Dragon Quest, as you have undoubtedly read before, is a force of nature in Japan. It dominates the consciousness of gamers, and for the current and past generations, has produced its best-selling games. In contrast, Dragon Warrior, as the series was once known in the U.S., was more of a footnote than anything else. But after enlisting the talents of Level-5, developers of the Dark Cloud games, and sprucing up the U.S. release of Dragon Quest VIII over the Japanese release, it's time for the series to step into the limelight dominated by Final Fantasy. If the first several hours are any indication, Dragon Quest VIII is a game that can stand tall with the top titles in the RPG genre -- and do it on its own terms.

Those who played Dragon Warrior VII most likely found it charming, but it had a lot of shortcomings, many of which have been obliterated in the new title. The most noticeable improvement, of course, is the game's graphics -- Dragon Quest VIII is a lively, lovely, and bright game with a world rich in detail. Let's dwell on that word for a second: "world." Most current-generation RPGs have eschewed the exploratory field map the genre is well known for; taking a decidedly opposite approach, Dragon Quest VIII embraces and expands it. As soon as you set foot out of the first town, you can see a uniquely created world stretching away from you, with different locations to visit, various terrain to explore ... and this is not a simple level or self-contained map. The developers have actually elevated the concept up to the level of a virtual world to adventure in.


This adventurous mood is what sets Dragon Quest VIII apart. While many RPGs have fascinating stories and dazzling visuals, Dragon Quest returns to the simple stories of earlier times, with a fairy tale feel and a world populated with monsters, warriors, kings, princesses, evil sorcerers, and the like. That's not to say that the dialogue is simplistic or dull -- actually, it's generally amusing and well written thus far, with quality voices (new to the U.S. version -- the Japanese version had no voice acting) to complement the tale.

You don't learn much about the main character -- whom you name -- in the first few hours of the game; it seems that he's simply a young soldier who got caught up in the quest to return the cursed king of the game's title, and his daughter the princess, to their human forms. The story unravels very slowly in these early hours, and there's no way to reach a conclusion just yet on what's going on here.

This traditionalist tale is injected with personality not only from the dialogue, though, but also from the character designs, courtesy of Akira Toriyama. Fortunately, the posturing musclemen of Dragon Ball Z, his most famous work, are far away ... the cartoony but detailed art style of his character and enemy designs works beautifully in the context of an RPG, bringing that huge world of Dragon Quest VIII to life through its inhabitants.