A beautiful Guide for one huge RPG !
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This is a great guide for one of the longest/biggest RPGs on the PS2.
One problem about Dragon Quest , is that you can easily get lost on the world map if exploring new areas. The game is that huge.
The best thing about this guide are the high quality maps that you can hold in your hand while you play the game now , to know where to find everything / if you're going in the correct direction.
The rest of the information in this guide can be found elsewhere on FAQs on the net , but the maps in this guide are a great blessing and something that can't be produced on a text-file FAQ on the internet.
So yeah , with this guide in your hands , the hardcore RPG kind-of-gamer who wants to get every secret and not miss out on anything , will pretty much have the power to gain everything from this game.
But then again they also don't have to use it too often , as it would spoil the fun of doing this jorney/adventure on your own..... only refer to it if you're stuck/lost.
Well to tell the truth I don't really buy guides for games , as it usually does ruin the fun and take out any effort from the game.
But one reason you should get this guide , is because it's such a work of art itself !
This guide is made from high quality material and full of lovely illustrations / layouts.
The monster and item guides are particularly wonderful to glance at, not to mention extremely useful.
It's great to see the highly detailed illustrations of portaits of the characters/monsters/items and maps on paper in beautiful print !
This guide is full of presentation and quality!
So if you're either stuck on the game or just a fan who likes the drawings/characters from this game , it's a nice item to buy !
But yeah don't use it too much , it'll spoil the fun , but appreciate it as a lovely work of art among game guides more instead !
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The cheapest DQ VIII quide book on the internet
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This it he cheapest DQ VIII stretagy guide I have found on the internet. It came a few days earlyer and it's a excellent guide book. I love it very much. Recommanded to all the DQ VIII fans.
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Say Hello to Your New Best Friend
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Dragon Quest is a giant game. No matter how you look at it. The only way you'll be able to conquer the game and find every amazing secret is by investing your time in this guide. Piggyback hasn't just contruscted a guide, they've given you a friend. Here you'll find secrets that cannot be found in any other guide. Tips that work without flaw. This is how you master a game, by investing in a Piggyback strategy guide.
The book is divided into sections. The "How to Play" chapter is exactly what it says. It's very concise and to the point. New to the world of Dragon Quest? Then this is exactly where you should begin with this guide. However, this isn't just a guide for the beginner. Piggyback has also considered if you're an expert of the game. Therefore, even pro gamers can find some useful tips they may not have known before in the "How to Play" section.
Afterwards, the guide moves on into the characters section. Here, you get a run down of all the characters skills, spells, and weapons. Each character is also presented with an experience chart. In this chart you'll be able to see what each characters stats will look like at each and every level. The staff also provides fantastic tips on just which skills you should concentrate on, and why you should concentrate on them. You'll feel nearly invincible using this guide.
The items list is also extremely detailed. For each item you don't just get the basics, but also what it takes to make it, and what recipes you can use it in. In addition, for the weapons and armor sections you'll be able to tell which characters can equip what items. Afterwards, there is an exhaustive recipe list for the alchemy pot. Every single recipe is listed in this guide.
Each monster in the monsters section is detailed with all the stats that are important. Each monster has its stats detailed. HP, MP, attack, defense etc. In addition, you'll learn the habitat which this monster roams, special attacks they use, and (most important) the rewards for defeating these creatures along with the chances of them dropping these items.
By far the best part of the guide is the walkthrough itself. Each section is littered with 3D maps (and 2D for towns, which really helps as well). These maps are populated with item locations, and preferred routes. The walkthrough is brutally detailed. You won't miss a single item. You'll find every infamous monster. You'll defeat every boss in your path. All this is done without spoiling any aspect of the game whatsoever. So even those who are afraid of a guide spoiling the surprises will be quite surprised. For example, the guide doesn't show you screenshots of the bosses to keep your surprised. Dragon Quest is a fabulous game, and Piggyback knew it. This walkthrough is spoiler-free. Even better, the guide reads well with the respective screenshots. In several guides you've got to interpret which screenshot goes with what text. Piggyback gets rid of that. Their screenshots are labeled with numbers. If you come across something you don't understand, they'll tell you exactly which screenshot you should look at. And it helps.
