I just got this morning Dragon Quest 8 on the PSX2 which is finally out in europe. I got the english version from play.com because I hate the translations here (and my brother’s PSX2 isn’t modded) but I noticed the european version has already all the different languages bundled in.

I simply LOVE this game. At first the graphic was a turn off (too ‘clean’), then I started to slowly grow fond of it and now I’m in love with just EVERYTHING. The characters, the monsters, the environments, the battles, the animations, the musics. This is a true masterpiece. Pure old-school RPG BLISS! One rare example where the new technological tidbits don’t get in the way of the long tradition of the series.

The night/day cycles are impressive, I find myself always instinctively thinking about grabbing a screenshot of the places and the character (I even tried for a few minutes to try to get a panty shot at the bunny girl in the pub with no luck, hm…). This is also the first game where you hoard healing herbs that you’ll HAVE TO use. Before reaching the first big mob at the end of the waterfall cave I died two times, maybe this is a game where the fights aren’t so trivial.

It is filled with cutesy stuff. At the beginning I couldn’t conceive to attack mobs so absolutely cute. My god, this game has the best mobs EVER. It’s something that must be seen. The whole things is a design masterpiece. It’s all extremely exemplified to the essential but with a polish and care that are incomparable. The modernity isn’t represented by bloated features and appearance but is instead more polish and detail. It’s hard to nail down exactly but often game design (here I consider game design the whole thing, mechanics, story, characters, look atc…) becomes just more, more and more. Here instead it’s all about an handful of elements, but all “right”. It’s enlightening. A gaming epiphany.

I so love the optimistic, lighthearted mood and the story remains archetypical but still involving and with fun and humorous twists thanks to the characters and that special feel that only Enix games have. A game with no age.

I just played for a few hours. A RPG classic. They are so rare nowadays.

If I had to review it, it would score a “perfect”.

You can tell that crystal ball’s a real’ un. Glows better, like. Bet we’ll get a good fortune outta this one, eh?