Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King

Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King, known in Europe as Dragon Quest: The Journey of the Cursed King and in Japan as Dragon Quest VIII Sora to Umi to Daichi to Norowareshi Himegimi (ドラゴンクエストVIII 空と海と大地と呪われし姫君, Dragon Quest VIII Sora to Umi to Daichi to Norowareshi Himegimi? lit. "Dragon Quest VIII: The Sky, the Ocean, the Earth, and the Cursed Princess"), is a role-playing video game developed by Level-5 and published by Square Enix for the PlayStation 2 home video game console. It was first released in Japan, and was later released in North... (More) Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King, known in Europe as Dragon Quest: The Journey of the Cursed King and in Japan as Dragon Quest VIII Sora to Umi to Daichi to Norowareshi Himegimi (ドラゴンクエストVIII 空と海と大地と呪われし姫君, Dragon Quest VIII Sora to Umi to Daichi to Norowareshi Himegimi? lit. "Dragon Quest VIII: The Sky, the Ocean, the Earth, and the Cursed Princess"), is a role-playing video game developed by Level-5 and published by Square Enix for the PlayStation 2 home video game console. It was first released in Japan, and was later released in North America and Europe. It is the eighth installment of the popular Dragon Quest series (formerly known as the Dragon Warrior series). It is the first English version of a Dragon Quest game to drop the Dragon Warrior title.

Dragon Quest VIII uses cel-shading textures for the characters and scenery. Character design for the game was conducted by long time series artist Akira Toriyama, of Dragon Ball fame. Dragon Quest VIII's battles are not limited to a first person perspective like its predecessors, but shows all characters in the player's party. It has enjoyed much success since its release, particularly in Japan. It is a Square Enix Ultimate Hits and a Sony Greatest Hits title. A survey conducted in 2006 by the magazine Famitsu earned the game the #4 spot as the best video game of all time after Final Fantasy X, Final Fantasy VII and Dragon Quest III.

In Dragon Quest VIII, the Hero is controlled through a full three-dimensional environment, utilizing the left stick or d-pad on the Playstation controller. Using the right stick, the camera can be panned a full 360 degrees around the character or in a first-person perspective. The visual controls allow players to examine people and objects more closely than the top-down perspective of the game's predecessors. With a new fully-integrated world, players no longer walk into an icon on a world map to enter towns. They can guide the Hero across vast landscapes to reach full-size towns and buildings. The game even records the distance travelled on a battle statistics page.

The battle scenes have changed dramatically from earlier games in the series. In all of the earlier games, battles are shown from a first person perspective. In this game the battles are shown in a third person perspective with all of the members of the hero's party being shown on the screen along with the enemies to be fought. Both the hero's party and the enemies have different animations for their attacks, based on whether they are attacking with a weapon or spell or other special ability. (Less) Developer: Level-5 - Released: 2004, Nov 27 - Genre: RPG - Platform: PlayStation 2,Nintendo DS