Perhaps the biggest reason to invest in this guide is for their secrets. Every little secret is explored in this guide. About halfway through the secrets section you'll come across a Top Secret section that is sealed. This section is specifically made for those who have completed the game. The guide even tells you so. Here you'll find the most lucrative secrets of any Square-Enix game. There are minor spoilers in this section, but you were warned before you ventured into it. Still, as a whole, this is the only way to master all that Dragon Quest has to offer.
As if Piggyback wasn't kind enough already. With a guide so big, so exhaustive, and full of such fantastic advice, you might find yourself lost. Luckily there's an index. Navigating a strategy guide has never been easier.
If you want to master Dragon Quest and learn everything the game has to offer, then you owe it to yourself to buy this guide. If not for the walkthrough, do it for the secrets. Piggyback hasn't just given you a strategy guide; they've given you a friend. One who is willing to tell you all the secrets of Dragon Quest without spoiling the game for you. By far one of the best strategy guides ever written.
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Good solid fun
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Dragon Quest is a good, solid RPG that any fans of the genre should be playing. This review is just to let potential players know what they are in for. I won't go into the story, but to help you decide, I'll just list the features that my be the make-or-break factors for your enjoyment.
Battle style: Traditional turn-based, although you enter all character commands at once and then see the results. Depending on abilities, the turns may not come out on screen in the order you enter them, and monsters will take their turns dotted between those of your team. This can be a problem if you cast a attack-building spell on your strongest character, only to see his turn come up before the person casting the spell! Also, some reviews of the game mention that there is an AI setting for your team members so that you can let them fight by themselves and only control the team leader character directly. Well, there is but it's entirely optional, and for me that is not what an RPG is about, so I never used this setting once. Total manual control all the way, thank you.
Random battles: Yes, frequent. The world is large and getting from one place to another can take a while, so expect a lot of fighting. It's also very sprawling and confusing and you don't even get a world map for the first few hours of the game (arghh!), so expect much roaming, searching and getting lost. You'll want to kiss the character who finally gives you the world map after the hours of wandering before then (don't worry it happens at a set point in the story, and can't be missed!)
Transport: Yes, after you reach a certain point you gain access to a ship to cross the seas, and later on you are even able to fly. Plus, instead of all that running, you also become able to ride sabretooth tigers, which makes land exploration far less tiresome (you still encounter monsters but can cover ground much faster if you're just searching for treasure chests).
Saving: In a word - Argghh!! Which is because you can only save (and rest) in towns. So all the dungeons ending in a boss have to be completed in one sitting, with every recovery item you need taken along with you. This sounds like a harsh feature, but in return, you are given skills that allow you to do two important thing: you can instantly warp to the dungeon entrance at any time, and when on the world map, you can instantly warp to any town. So if you play deep into a dungeon and want a rest or are too beaten-down to face the boss, you can always warp out and recover, then come back to the front door and make your way through again - hopefully more swiftly this time, as any solved puzzles or unlocked doors will stay solved if you've done them once. And you can even cast a spell to cut out random battle encounters for a few minutes at a time, which makes these repeat trips through the same dungeon less irritating. So that's not so bad, then. I wouldn't cut out random battles too often though, because the levelling up system in this game is sloo-oow. After a brisk start, the required experience to gain levels starts becoming larger and larger, and you may be forced to do many loops of monster hunting to gain points before facing the more difficult bosses.
Items: Phew! There are hundreds of weapons, shields, clothes and accessories, plus the game features an "Alchemy Pot" which will allow you to combine items and turn them into new ones. This echoes the "Inventions" scheme of Dark Chronicle, and the "Item Refining" of Star Ocean. It's deliberately vague, presumably to encourage experimentation, and can turn into a huge side-game by itself. For those that like distractions, this could be a very large one, as many of the advanced recipies for alchemy are cryptic or just plain secrets. I guess it all helps towards the sale of strategy guides...good luck!
