COR BLIMEY what a game! This is an awesome RPG loaded with personality and charm with an old-school flavour.
Graphically DQVIII is quite beautiful to look at with a very well designed landscape to explore. You'll see trees and foilage swaying in the breeze and a nicely done change from day to night then back to day again. Little touches like animals placed throughout the landscape add nicely to the world that you explore. Characters and enemies while being cartoony have a very good artwork to them and are animated exceptionally well, especially the enemies in battle.
The sound is also very well done. Musical scores go from being very melodic to quick and catchy. Some of the music made me think that this would be something of a Walt Disney type of score, mostly when you are walking around the landscape. There are some good sound effects thrown in as well such as the faint sound of animals in the background to the usual battle effects.
There are so many fun sidequest or things to do just in general such as gambling or using your alchemy pot to create numerous new items, weapons, armour, and accessories that you can spend countless hours just kind of playing around. The difficulty is spot-on in that you won't be yawning as your just tapping on the button as you make your way to your next objective. The story is very well written and moves along perfectly with some really funny moments thrown in there.
This is definately among some of the really great RPGs that have been released throughout the years and is certainly one of the better RPGs this generation. If your into role-playing games in general do yourself a favour and pick this one up especially if you enjoy the old-school turn-based RPGs.