More of Everything: Dragon Quest VIII

I'm just about to pass the fifty hour mark on Dragon Quest VIII, meaning I've played it for longer than Bully and Marvel: Ultimate Alliance combined. I wish I could tell you how much longer I'm going to be playing it, but I honestly have no idea how much plot is left to the game. I could be on the last leg of a fetch quest right before I go to fight the final boss, but there's a whole other island/continent I haven't even begun to explore.

I could've shaved at least five hours off those fifty if I didn't keep bucking against the game design: although the game frequently sends you out into the world with vague directions (like, "there's an old man in the Western Woods who can help you") the roads and landmarks are designed to lead you there if you don't run off in the woods and act like a 'tard. Unfortunately, I was raised to run off in the woods and act like a 'tard (only upon typing this did I realize how true it was) and so, whether through impatience or insecurity, I've struck out repeatedly for the corner of Fuck-All and Nowhere, despite knowing better: it was after I failed to find the proper entrance to the Western Continent, and had to consult a FAQ, that I grokked to the handholding via landmark layout approach. And I still went on to fuck it up and, in fact, feel confident I will go home after writing this and fuck it up all over again.

Y'see, there's this cat chapel that I came across right after leaving the casino town in mourning to get the magic mirror at, uh, Avignon? Avalon? Richard Avedon?, and, after asking a question or two and realizing that this wasn't the town I was looking for, I split.

Now, this cat chapel was placed there for a reason. Even a dumbshit like me knows that. But I assumed it was some later quest I would do on my way back, or maybe just a bit of lovely local color that would tie in with someone's backstory.

Nope. This chapel exists so that, if you do the subquest it's tied to, you get a nifty little beastmount that'll make your land travel go two to three times as fast. If I hadn't been a dumbass, my quest to the far-flung of town of Richard Avedon would've been markedly shorter and, since this game relies of random monster encounters for most of its action, markedly easier.

And how did I find all this out? By going back to that FAQ when, after completing the giant lizard hunting ground subquest you get in Richard Avedon, I was unable to find the above-mentioned Western Woods, the next step in my quest. Lemme tell you, I really worked my ass off trying to find this Western Woods--I have a fucking boat, mind you, and I sailed around the Western edge of that continent looking for a forest. And when I found it, I wandered through the ass-end of it, getting in 'tarded random monster fights and getting nothing for my trouble but some paltry gold and a painful leaking of my players' Magic Points. So, yeah. When I asked the rhetorical question that opened this paragraph, I originally was going to type, "I took the easy way out--I looked at a FAQ." But, really, I did it the hard way--running off in the woods and acting like a 'tard, but only after fucking sailng--and still had to check a FAQ. That's how I found out where to find the Western Woods and how to get a Sabrecat mount to get your ass around. Fuck.

FAQs probably deserve a post all their own in this blog of mine. Like most video gamers, I have a strong love/hate relationship with them: the only thing worse than not discovering something awesome in a video game because a FAQ tells you first, is being stuck forever on some god-damned stupid puzzle, design flaw, or misunderstanding between you and the designer *without* a FAQ to save your ass. Game designers, of course, know this, which is why the difficulty of puzzles have diminished over time and the number of cool, hidden easter eggs have grown. I expect that's only going to continue as video game playing demographic gets older and has less and less time on its hands but still wants cool, unexpected shit to pop up and surprise it. (Remind me to write about the Monster Arena sometime.)

And yet, that approach is also, to an extent, the antipathy of the old-school RPG from which Dragon Quest VIII is descended. Like a pen and paper RPG, the random monster battle is a vital component of the game. Sure, I'm wandering around like the map like a like an idiot, but I'm also gaining crucial experience points, leveling up, and finding the occasional valuable treasure out in the middle of nowhere. If the giant lizard hunt is any indication, I'm comfortably ahead of the level curve because I beat those lizards down without breaking a sweat.

And that's another reason why I suspect that the plot isn't over yet--I've heard this game has about 50 to 100 hours of gameplay to it. Since I'm not exactly doing a speedrun, I bet I'm going to clock in closer to 100 hours, even without doing the "make every item/beat every monster/open every treasure chest" route. That worries me becuase I like all the little sidegames, sub-quests and mini-what-have-yous but I don't want the game to become a chore. Unless it's structured well, that happens with games more often than not--I think they prefer to leave you oversaturated than leave you wanting more--and I worry that could really be the case with Dragon Quest VIII, since I'm already 50 hours into it and have no idea how much more they're going to string the story along. (Considering I haven't even finished the subquest that'll let me play roulette--or anything else--at the big casino, I'm thinking: a lot.)

On the other hand, they were smart enough to throw in the Sabrecats...even if I wasn't smart enough to discover them. Maybe there'll be the chance for me to actually have more of everything, without it feeling like too much of nothing.