2 for Android and iOS . The legendary RPG game franchise, Dragon Quest, which has participation of Akira Toriyama, creator of Dragon Ball Z, came to smartphones and tablets in a surprising way. Identical with the version for video game consoles, Dragon Quest VIII is a graphical RPG with classic gameplay, whose main quality is to keep the player entertained for many hours.

Visual flawless and captivating
The game series Dragon Quest RPG is not as well known in the West as Final Fantasy, which is a hell of injustice. Interestingly, Dragon Quest is earlier than Final Fantasy, with its beginning in 1986, a year before Final Fantasy reach the shelves.

It was one of the Enix’s first projects, so many years before the merge with Squaresoft, giving the company that now owns these two franchises, Square-Enix. In Japan, Dragon Quest is acclaimed as Final Fantasy, which has already yielded several parallel works such as manga, anime, toys, and more.

Problems of trademark, the Dragon Quest series has never had the treatment it deserved in the West, accentuated by the fact not bet much on the visual as the "rival" Final Fantasy. Of the seven previous games Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King, only five reached the West and with the name changed to "Dragon Warrior."

But since 2005, the series was "reborn" in the West, adopting the original name and betting on three-dimensional graphics that resembled those animes, using the technique Cel shading. Leaving to studio Level-5, Dragon Quest VIII finally got the attention it deserved, getting up to conversion to Android and iOS. The game is virtually identical to the PS2, while maintaining graphical quality, but missing some visual effects, but notably, dubbing the dialogues.

In Dragon Quest VIII, the player controls a nameless hero. Your mission is to help a princess and her father, the king, who were turned into a horse and a monster, respectively. To break the spell, you must defeat the wizard who did it (supposedly). With the help of Yangus, the four set out on a journey through the vast game world.


With a plot full of candor, Dragon Quest VIII captivates the inner child in anyone. What further reinforces this impression is the character design that was made by the mangaka Akira Toriyama. Therefore, the game characters cannot be described as nothing less than fantastic. Charismatic and full of vibrant colors, the characters of the game draws the player. All this makes Dragon Quest VIII of the RPGs to Android and iOS more visibly rewarding.

RPG rounds, classic to the extreme
Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King account, despite the renewed look with an extremely nostalgic gameplay. This is an RPG with battles in turns and high difficulty curve, which require many hours to develop the characters. The game has no classes with the system, but has a system of skills, the distribution of points for the skills menu, enables acquire new powers and spells.

The beginning of the adventure is a bit tricky, because the game will require patience from the player who is not accustomed to failure. It’s also required special attention to the dialogues, because Dragon Quest VIII presents no kind of tip marker to guide the player. If you don’t pay attention, the player will be lost easily.

In the fighting, Dragon Quest VIII also features several elements that refer directly to the first games of the franchise. At first, you are not overpowering like in most RPGs today. You start with simple strokes that take only a few energy points of the enemy. Have enemies, can deliver blows with almost the same intensity, a fact that requires the player to buy many healing herbs and visit several times inns.

As a good RPG, your group starts small and grows as the story unfolds. Besides the four main characters: the hero, Yangus, Jessica and Angelo. Several secondary characters will be added momentarily, these generally important in the story, characters must be moved from one place to another.

Perhaps one of the unique advantages of the game Dragon Quest VIII is the system of day and night. Despite the appeal has already been used in other games, here are some missions and especially the city's shops only work during the day. You can also notice that night, the monsters are a bit stronger than during the day.

At one point in the game, the player will receive a pot of alchemy. This pot will combine items. Some combinations take a long time. To find tips on how to make combinations, the player must use several books and pamphlets hidden.

Dragon Quest VIII also has a hidden arena mode. In it, the player can use monsters defeated during the game, in fighting in an arena. However, this method is more dedicated to fun and has no direct impact on the course of the game.

Commands and style of polemical view
Some things weigh negatively against this classic. While it is indisputable quality on the PS2 in smartphones and tablets, many people did not like the way they view the game. The display model was adopted with the mobile phone or tablet upright.

On a smartphone, this type of gameplay to make sense, but on a tablet, for an RPG, is something quite tiring due to lengthy gaming sessions. Noticeably, the game takes advantage of the screen size of tablets and everything looks great too.

The controls are also quite deficient. Some menus are confusing and need extra attention at the beginning of the game. It takes a while to get used to the commands of Dragon Quest VIII, and we're not talking about shortly.

Long journey
Following main events only, Dragon Quest VIII will easily consume 50 hours of your life. To complete everything in the game, will need another 50. Far from being dull, this long adventure demonstrates that the game pays very well.

But first there may mislead players seeking a casual fun, this is because the battles are random and at first, you must cover all the walking. But around three hours of play, it is possible to acquire the "Zoom" magic of his hero, which will allow flying from one place to another, saving much time.

Conclusion
Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King is a game that can only be criticized by controls and display mode, never by its price. Classic in every element present on the screen, the game is proof that RPG games are excellent on smartphones and the new generation of devices is ready for more classic PlayStation 2.

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