Dragon Quest VIII is due in November (tentative) and not only does it finally come to US shores under its original name but it appears to be a total revival of the series after the misunderstood(?) abomination that was Dragon Warrior VII (which, ironically, is the single best selling PS1 game of all time in Japan).

There seems to be a demo disc doing the round on eBay as of today but I'm not yet sure where it's coming from.. magazine bonus? Pre-order bonus? No information on it yet, but I'll post here once I learn where you can REALLY get the demo disc.

Sign up at Square-Enix's official Dragon Quest fansite: http://www.slimeknights.com/

Speaking of Dragon Warrior VII, did anyone actually beat that game? I got about 57 hours in or something like that, and I was still on the first disc. I couldn't take it anymore after that.

Dragon Warrior VIII (which I will continue to call it because I feel like it) is looking pretty good though. I'm looking forward to it.

Man, I did end up beating that after having my 3rd party memory card corrupt my save game that had some 70 hours on it. There was nothing more frustrating than that. I don't know how long I waited before starting up again. I played using the same memory card but kept backing up the save to another card, just in case. Lo and behold at the exact same point in the game the file corrupted again. Luckily I had a backup on a 1st party card. I've never used 3rd party memory cards since.

Great game though, I should play it again DQVIII barely beats out KHII for my most anticipated release (sorry Pixy!)

I'll keep an eye on this but will probably pass as it's tough for me to find enough time to get through an RPG with my busy Ph D study schedule. Generally ahve to stick to pick up and play games that I won't get lost in if I have no time to play for a month.

I never have. I should give it another shot though. I think I made it about 50 hours as well, maybe a little less. I thought the normal DW stuff in the game was superb.. you know, exploring dungeons and fighting monsters. It was all the insanely lengthy in-between stuff that killed it for me. If I recall correctly, most of that was talking to townspeople ad-nausea and a lot of going back-and-forth (with little to no action in the back-and-forth).

I was also a little let-down with the bloated job-system. I'm sure it works much better if you can stick to focusing on a few jobs per character but I'm the kind of guy that, given that freedom, wants to give every character as much as they can have. The massiveness of the class system weighed heavy on the side of tedium for me because of that. Perhaps I'll take a more realistic approach to it next time around.

No problems here.. they're my top two as well just in a different order.

That's exactly how I play Pixy. I like to max out all my characters. I remember playing FF3(6), and making sure that EVERY character (there were 16 right?) learned every single spell in the game.

I'm just happy that they CHANGED something for DQ8. Nostalgia is all well and good, but there were plenty of bad things about older games as well. DQ7 was like a compilation of all of them.

Cant wait for DQ8 myself! I know it will not sell 3.5 million copies or even half that here but SE is still expecting this one to finally do well here. All fans of rpgs or cel shaded art, or cripes anything other then current trend of GTA's and Halo's need to support this one, this is big daddy from which all will be judged! I just hope music changes are not too severe, I need to hear that classic DQ music.

FYI - I just picked up the Demo Disc at my local Gamestop (had to preorder something I was going to get anyway). I read at CAG and Gaming-Age that they're free at Fry's but I can't verify.

TO FRY'S I GO!! (after work of course)

I already Pre-order it at GameRush for $30. Thought the graphic & gameplay is killer compare to most RPG today. Also, you can get FREE DEMO disc at Gamestop for FREE instead EBAY it (just ask your local Friendly GS clerk)

Got my demo disc and gave it a spin. This is EXACTLY what the series needed.

Okay some thoughts.

They changed the menus!! All the message boxes have been changed in the US version to look more like Final Fantasy. I hope the release version will have an option to switch back to the original Dragon Quest style menus.

Say goodbye to all Dragon Warrior conventions as you knew them. For good or bad the names of spells and monsters are being changed to be closer to their Japanese counterparts. The big one here are the spells. In Japan, the Dragon Quest spells have always been made-up words such as Hoimi, Mera or Rura. In English they were given literal names to match their function such as Heal, Fire or Return. Now, instead of using the Japanese name, they've given all the spells English sounding nonsense words such as Brizz, Zoom, Woosh, Kafrizzle. Monsters just appears to be more directly translated. Say goodbye to Babbles and say hello to Bubble Slimes. One that I got to see that was an interesting choice was Red Slimes are now She-Slimes. The Japanese name is Slime Beth so it's still not a direct translation. I'm not sure what they've changed Metal Babble's name to, but the Japanese is Lonely Metal.

Got the Demo. Played it. Enjoyed it. Getting it.

Amazing Demo...

I have to agree about DQVII though. It was too old school for it's own good. Kinda like Nightmare of Druga.

I disagree, the best parts of Dragon Warrior VII were the old-school parts.

Here's the conversation I had today at Gamestop.

Me: "Do you guys have the Draqon Quest VIII demo?"

Him: "Haha, I wish. I don't think they're going to release a demo for that game."

Me: "Uh, some people on the Internet said they had a copy of the demo. They said they got it at Gamestop."

Him: "What? No, I don't think so. There was a demo at E3, are you sure they weren't talking about that."

Me: "No, nevermind."

Him: "How about preordering a copy of Dragon Quest VIII instead?"

Me: "I hate you."

Whereabouts in OK are you, Joe? The Owasso store about about 20-30 just behind the counter when I got my copy last week.

Im so looking forward to this game! Its sad though I tell people (customers) at work about it they just go "Dragon what? Is that the new Final Fantasy?" Im doing my best to bring this game to everyone's attention. but it looks like (at least in my area) no one really cares. Im glad most of the people I tell about the game are looking forward to Kingdom Hearts 2 but I tell them not to pass up this one in the process, and they reply "I dont like RPGs". Even worse I try to get people interested in Gunstar Super Heroes and its mostly the same response "I like Contra better".

I've been afraid of that as well. This needs to do well, real well for alot reasons.

On top of the "improved" graphical UI, apparently for the US version they've changed the main character's powered-up graphics to mirror a Dragon Ball Z character (essentially he goes into a Super Saiyan-jin mode if you're familiar with DBZ).

I wish I could get my hands on the demo. I've got this game payed off already at GR. The impressions are sounding good. One thing about DQ I've loved is the music

I've never played a game in this series so VIII will be my first. For some reason I've been itching to play some RPGs and the promo I saw on X-Play of this looked really fun. So I have this, KH2, and I think I'm going to give Chrono Cross a go.

This might be a stupid question, but how does the story work in these games? Do the 8 games build on each others story or do they all just take place in the same world focusing on different heroes? Or is it like Final Fantasy, with the games not being related at all?

It's like Final Fantasy in that each game is separate, though some have some slight connection. The first three games were fairly connected in that they were the tales of Roto and his descendants. The second three games were connected in that they all revolved around the Castle of Heaven, though much less connected than the first three games. VII and VIII seem to be totally stand-alone, though it was originally speculated that VII was going to be the start of another loosely connected trilogy surrounding Eden.

No doubt, one of my greatest childhood gaming memories was after playing Dragon Warrior I and II several times and getting to the end of Dragon Warrior III the first time to a very nice surprise.