Last week we brought you our first impressions of the English version of Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King. We've since spent some time getting a little deeper into the game. We already know the game looks and sounds great, but how does it play? Read on to find out.

　　When we last left off, we had just finished up the lengthy intro to the game and were given a taste of what the story is all about. Just to bring you up to speed, Dragon Quest VIII is, as the subtitle implies, about a cursed king. As it turns out, the evil madman responsible for that curse is a jester named Dhoulmagus. You play as a generic hero who is employed by King Trode to find Dhoulmagus and put an end to his wicked ways. Also in your motley crew of outcasts are the horse princess Medea and a stout fighter named Yangus.

　　We set out to find the evil jester Dhoulmagus in Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King.

　　The first real mission in the game has you search an underground cavern for a crystal ball. Turns out, the crystal ball belongs to a fortune-teller known as The Great Kalderasha. Since a capable fortune-teller would be pretty useful to a band of adventurers, you set off to find Kalderasha's crystal ball, hoping that in return he'll give you a clue about the whereabouts of the enigmatic Dhoulmagus. And Dhoulmagus really is a mysterious villain. In fact, we haven't even really seen him yet. There was a flashback scene that showed the evil jester in shadow, but intentionally refrained from revealing his face.

　　The first dungeon we ventured through was a fairly small cavern with three or four large rooms. The first treasure chest in the dungeon yielded a map, which came in handy when we ran into a few areas where the main pathway split. As you might expect, exploring different areas results in more treasure, but, of course, more battles as well. Although the game does use the typical random-encounter system found in past Dragon Warrior games, the encounter rate feels just about right here. You'll usually end up in a battle every 15 or so steps, which is just enough to keep things interesting without impeding your progress too much. The battles offer a good challenge too, so you'll want to make sure to stock up on medicinal herbs to keep your life up, because there's no way to revive a fallen ally. If you do manage to die in battle, you'll be resurrected at the last church you visited--at the cost of half the gold you were carrying.

　　When we reached the end of the first dungeon, we fought the first boss in the game. The boss was introduced with a short exchange between the monster and our party. The exchange consisted of the usual perfunctory boss babble, but it was still entertaining. We were able to defeat the boss without much difficulty and were given Kalderasha's crystal ball as a reward.

　　After a lengthy sequence with the fortune-teller, we eventually moved on to another town and a whole new set of problems to solve. As with most role-playing games, it seems Dragon Warrior VIII is all about helping every random person you come across throughout the course of the game. Whether it's a young girl investigating the murder of her brother, or a slick gambler who finds himself on the wrong side of an angry brute in a local pub, you always manage to get called upon to solve every last problem in the kingdom.

　　Helping people out can pay off in more ways than simply moving the story ahead, though. In one town, we helped a feisty young girl named Jessica, and she predictably decided to join our party. Jessica started out fairly weak, but she's set up to be an offensive magic user with an emphasis on fire spells. She's also very well endowed physically, and she has a special sex-appeal skill that you can develop to have her distract enemies with a few flirtatious gestures.

　　You can develop your characters' skills with a variety of weapons using skill points you earn as you level up.

　　Sex appeal is just one of several different skills you can develop in the game. Each character has a special skill, as well as proficiencies with each type of weapon they're capable of using. When you level up you earn skill points, which you can distribute among various skills and proficiencies. For example, the leader character can develop skills with any of the handful of weapons he can use, or he can increase his courage skill, which allows him to learn healing and lightning magic. If you choose to put all your points into weapon proficiencies, you'll get attack bonuses when using those specific weapons, and you'll also learn new attack abilities. Setting your skills requires a bit of forward thinking, though, since you have to decide what kind of weapon you'll want to be using throughout the game. For instance, the best weapon available to your fighter at the moment might be a club, but it's a fairly safe bet that later on you'll find an axe or mallet that's even more powerful. If you've spent all your skill points developing your skill with a club, those new weapons will be much less effective once you finally get them.

