On the negative side, the dungeons are often rather simple, and are missing the “maze-like” feeling of the previous games.
Also, for the first time since Dragon Quest V, the day/night cycle has returned. Later in the game, you can even ride a Sabrecat/Killer Panther (the same kind as in Dragon Quest V) and completely tear through the landscape, plus there’s the usual ship to explore the seas, as well as a bird to take to the skies. Perhaps having your entire party follow you would’ve put too much of a strain on the system, or made the view too cluttered. One of the downsides to this is that only the main character is visible on the map – technically you’re traveling with caravan, and you can hear the horse clopping as you walk around the overworld, but it only pops up in cutscenes. It’s structured well enough, so that you can follow the path and reach your destination, or spend hours exploring the back roads and hidden nooks for treasures. The map isn’t quite as large as some open-ended Western RPGs at the time, like, say, Oblivion, but it’s still pretty gigantic. It’s a huge, sprawling field of green, one of the most amazing seen in any Japanese RPG at the time, where you can see almost anything in the distance. One of Dragon Quest VIII‘s most impressive feats is making the overworld feel grandiose again. The later DQ games tried to fix this with the multiple worlds seen in DQVI and DQVII but that just seemed to bloat things out. Not that there was anything inherently bad about it, but the availability of maps and the generally faster paced of the later games meant the worlds didn’t really feel as epic as before. Of course, as RPGs became more complex, the worlds became larger and larger, but much of the adventure felt like it was missing something.
When you first stepped outside of the castle and ventured off to fight the DragonLord, it would take many hours to slowly map your way over to the other side of the map.
Back in the early days of Dragon Quest, the game world seemed absolutely sprawling compared to other games released circa 1987. It also solves an issue that JRPGs have had for awhile. For the first time, the world of Dragon Quest wasn’t simply just a series of box-like characters moving through tile-based corridors, but instead a fully developed, leaving, breathing world. The camera has moved from an overhead view to a behind-the-back perspective, further immersing you in the game’s world. Even though it was published in 2004, it looks magnificent, years later. The whole game is like being in full control of one of the best looking anime ever created, with amazing cel-shaded character models that bring out the best in Toriyama artwork, and gorgeous castles that are stunning works of polygonal architecture. Dragon Quest VIII isn’t the first 3D game in the series – technically that honor goes to the PlayStation 2 remake of the fifth entry – but it makes that port looks cheap by comparison.
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