Which leads me on to...side-quests. Yes, we have plenty of those, one of which does not appear until you have beaten the game once. My favourite is the entirely optional Monster Arena...extra-strong enemies, a bit like mini-bosses, can be seen roaming around the world, and they can be recruited once beaten in battle, to make up a "monster team" that you can enter into tournaments for big prizes. Of course if you can find the really strong ones ( along with actually defeating them) in the far-flung corners of the world, you can form a real killer team and earm some great rare items. Plus your team also become available as a "summon" in battle, and this turned out to be a life saver for me in some tough fights, as your monster team can really come to your rescue and dish out the damage - and withstand it - in some of the harder battles of the main game storyline. Plus it's very satisfying to see a monster that took so much effort to beat go out there and use those powerful offensive moves for your benefit - I almost found myself cheering when my top team won some of the arena battles! They are real characters to watch too, because they act of their own accord in battle. When you let them fight (in the Monster Arena and as your support summon), you can only start the fight and then cross your fingers as the team make their own decisions on how to proceed...hopefully they will make mincemeat out of your enemies, but some of the more dopey monsters will choose comedy actions like rolling on the ground and purring (Fat Cat) or staring into space and scratching himself (Klub Kong). This can be hysterical to watch, but it's hardly a winning battle stategy!
That aspect leads me to the sense of humour present in this game. There's a lot more fun in the random battles in this game that I expected. Whoever wrote the script for them has a great sense of the absurd. I'll give you some examples: An enemy called a Tap Devil can perform an attack called "Underpants Dance" in which he does a kind of disco shimmy, and then pokes his backside at you. The first time I saw this, my male characters were unaffected, but Jessica fell to the floor in shock...and I was laughing my head off. Other comedy came from some big fat things called Notso Machos who sometimes hurl themselves at you causing damage, but also hurt themselves in doing it. They flop onto the floor in a very comical style, and I never tired of seeing that attack. Then there are the sexy witches who do a bewitching attack called "Puff-Puff"...which is basically some fluttering of eyelashes and bust-jiggling while a cheeky parp-parp noise plays on the soundtrack...it can entrance the male characters, but if tried on Jessica it will fail, and the caption says "Jessica has won the battle of the bulges"...And in addition to all this madness, the voice acting is British! People talk in a wide range of comical accents ranging from broad cockney to the overly affected, they call each other "dearie" or "old bean", and talk about tea and say things like "posh" and "cor blimey"...it was all very accurate and authentic!
The above examples should let you know that Dragon Quest can be a very entertaining game as well as a challenging one. But don't let all this fun fool you - some parts of it can be tough and there are times when you may think the enemies being thrown at you are unfairly difficult. So be prepared for a challenge. Interestingly, the game never ends after a party defeat, you will automatically be resurrected at the last place you saved - but minus half your total money holding, which is harsh indeed if you have saved up a small fortune to spend on expensive weapons and items, only to see it completely halved by one defeat. But again, the game is not really unfair, as I already mentioned that if the going gets tough, simply take a break from your current quest (flee current battle, call Monster team, etc), by immediately warping to a town to recover and save. There's no need to risk the next random fight if you are near death with no magic or healing items! However, you may be well prepared but still fall in the face of a particularly unfair match (I've seen battles with up to TEN opponents squaring up to my team of four!!), but to ensure your finances, the game has banks in certain towns for you to deposit money in, rather than carry it around, and this is NOT lost by a party defeat. So be sure to drop off large sums regularly - its free! Plus defeat and ressurrection does not rob you of any experience gained up to that point...so put that together and I hope it all sounds like a fair trade for the harsh save system. I appreciate the thought put into these settings, as I feel they are fair enough to stop unexpected death being a total waste of 3 hours play without saving, but strict enought to make you cautious, and learn when to retire and re-group. It only took me two cash-draining downfalls to never forget it!
Take all this in, and the game becomes totally addictive. It looks good, plays smoothly, and it's a long one too. Be ready to give up a lot of your social life!
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Massive guide to a massive game
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Dragon Quest is one of the biggest games I have ever played, there is so much to do in the game that you can easily lose your way in the world. With this brilliant guide however, you'll never get lost and you will be able to find out everything. The guide has maps of every area showing where every chest and object is, complete tables on every spell, item, monster and weapon as well as all the information on the Alchemy Pot. It's also great that the walkthrough is spoiler free and saves the secrets for a sealed section towards the back.
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