|
In the end, the game ends. It's always a happy ending with these games. There are secret dungeons and sidequest to complete. If you're the kind of person to just follow the paths and do the bidding of every person you talk to, then it shouldn't take you too long to beat the game. Otherwise, you can expect to sink in for a while. It really is rewarding. I take it I'll be playing this game for a while. I was replying a quest of Final Fantasy VI the day before I got Dragon Quest VIII, and now I don't want to play Final Fantasy VI so much anymore.
For ten years, the Japanese role-playing game stagnated despite its fans' support. For ten years, heroes of role-playing games walked through forests which stained the lower halves of their bodies a dark green. Their heads bobbed above the forest. Random battles popped up, depicting our heroes above a forest background.
Now, Dragon Quest VIII lets us walk into the forests. Yuji Horii's ingenuity (which is so ingenious it's hardly ingenuity at all) has stepped in and shown the world "Hey -- those field maps in RPGs? They're a representation of something we couldn't do at the time." Now they can do what they could, before, only represent. The world has changed. Good things will come from this. They must.
It only saddens me that Dragon Quest VIII's price tag was set at 9,240 yen before its release. It then sold around three million copies. This was a given -- people wanted this game. I mentioned I had it, and girls told me, "OH, I WANT TO PLAY THAT." Eventually, I take it, they got a hold of the game, and played it. Many of them played it to the end. It's like reading a book. Comedians talked about Dragon Quest VIII on television. Office ladies talked about Dragon Quest VIII over coffee like it was the monthly electric bill. "Money is going to be tight in December." Literary magazines ran reviews of it. A record number of people called in sick for work on Monday, November 29th, 2004. Another record number called in sick on Monday, December 6th, 2004. Famitsu, Japan's Bible of game magazines, ran their review -- 10, 10, 10, 9 -- purposely late. They weren't going to change any minds. The game was a guaranteed hit, and a guaranteed great game.
Weeks later, throughout December, the opinions trickled into gaps in conversations between office workers who were busy talking about the New Year preparations. The game was good. The average person who remembered Dragon Quest from long ago felt at home, felt young again, and felt, each time they turned the game off and were told "thank you for playing," like they had accomplished something. Isn't that a nice way for a game to make a person feel?
**
It seems that people's favorite character is Yangus. Though big and dumb, he's almost impossibly hilarious and cool. Little girls like him. Old men like him.
Each character design is better than the last. Akira Toriyama has matured as an artist. I'm sure he can pull out more advancements for Dragon Quest IX, which will probably be for the Xbox 2, which will hopefully also tighten its grip on the world just a little bit, as well as add some more hidden dungeons. Not that there aren't enough already. It's just -- you know. More couldn't hurt.
In closing, music composer Koichi Sugiyama, sadly, has done better. If the recent Famitsu interview photos tell the truth, he's now over seventy years old. The music in Dragon Quest VIII is not bad; it is simply not amazing. The compositions are sharp and intelligent enough; it's in the execution that the music comes up short. This is perhaps because 2004's remake of Dragon Quest V, complete with a score performed by the NHK Symphony Orchestra, is a tough act for Dragon Quest VIII's midi to follow. That, and - - and, well, for as varied as the terrain and characters and dungeons were, I kind of wanted more of a dramatic score at times. I wanted something with more of a personal feel, and maybe a few violin solos. It took me more than half a playthrough to realize that I wanted Yasunori Mitsuda. I stand by this: get Mitsuda to do the music to Dragon Quest IX. Hand it over, Sugiyama. Humbly, and slowly.
And . . . that's all I have to say. I had things to say, so I said them. I really like this game. I played more than a hundred games, all told, last year, and I'm willing to conclude that this was the best one. You get to ride a Killer Panther, and you even can fly on a bird. And at some points, you control a rat. That's really cool. How many other RPGs let you control a rat?
Final Fantasy VI sure doesn't. I wrote a review of that, too. And Mother 2. You can view them here. There's an FFDog feature, too. It's a lot more reading, though hey -- what else have you got to do?
--tim rogers wishes he could summon a legion of dwarves, fully armed and filthy
Discuss this article.
|
