#dqviii

[demifiendrsa]

Official Dragon Quest 40th anniversary logo

40th anniversary commemorative artwork

[laudrawin]

🗡️Hero & Munchie 🐭

I love it when a hero wears casual clothing and is nothing but a lucky guardsman! From zero to hero, baby! 🤗

[josephsb]

Dragon Quest 8 gang pixel art, influenced by the Wplace trend 🎈🌎

Here you have the individual sprites <3

[jjinpang]

Could you tell us about your favourite Dragon Quest games and characters? I really liked the art you did of Popp!

I'm so glad you enjoyed my art of Popp. Dragon Quest : The Adventure of Dai changed my world view, and saved me from a debilitating pessimism I didn't even know I had fallen victim to. It rejuvenated my love for fiction and my hope in humanity. BUT ENOUGH OF THAT LET ME TALK ABOUT MY HORSE PRINCESS THAT I LOVE AND WILL LOVE FOREVER

MEDEA FROM DQ8!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! OHMIGOSH SHE'S SO PRETTY AND SO KIND AND HER LOVE STORY WITH THE HERO IS JUST SO SWEET AND I DIDN'T EVEN KNOW I LIKED ROMANCE UNTIL I RAN INTO HER STORY!!!!!

SHE FOUND THE HERO IN SHAMBLES AND BELIEVED HIM AND LOVED HIM FOR ALL THE YEARS WHEN HE WAS NAMELESS AND WITHOUT A THING TO HIS NAME, JUST AN ORPHAN GUARD IN HER CASTLE. OPTIMISTIC, KIND, NOBLE, AND VIRTUOUS DESPITE LOSING HER COUNTRY AND BEING CURSED!!! DID I MENTION SHE'S SO EFFING CUTE??????

[gamecenter199x]

Interview with Yuji Horii, creator of Dragon Quest (Shonen Jump, March 2003, Viz Media)

The following interview was originally published in the North American edition of SHONEN JUMP, cover dated March 2003. The questions are pretty basic but they are educational for a reader that only knew of the series as "Dragon Warrior" back in that time. There's also a pre-release screenshot of Dragon Quest VIII included, so that's always cool. I uploaded these scans on my Twitter account back in 2020 but this will be a (somewhat more) permanent host for this interview. Enjoy!

(Yeah, they goofed up the descriptions for DQV and DQVI.) This interview was translated by Koji Goto. I'm unsure who conducted this interview, and according to former SJ editor-in-chief Jason Thompson, he was also unsure but it may have been Drew Williams, another editor at SJ/Viz.

[slimereader]

Dragon Quest VIII - The Journey Begins

A few days ago, I found my copy of Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King. I bought it when it was released in the US in 2017, then forgot about it for 9 years. After some deliberation, I decided to break the seal and start playing! I'm about 4 hours in and I just got inside the Tower of Alexandra.

I'm surprised the art direction isn't more similar to DQVII 3DS. The game looks pretty nice, like DQIX but fancier (and full 3D of course). I was disappointed when I turned on the 3D slider and nothing happened. Wait, right there on the box it says "Playable in 2D. Some areas also playable in 3D." What areas?!

Slimes are so tiny in this game!! The photo mode is fun. I wish we could also take normal screenshots though. I want to capture lines of dialogue and battles!

Hunting down infamous monsters is pretty fun. So far I've beaten Automaton Aviator, Shortshooter the bodkin archer, Buffalo Bill the bullfinch, and Axoraptor the hacksaurus. I wish they were in the defeated monster log. Wait, I just got spoiled that you can recruit them later?! Oh boy!!!

More thoughts (without screenshots 🥀):

The open world is ok. It's a bit too large and the hero's character model is a bit too small/slow. It looks great, but the PS2 version looks amazing too! Damn, I'll probably have to play it eventually. I know the normal monsters were random encounters instead of in the overworld. I'm used to the overworld encounters from other newer DQ games, but I HATE how they've implemented it in this game. If a monster moves out of your field of vision for one second, it's gone! A new monster spawns! I dread the day I see a metal slime out of the corner of my eye and accidentally rotate it out of frame. Although the top-down view of DQIX isn't as cool as the lower third-person POV of this game, I have to admit it was better when you had to leave the room of the dungeon in order for the monsters to respawn.

I like the characters so far. Eight, Yangus, King Trode, and Medea. King Trode is on the battle record screen giving advice, just like Stella in DQIX!! I appreciate that the party chat screen exists, but I wish their lines would just pop up instead of the whole separate screen. It has a Professor Layton vibe. One time, Yangus told me "I can tell when something is valuable. I was famous for that in me younger days." They added a reference to his spinoff mystery dungeon game! That's adorable! I was wondering why I constantly hear the horse whinnying and the clop of her hooves in the overworld. And then I realized... it's so you know the wagon is following you because it's not rendered in this game. Kind of annoying!!

I recently started playing Ocarina of Time for the first time (the pc port of the N64 version). Farebury and its surroundings feel awfully similar to the market/castle in that game! And don't get me started on the day/night cycle. At first I was annoying by how short it is in OOT, but in this game it feels too long! Of course you can go to the inn, but my gold! I was hoping the Tick Tock spell would make an appearance, but alas. Side note- Ocarina's visuals are amazing! I wish we had a Dragon Quest game on the Nintendo 64! I guess there's always DQVII on PlayStation...

[zam0ksva]

See him stumbling

[uniguinflutist]

I had a dream where someone wrote a fic on ao3 where Eight was a trans man who never knew that he was assigned female at birth and was confused when people tried to misgender him or force him to be more feminine. Though he and Medea still loved each other and hung out at the spring, did tons of cute things, and still got married.

But then there was an angry commentor who was like "HOW DARE YOU PUT WOKE STUFF INTO DQ! THIS TOTALLY ISN'T CANON!!!" like its a fanfic dude calm down