Nintendo and Square Enix has begun ramping up its efforts to make the Dragon Quest series a success in North America. Ports of past games have started to come to the Nintendo 3DS with Dragon Quest VII releasing last year and Dragon Quest VIII only months later.
The problems that plagued Fragments of a Forgotten Past are gone from Journey of the Cursed King, making this the first must-own 3DS game of 2017.
I’ve detailed my disdain for how slow the beginning of Dragon Quest VII was when I reviewed it. In short, I almost dropped the game altogether because it took me hours to actually start the story. I wasn’t so gungho to dive into Journey of the Cursed King, but I’m glad to say that this not a problem this time around.
Players are thrust into this new world as they meet the main character and his band of misfits. We are introduced to the main conflict of the story right off the bat and dropped into a mystery that serves as the crux to the story.
I won’t get into too many spoilers, but it’s a compelling mystery that will have your party looking for someone who has brought chaos to the land. While the story is great, the characters in Dragon Quest VIII really makes this game stand out. Each one has their own charm, from the fiery Jessica to the odd King Trode to our simpleton sidekick, Yangus. Every person you meet along your journey adds another layer to the story and makes for some comical moments. You’ll really take to these characters and you’ll be happy to have them travelling with you.
As for the controls and battle system of Journey of the Cursed King , they are similar to the last installment. You get into battles with monsters as you travel and fight them in turn-based combat. The battle system is not quite as simple as I just stated, but that’s pretty much the gist of it.
What does change from the previous installment is the implementation of Skill Points. Every time a party member levels up, they receive a certain number of Skill Points that players can allocate however they want. You can make your character a master in one weapon or be well-rounded with multiple weapons.
This also gives Dragon Quest VIII more of an RPG feel than the last game. Gain enough Skill Points in a certain area and you’ll be able to perform new attacks and gain new abilities that can make travelling and traversing dungeons much easier.
Dragon Quest VIII is actually difficult. Not in the impossible sense, but in a way where you’ll spend hours grinding up your party members’ levels just to be confident enough to beat a boss. So prepare yourself for some quality time defeating wild monsters outside of the next dungeon.
Traveling in Dragon Quest VIII is still very tedious. You walk through plains and hillsides to get to your destination while avoiding and battling monsters along the way. Thankfully, the distance between destinations aren’t that far compared to the last game and you’re not going back and forth between two or three locations like in Dragon Quest VII.
Another problem I had with Fragments of the Forgotten Past were the camera angles. They were too low making every character look childlike (yes, the main characters are children), even the adults. The moving camera would sometimes make it impossible to look around or disorient you enough to make you go the wrong way.
The camera in Journey of the Cursed King is a bit better, backing off the character to make characters actually look like adults. That gives more headway for the camera to move around as you climb spiral staircases and go deeper into caves. I still run into a problem here and there, where the camera zooms in too much and I don’t know where I’m going, but it’s much more bearable in this game.
Overall, Dragon Quest VIII takes everything great about the series -- the battling, design and world -- and improves on it with a compelling story and even more compelling characters. The writing is sharp and funny and the Skill Points system gives this title more of an RPG feel than last year’s game.
The game is lengthy and you’ll be spending a lot of time grinding up your party members’ levels before the next boss, because the difficulty scales up pretty high as you continue your adventure.
Gamers who played the original version will be glad to pick this back up as Nintendo has said there are more quests, dungeons, bosses and even a new possible ending to try out. Nintendo 3DS owners need to play this game, they won’t regret it.
