chestttttt hurting........... armmssnummmbbb...........caaaallllll911 pleasssee..

Ha, yeah. It was there and I just put a batch of cookies in the oven so I figured, I'll give this 10 minutes, when my cookies are done I'm immersing myself in Dragon Quest. Surprisingly, the demo only took about 10 minutes to play though.. so it worked out alright.

Did you do wait, active or both?

I did active and peeked at wait.

I am going to rent this from Blockbuster for 14 days.

I WANT TO GO HOME AND PLAY! ARGH.

I haven't been this itchy to get home to play a game since high school. I'm going to have to use a vacation day or two when Kingdom Hearts II comes out or I would NOT be able to handle my managerial duties I've got here. Ah, such a good time to be a gamer. I don't even know what an Xbox 360 or Playstation 3 is at this point.

I know what you mean. I Just started Suikoden Tactics. DQVIII is next on the list. Between those two alone my 360 (if I'm able to get one) may not see much play time when I first get it.

Ditto. I almost called in sick today.

I got home early from work today to play, and I am enjoying it

you guys are making me scared to play it now . Just kidding.

Mine is in the mail!!!!!!

I'll probably do the same thing, burn through he FFXII demo and then start Dragon Quest.

My God.. the size of this games world is.. overwhelming. It scares me.

Arrg. I can't wait until xmas

I tried to rent it from local store.

No go

You know, gameplya-wise, this seems like an RPG I would actually like, but because of the lame DragonballZ art-style, I can't bring myself to even look at it. It really makes me want to puke.

I'm in the same boat here. I'm a big fan of Dragon Warrior IV and enjoyed DWVII (one of those few games I bought on launch) immensely. This was my #1 most wanted release this year (followed by DMC3 & Civilization 4). I've got the slime controller, guide and game. Sitting at home. No time to play, still.

I take it you didn't like Chrono Trigger either?

I haven't played a DW game since the NES... could I pick up VIII and be able to follow the storyline? Or will I be lost?

IMO, that style works a lot better in a 2-D, hand-drawn sort of style - but back when I played CT I didn't even think about it, but looking back, as much as I liked the game, I really don't care for the art style - and I like it less now.

Standalone game.

anyone with a wide screen playing this? I don't believe it displays in progressive scan, but when I turn the widescreen option on it does absolutly nothing.

I got to play last night when I got home from work at 7am. Stayed up to about noon playing, argh.

The first boss in the Waterfall cave kicked my level 4 butt. So I wandered around and tracked down stray treasures and did the dude-lost-his-toll-kit quest. Maybe I can take the boss this time.

This game has certainly exceeded every expectation I had about it. The job system in VI and VII really muddied up the charming simplicity of the series gameplay so it's nice to see a return to what made the series great. I've put in 21 hours in since Wednesday. The graphics are beautiful and excellently animated, the characters and monsters are masterfully designed by Toriyama, the music is beyond superb and the gameplay is.. perfect. Anybody that misses the SNES-era of RPGs needs to give this a shot.. in my opinion it's everything that made those games enjoyable with graphics, sound and content up to par for 2005.

I played through the demo several times and remember getting my ass kicked by that guy at level 6. It wasn't until I was level 8 before I took him out. Is it just me or does the retail copy of the game seem a little easier than the demo? I swear the enemies aren't hitting for as much. Anyways, I got to the Waterfal Cave Boss and again I was level 6 on both the Hero and Yangus and was able to take him out. The strategy I used was the same as the one I used in the demo...I had Yangus attack/heal the Hero while the Hero built up his tension to 50 and then attack. I did that twice and hit for 78-80 each time, which was enough to take him out.

What's up with the skill points? My Hero has been getting 2-3 points for each level and he's presently at 10, meanwhile Yangus is getting 4-6 points. Is this intentional?

Yup, in a few levels Yangus will be getting 2-3 and hero will be getting 5-8. It fluctuates for each character.

Hey, where you all putting your skill points for your characters?

Here's how I'm going to do mine, in the following order....

Hero - Sword/Courage/Boomerang
Yangus - Axe/Scythe/Humanity
Jessica - Staff/Sex Appeal/Whip
Angelo - Bow/Charisma/Sword

I'm trying to decide if I'm going to max out my primary skill first and then put points in the others or if I'm going to distribute them so I'm skilling up 2-3 skills as I level. I love the skill system because you get to build your party the way you want to and it gives a sense of customization you don't always see in a console RPG.