A charming JRPG that blends traditional JRPG elements with a beautiful,colorful 3D world.
In DQ8,the gameplay has a traditional JRPG feel but is in a 3D world.The battle system is turn based,there's no summoning or convuluted battle systems.There's a basic attack,defend,skills,spells and your characters can learn new skills(for different weapons)and new spells.
You'll go from village to village and through the forest,countryside,caves,dungeons,rocky canyons and travel to different continents.There's huge areas to travel through and long dungeons to get through and you can travel through the big open world in multiple
directions.The world is in 3D and when you travel through the forest you'll be surrounded by trees and have to walk around them or you might find yourself travelling through big,open areas trying to find the town you're looking for,so DQ8 doesn't have the stereotypical linear JRPG world.There's proper canyons and areas where there's hills and some of the buildings and castles have many rooms that you can explore.
The story is about a kingdom who's people have been turned into stone by a grey skinned villain named Dhoulmagus.Your character was a guard for this kingdom,but for some reason,your character(who you name),wasn't affected by this spell,and he tries to find a way to undo the spell,and he meets other characters who join him on his journey,including Yangus who is a chubby,former bandit with an East London(I think it is)accent,Jessica who is a voluptuous,beautiful but bad tempered sorceress who's brother was murdered by Dhoulmagus,Angelo,who was a Templar,but was banished because he cannot obey the strict moral codes because of his love for women and gambling and he talks and acts as if he thinks he's a ladies man,which makes him fight with Jessica often and it's funny.
Also,your party will be accompanied by King Trode and Princess Medea(the king and princess of the kingdom who were turned into stone),but instead of being turned into stone,the king was turned into a green skinned toad looking creature and the princess was turned into a horse,and King Trode can still talk and he talks in a charming and humorous way and your party will be trying to track down Dholmangus to make him pay for what he did,and so they can try to find a way to undo the spells and to stop him doing these horrible acts to other people.
There will be some plot twists in the story too just like any other JRPG.
The difficulty is a bit tougher than many other RPGs,because the enemies level up very quickly when you travel to different areas.Also,the dungeons are quite long,and it's easy to get lost in them,and you'll be constantly attacked by random enemies,and you'll need to walk long distances through the world,while being constantly attacked by random enemies.So,you have a lot of levelling up to do,or you can take your chances and try to flee often.In a way,this type of gameplay makes your journey feel more realistic,because just like in real life,you can never predict when you will or won't be attacked by enemies and it gives the game a bit of a survival feel to it,because once your characters exhaust their MP,it makes battles tougher without the powerful spells and it means no more healing spells(sure you can stock up on healing potions if you fight a lot of battles and collect a lot of gold)but when you grind your way through the world,it feels more rewarding,as if you've successfully travelled through dangerous places.Later in the game,the zoom skill will make it much easier and safer to travel through the world,but until you develop that skill,and before you find places in order to be able to use the zoom skill,you can find your characters low on HP,MP,healing potions and will be trying to make it to the safety of the nearest town,and it makes it feel like a true adventure.
The game also has a proper day/night system,and enemies are stronger and have a mechanized appearance at night,and it's beautiful seeing the sunset in the background,and different people work at stores/places at different times of the day and and prices of items/staying at an inn overnight differ at different types(just like how prices change sometimes in real life).
Your party members have specialist and secondry occupations in and out of battle.For example,Yangus can do the most powerful physical attacks but his magic isn't that good.Jessica has the most powerful spells but weaker physical attacks,but she can hit multiple enemies at once with her first weapon.Angelo is a decent secondry healer(after Jessica),and your character has the useful zoom ability and is a strong physical attacker.
Each character can use different types of weapons,and some weapons are weaker but can hit multiple opponents,some weapons are stronger,but can hit just one opponent.Some weapons have the potential to do a lot of damage,but are inconsistant with how much damage they inflict,and some weapons do a lot of damage but are expensive to upgrade and you might want to save your gold for better armor and potions
Each time you level up,you'll get to choose skills to learn for various weapons and new spells.
It does take a long time to level up though,even if you're trying to level up in the area where the story events are up to,but to make things a bit more convienient,you can use Yangus's 'whistle' ability to call monsters to automatically attack you.
The cell shaded graphics are make everything look colorful and smooth and the character designs have the influence of Akira Toriyama(Dragon Ball Z).The countryside has lots of green hills and grassy areas,and like I've mentioned there's forest,the ocean water is very blue and when you get to the beach you can see beautiful water effects as the water hits the sand.The rocky canyons look very trecherous and detailed.
The towns are small but detailed and many buildings have multiple rooms(some have many rooms),and they're often well detailed with everyday items.The enemies come in good variety from evil looking elves,mummies,zombies,wild animals,mechanized robotic enemies,knights,demons,Botkin archers(which are hooded goblin looking creatures)and the enemies looking charming but mean at the same time.
I also love a spiritual place you visit,that's surrounded by purple and blue light and has elf style architecuture,it looks beautiful.
The music is charming without being too childish and it's relaxing and has a light hearted feel.
Overall,it's an great JRPG,that combines traditional elements with beautiful colorful and 3D.The big open world,and traditional gameplay makes the game very enjoyable,even though the game is a bit light on story.