Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5040 in Computer & Video Games
• Brand: Square Enix
• Released on: 2006-04-13
• Platform: PlayStation2

Customer Reviews

Love it
This was the first RPG I've ever played and I wasn't sure how I was going to like it at first. A birthday present from my husband he regretted it shortly afterwards: I was hooked, LOL! I have played it through twice already and am on the third go around, but then I am one of those people who becomes a fan (fanatic) over those things that I really like.

What appealed to me, maybe because I'm a girl, I don't know, was that it had a backstory so it was almost as if you were taking part in a film or a book. As a fantasy book reader and a writer, the game appealed to me on the story level, although I've heard other people don't tend to like that.

Loved the character designs and background drawings and although the music does get a bit repetitive over time it is very well done. My first few bosses I kept getting killed, as I had no idea you needed to be a certain level in order to better defeat them. I loved the fact that the battles were turn-based, as I have terrible reflexes, so real time battles are no fun for me. Even on this third time around I'm finding things I missed the first two, more treasure chests, land to explore etc.

What would have made the game a bit better would perhaps to have had the world map earlier on in the game, but other than that I don't really have any complaints about it. I didn't find the voiceovers that bad myself.

I love it, one for the keeper shelf.

Dragon Quest: The Journey of the Cursed King
The story is very simple, a jester named Dhoulmagus steals a magical sceptre from the Castle of Trodain, where you the hero work as a guard. After stealing the sceptre, Dhoulmagus then transforms the King and the Princess. The King into a monster and the Princess into a horse. Dhoulmagus then curses the entire Castle, causing vines to sprout out all over the place and freezing everybody inside, everybody except you of course! Oh and the King and Princess, who are somehow protected by the magical barrier that was sealing the sceptre away.

The game actually starts out just after these events, where you the Hero, King Trode and Princess Medea are off on the trail of Dhoulmagus, your also joined by a bandit named Yangus, who managed to join your party just after you left Trodain (how and why are explained later on in the game by the use of flashbacks).

So that's the basic storyline, and sadly that's pretty much it the whole way through the game. Its just you chasing Dhoulmagus/The Sceptre the whole way through, with very few twists and turns, and really unless your a young child or a complete idiot you will have guessed what's about to happen before it does.

The characters of the game are not that great either, with the Hero basically having no dialog or personality, which I know is normal for Dragon Quest but I think its about time they modernise the series. Especially when they try to force a love story between the Hero and the Princess.
The only really memorable characters in the game are King Trode and Yangus because at least they have some kind of personality. Unlike the other two characters in the game who are extremely dull and boring.
Also the translators seemed to have ended up with terrible character names like bangers and mash...

Another problem is the game world, where there really isn't much difference from one town to the next. Each town seems to be filled with the same npcs, and the same boring music.

Now onto the gameplay, which is random battles. Now obviously the random battles become very frustrating at times, with some battles having you fight up to 8 enemy's at once, and if you attempt to flee and fail you have to watch all 8 monsters attack you 1 by 1, and even when you manage to flee, the flee animation takes about 30 seconds to complete, which makes it even more frustrating.
To avoid random battles you can use a spell or item from the character menu, but it only works on low level monsters and lasts for about a minute, you then have to load the menus all over again to cast the same spell or use another item, and this again takes about 30 seconds, which just makes you even more frustrated.

The battles in game use a simple turn-based combat system, with you having your simple commands, attack, spells, ability's, items and of course flee. Theirs also another command, focus, which lets you raise your tension level, which can be raised 4 levels, increasing the effect of an attack/spell on the next turn.

Now the gameplay starts out pretty tough with you starting at low level with no ability's, and for the first 15-30 minutes you will mostly be fighting and then running back to town to heal, until you finally level and eventually learn new spells.
This is where the gameplay kind of fails though, because it fails to find that perfect balance, its either too easy or too hard, and not hard in a challenging way, most of the time you end up dying its because you were grinded down after allot of random battles against high level monsters.
Theirs never really any strategy in the game, you either just raise your tension for 1 hit kills or just attack and heal and that's it.

Another problem with the battles is with the monsters, you end up fighting the same old monsters over and over again, with the only difference being the name and colour. They seem to have left out allot of the best monsters from previous games, such as the sky dragons and the goldslimes, instead deciding to be lazy and just change the colours of the monsters.

Another annoying area is the Menus and Interface. For starters they have decided to get rid of the classic Dragon Quest look, and instead gone for something really quite ordinary and boring. Moving basic items around is also frustrating, with you having to move items one by one because you are unable to group them. Characters also lack any proper equipment menu, instead they have to store all their armour and weapons in their bags, which is just odd and messy.

The last problem with the game is the sound. For starters the voice acting is terrible, in fact its some of the worst ive ever heard, maybe its because im not used to hearing English actors in games, i don't know, but they all sound odd. The only good characters with good voice actors are King Trode and Yangus the rest are really bland and dull. Its basically the same level of voice acting you get in the typical kids cartoon show, and not a very good quality cartoon show at that.
It also doesn't help that in cutscenes you have to press X after each sentence of dialog, to hear the next line.

Worse still is the music, although it doesn't sound bad at first, it quickly becomes boring, because the same music is repeated over and over. In the field you basically have the same music 90% of the time and I still cant believe they didn't do anything about this.

So anyway all in all its not great, but its not bad, its average.

Dissapointed
I brought Dragon Quest hoping for a good ol' fashioned RPG, but despite having heard good things about it, found myself very dissapointed.

The battle system is bland and unexciting, the plot very simplistic, the characters dull, the locations uninteresting, the dungeons long and made frustratingly difficult by a lack of save points and overly difficult monsters, the difficulty curve is far too steep - one minute you're killing monsters in a hit, the next they're wiping you out in a hit. The menu system is very ineffective and cumbersome - if you want a character to use 6 healing items in battle, you have to go through the menu three times in order to equip them.

I tried to stick it out for a few hours, but after that the game's flaws just became too much for me, I realized I wasn't having any fun at all and quit.

I'll give the game 1 star for its lovely graphics, and because I'm sure there must be RPG fans out there who will just love this one. But, not me.