　　Battles in Dragon Quest VIII follow the same basic turn-based system found in previous Dragon Quest games. You can take up to four characters into battle at a time (if one of your characters is dead you'll bring a coffin into battle). Before each round you can choose to fight, flee, intimidate, or assign tactics to party members. If you choose to fight, you get several options. You can attack, defend, use magic, items, or abilities, or psyche up. If you choose to psyche up, you'll forfeit your turn to increase your tension. If you do that three times in a row, your character will reach a state of high tension. When you're in a state of high tension, you can inflict about five times as much damage as you normally would. This tension mechanic doesn't seem to be useful early in the game, since you can kill most creatures with just a couple of regular attacks. Regardless of what you choose to do, you'll assign all your characters' actions and then the battle will play out. This can be tricky, since you never really know what the enemy will do, or who will strike first once the combat begins. Since your actions are all assigned, you can't switch tactics in the middle of a round of combat.

　　You'll fight all kinds of bizarre enemies in Dragon Quest VIII, and they look better than ever now that they're in full 3D.

　　The battles vary in length and difficulty, depending on where you are and what time it is. If you're out in the field at night, you'll fight different--and tougher--enemies than you will during the day. The enemies in the game are quite varied, and they range from slimes to elementals and all kinds of bizarre creatures, like one particular creature that appears to be a cross between a bull and a chicken. The creatures have more than just a couple of moves in battle, too, and some are fairly unique and interesting. The Pans will play a flute to call for more Pans to join the battle; the Face Frogs will turn around when you hit them, revealing a nasty face on their back; and the Jailcat will often take a turn to gently clean itself. You never know quite what to expect from all of these strange creatures, which definitely helps keep you on your toes in battle, rather than simply hitting the attack button over and over until the battle ends.

　　Since the random battles can sometimes get pretty rough, you'll want to be sure to keep plenty of medicinal herbs on hand to heal your party members. Your leader can also learn a healing spell, but items are the more reliable bet because you never know if your leader will get taken out while you're deep in the heart of some dungeon somewhere. Items are important for more than healing, though. You'll collect all kinds of armor, weapons, and accessories to equip to your characters, and you'll also find special items like the chimera wing, which lets you warp to any town you've previously visited. Early in the game you'll also get an alchemy pot, which you can use to create new and more powerful items. You can place any two items into the pot, and if they are compatible, you'll get a new item. You can find recipes in various books on the shelves in homes throughout the villages in the kingdom, so you'll want to be sure to search everything you come across. The most basic recipe we found combined two medicinal herbs to get one extrapotent medicinal herb, which is a handy recipe indeed.

　　After playing this game for a while, we were struck by what a great job this game does of recalling past Dragon Quest games. The developers here faced an interesting challenge because they had to take the series into 3D without completely leaving the rest of the series behind. As we've stated before, this game looks great, and fans of the series are sure to be pleased with the transition. Just as important here, though, is the sound. The huge orchestral score and the distinct, well-delivered voice acting is of course fantastic, but it's all the little sound effects that really make you think back to those days of playing Dragon Warrior on the NES. From the sound you make when fleeing battle to the different chimes you hear when completing certain tasks, Dragon Quest VIII doesn't sound dated enough to be retro, but it definitely has a classic tone that adds heaps of charm to the overall presentation.

　　This game keeps things light, with plenty of funny moments that are sure to elicit at least a chuckle, if not a guffaw.

　　A big part of the charm in this game comes from its great sense of humor. The humor is a bit hokey and silly, but it's good, harmless fun, and it's used sparingly enough to remain enjoyable. The characters are all fairly goofy, and they often get into some truly cartoony situations. At one point, you'll fight a giant kraken while you're sailing on a ship. The kraken pops his head out of the water and uses two of his tentacles (named Tenta and Tickles) as sort of sock puppets, giving each one a voice and personality as he basically has a conversation with himself. It's completely silly, but it's the kind of humor than people of all ages can enjoy, like something you might find in a Disney animated movie.

　　Based on our time spent with Dragon Quest VIII, it looks like this game will be well worth the wait when it ships this November. The game looks and sounds great, and it does a fantastic job of blending new gameplay mechanics with all the right classic Dragon Quest conventions and bits of nostalgia. We'll bring you our full review of the game soon, so stay tuned for our final verdict on Journey of the Cursed King.