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Dragon Quest VIII
Square Enix, PS2 (2006)
Putting every RPG cliché into a single mess
Do you ever get the feeling
that something is popular for
no reason? Be it Midsomer
Murders, X Factor or the Arctic
Monkeys, modern society leeches
onto the most vile trends in huge
numbers, leaving us to cry as we try
to convince the lamestream that the
new Battlestar Galactica is better
than Lost. In short, everything that
has ever existed in life as we know it is
complete balls.
Gaming’s trends are set in the same
way as everything else. Dragon Quest
is a huge deal in Japan, so when the
series hit our tender shores for the first
time, we expected a stunning display
in RPG mastery. What did we Brits
get? Something so clichéd, overrated
and pompous that it left us crying a
simultaneous mix of acid and blood.
Why, oh why was it so bad?
First of all, the characters were
British. At first I thought it was part
of some hilarious prank, but hearing
Yangus speak “cockney” was as
realistic and humourous as a clown
with a tortured soul. He sounded
like a thuggish idiot. Also, the main
character didn’t bother uttering a
word. Oh, really? That’s never been
seen in an RPG before, has it? Rubbish.
The battle system is pump. While
I paid full price for the game (on a
birthday, no less), I found myself
alienated by how plain it all looked.
Dragon Quest is an exercise in how
to ruin a person’s good time, with
plodding becoming part of the
experience for the entire game!
The environments were bland and
lifeless as well, an unexpected fate
from the previously great Level 5. In
an obvious attempt to appease its
uninteresting and addicted fanbase,
this is essentially the 1986 game in
the series with PS2 graphics. Good
versus evil, press this, go here;
you get the idea. Unless you have
absolutely no personality and see
eating grass as an important use of
time, Dragon Quest will horrify.
I could call the game "solid", but
I’m not in the mood for defending
Dragon Quest VIII. Having owned the
game for an entire year without any
satisfaction at all, I can pleasantly
call the experience a bland-astrousers
pile of steaming hot shit. Too
strong? No. If you, like me, have been
promised of a game that ‘rewards’
and is ‘fun’ only to have your hours
stolen by this heap of crap, nominate
its rubbish nature by sending a
postcard to hell.
Dragon Quest is a bad game just
for being a game that isn’t bad. It’s
so average and ordinary that it’ll just
depress you, without being awful in
any hilarious way. In a way, it’s a game
that ends up being as bad as those
titles that shock and appal, simply
because the hype around this series is
monumentally overstated. When you
consider that it sold 2 million copies on
release day in Japan, you’d think they
were buying into one of the greatest
things in the entire world. They’re not.
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