Now playing Dragon Quest 8 again...

Firstly, I'm amazed by how good it still looks. Yes, I'm running it through the PS3 at 1080p with the smothing feature acitvated, but the character models are fantastic and the animation is still pretty silky. Honestly, it's hardly aged at all.

In any case, it's one of the very few RPGs I only ever played through once the first time, and having spent around 200 hours on DQIX before getting a little bored grinding in the post game I fancied picking this back up again and giving it another go. So that's what I'm doing.

Best game of all time.

Be a man Simian. ALL FISTICUFFS RUN

I don't think it's the best game of all time, but it's one of my favourites from the PS2 era. As for an all fisticuffs run, is that really a big handicap or do the strength buffs make up for it? At the moment I going with a boomerang because it's easier to kill mulitple foes whilst I'm waiting for the story to let me recruit Jessica and Angelo.

I've never done it before, but from what I've seen it is extremely challenging untill you get enough points in it to get the huge strength boosts and endall be all skills. The max points fisticuff skills are boss.

I've wanted to do this but I don't have a god damn PS2 anymore since the timer in my 60 gig that YLoD's the system ran out forcing me to pay more money to Sony for the dam slim that has about as much features as a coat hanger.

Ellis wrote:

I've never done it before, but from what I've seen it is extremely challenging untill you get enough points in it to get the huge strength boosts and endall be all skills. The max points fisticuff skills are boss.

I've already put a few points in Boomerang, maybe I'll try fisticuffs for a while see how I get on. Mind you, if memory serves DQVIII was a pretty challengine game anyway - I remember having to grind a fair bit to stop bosses wiping me out.

Quote :

I've wanted to do this but I don't have a god damn PS2 anymore since the timer in my 60 gig that YLoD's the system ran out forcing me to pay more money to Sony for the dam slim that has about as much features as a coat hanger.

Ha.

I've still got my slim PS2 and my 80GB PS3 (the only UK model that has backwards compatibility) so I can play it on either.

you didn't send in your 60 Gb for maintenance?

I have this on my PS2, I should playthrough it as t some point as I loved this game and loved how DBZ esque the main character got.

I never did get around to doing the post-game stuff in this.

Your Dericous Huggy Buddy wrote:

you didn't send in your 60 Gb for maintenance?

I sent it to some company in Utah that fixed it for 50 bucks. Only lasted about 6 months after that tho. At least I was able to copy my saves and get my game out before it died again.

how much did you buy your slim for? i got mine at half price by giving sony back the broken 60Gb

A_Nonny_Moose wrote:

I never did get around to doing the post-game stuff in this.

There wasn't actually that much.

My first game save, including a completed Monster Arena and completed Dragovian trials clocked in around sixty nine hours. That equates to around twenty five hours of post game. Compare that to the near-as-makes-no-difference one hundred and fifty hours I put into DQIXs post-game without really scratching the surface and it seems like rather meagre fare. VIII is the better game though, no doubt. Shorter, but sweeter.

Whoa, what? My game has nearly 100 hours on it, with no post-game at all.

I think I had played around 85 hours after finishing the game, getting the alternative ending and completing monster arena.

SimianWonder wrote:

A_Nonny_Moose wrote:

I never did get around to doing the post-game stuff in this.

There wasn't actually that much.

My first game save, including a completed Monster Arena and completed Dragovian trials clocked in around sixty nine hours. That equates to around twenty five hours of post game. Compare that to the near-as-makes-no-difference one hundred and fifty hours I put into DQIXs post-game without really scratching the surface and it seems like rather meagre fare. VIII is the better game though, no doubt. Shorter, but sweeter.

WTF Simmy your either a master of gaming or you didn't get lost once.

Me personally i enjoyed the tunes while running blindly to every corner of the map in hope of finding a secret. Which paid off occasionally.

A_Nonny_Moose wrote:

Whoa, what? My game has nearly 100 hours on it, with no post-game at all.

Really? My first completion time is shown at forty four hours and fifty two minutes. How on earth did you drag one hundred hours out of it?

Superbuu3 wrote:

WTF Simmy your either a master of gaming or you didn't get lost once.

I don't recall getting lost that much, no. I did explore most of the world map, but I soon learned that there wasn't that much to find off the beaten path, esepcially when all the best items are Alchemy made anyway.

Quote :

Me personally i enjoyed the tunes while running blindly to every corner of the map in hope of finding a secret. Which paid off occasionally.

See above!

Simian why did you have to mention this. WHY DID I TRADE IN THIS GAME?

Man i want to play this sooooooo bad.

Sorry, Buu, that's one of the reasons I never trade games in!

Lol, the irony is if i kept this it would most likely be on my shelf gathering dust.

Honestly I'm just glad I actually played this game definitely an awesome experience.

Your Dericous Huggy Buddy wrote:

how much did you buy your slim for? i got mine at half price by giving sony back the broken 60Gb

250 gigs for 300 hundred. I actually threw it out of a window and that was worth mare than anything Sony could give me.

Just finished the Abbey and recruited Angelo and the five hour mark has just passed. I've opted not to try for the Fisticuff only playthrough, and also had my first properly tough boss fight; the boss of the ruined Abbey, the Tortured Soul. He was hitting a single character for around 30 points of damage at a time when that's enough to kill in two hits, basically forcing you to heal once a turn or risk losing someone, and he can summon lesser enemies into the fight as well. His nastiest trick is a breath attack, damaging the party for 20-25 HP each. He's also got a fair chunk of health, around 600hp I'd wager and when even Yangus (the heavy hitter at the moment) is only hitting for around 40 damage each time that's a lot.

I thought I'd managed to grind enough to handle most of the early game, but it would seem I am underlevelled given how much of a fight he put up. Or maybe he's meant to be a challenge. Who knows. Anyway, the full party is now on board and its onwards and upwards.

I'm pretty sure that guys always a challenge. This game puts you at roughly the right level if you do what your supposed to, plus your on a second playthrough so you'll be fine.

Ive not avoided any encounters but neither have i deliberately tried to power grind levels at the moment. As for being a second play through, that is true but I really don't remember much; I recall the odd event but not any specifics, so I'm no more prepared than I was first time through.

Superbuu3 wrote:

I'm pretty sure that guys always a challenge. This game puts you at roughly the right level if you do what your supposed to, plus your on a second playthrough so you'll be fine.

I don't recall him being a challenge, but then again, I ran around going all over every new part of the map I entered looking for all the chests and fighting every battle I got into like a total completionist dork. Doing that was bound to overlevel me. Hell, I didn't even need to grind much for the post-game trials thing either(I really just did some alchemy pot concocting for a few useful items).