Rest in peace Akira Toriyama 💚

Dragon Quest 8 is about as pure of an adventure as you can get and I loved just about every moment of its main story and side content. After beating 11 and now this i'm developing a stronger appreciation for what dragon quest is all about and I feel like i've come around on it massively. At a point I was treating dragon quest 11 like other jrpgs i've come to know and love, this is the series that established so many of its trends after all, but in doing so I feel like I was critiquing it unfairly and overlooking the things that made it really special (which is why I deleted my DQ11 review and reevaluated its score)

The gameplay has evolved from those trends at a, shall we say, 'leisurely' pace; but I think that's what a lot of people love about it and part of why its so popular, you always know what you're getting and fans have actually fought against it to change - see dragon quest 9’s departure from its original action rpg direction and subsequent return to traditional turn-based combat in response to fan backlash. There’s been experimentation, new additions and quality of life changes but the fundamentals have never really changed all that much and if it isn’t broke, why fix it right? It will always sell like wildfire, but for good reason, there’s something about this familiar and homely approach to game design, sure you can pick it apart but if it didn’t work at its core and wasn’t fun, it simply would not have stuck around for as long as it has. Granted the original on the ps2 had random encounters and i’m glad to see those go in favour of visible overworld monsters, a totally meaningful change which is becoming the new norm - infact it always felt like the intention even way back when I was playing pokemon yellow (random encounters felt like a means to an end, a technical shortcut used to ‘simulate’ bumping into monsters on the road during your adventure by low memory, primitive console hardware). Basically what i’m saying is i’m glad some things like that have adapted over the years for something that I feel is better, but the template has not changed and there’s something comforting in that.

Comforting is what playing Dragon Quest 8 is on all levels really, even in its melancholic, dramatic and more tense moments, it exists in a fairytale-like universe where you know the heroes are going to win in the end and everyone will live happily ever after. Its not the destination that matters, it is the journey, the friends you make, the places you see and the memorable enemies and rivals you face along the way - simultaneously getting ever stronger and more confident as you go. These games are bedtime stories that you are literally thrust inside of and can take control of and its wonderful; at their best its like the game equivalent of being at home, on a soft chair, wrapped in a blanket with a hot drink in hand (I can also confirm that this is probably the best way to play them if you’re able). I came out of DQ11 enjoying my time but happy to see it finally come to an end, but then in DQ8 I truly fell in love.

Tonally I think DQ8 nails it, from the very beginning it is established that you are a guard to King Trode along with your pal Yangus and need to remove a curse from him and his daughter, princess Medea, which turned them into a monster and a horse respectively. This simple motivation extends to the entire rest of the game and there’s beauty in that simplicity, it never steers too far from its focus and I felt actively involved in the characters’ dilemma, rather than just some guy along for the ride. I love being bossed around by Trode and find him and Yangus consistently hilarious and lovable. Yangus in particularly is just the best isn’t he, just the most loyal bri’ish bloke I ever met, he’d have your back in a pub fight any day of the week and he carried me hard for the entire game, nothing on this planet could stop a max psyched and oomphed yangus.
Throughout the entire game I never got bored of its antics, narrative arcs and wacky characters with ludicrously over the top voice acting. I love love love its goofy voices and exaggerated accents, how can you not find it incessantly charming, the english VAs go above and beyond (though sometimes there’s something dire like Dominico or Rhapthorne’s first form, what the fuck were they thinking honestly, hilarious though).

Two things that stand out above all the rest and truly made this experience for me are its art and its soundtrack. Sadly both Akira Toriyama, the lead artist and Kuichi Sogiyama, the composer, have passed away now and I dedicate this to them, the future of this series and jrpgs in general owe so much to them both and thank you for delivering such outstanding work! The character (and monster) designs of dragon quest are outstanding but few of its characters are so colourful and full of personality as we see in DQ8, along with my favourite hero design in the entire franchise. The expressive models and brilliantly composed cutscenes do the designs so much justice and create some great scenes ranging from hysterical slapstick antics to this gripping, palpable melancholy. All this heightened by what is now one of my favourite soundtracks ever. DQ8’s soundtrack is beautiful and captures the ‘vibe’ of every sequence perfectly. Every mood it seems to try and convey is done masterfully and drives this consistent feeling of adventure, mystery, and longing. It can be dramatic or it can be soft and ambient, but its never boring, it never fades into the background, it is always there heightening every emotion the game wants to deliver and that’s something only the best soundtracks do. The smooth and soft violins make up a lot of this ost and they are intoxicating, sweeping over and wrapping around everything else.

Its hard to even pick a favourite moment in DQ8 and in this sense it kind of reminded me of ocarina of time, which similarly has these consistent highs where each storyline is as interesting and enjoyable as the last but the overarching tone always stays the same and this sense of familiarity never truly goes away. Not to mention the world itself is really pretty and fun to explore, the 3ds version is among the best looking games on the system I think. The towns and settlements feel like real places and their individuality shines, I particularly loved exploring castle trodain whilst it is under the curse, the melancholic atmosphere is top notch here and the best track in the game plays here aswell, only making it better. The final dungeon is also a total maze and I really enjoyed it, especially the part where you solve a puzzle by circling what looks like a small town which becomes progressively more cursed and ramshackled with each lap. Something that particularly stood out to me were the personal moments like hearing Medea speak to you in your sleep which I adored, the flashback sequence with Medea meeting the hero and looking after him and helping a king to overcome the trauma of losing his wife.

My only real complaints / criticisms are the incessant metal slime grinding needed to defeat that insane final boss and the sheer amount of randomness that involves as well as the creepy treatment / objectification of some female characters like Jessica, it feels out of place and uncomfortable and should go away. I don’t care for metal slimes in general and don’t see why they exist as a ‘mechanic’ or whatever, the fact they can be worth anywhere between 2x and like, 200x as much XP as what most regular monsters give is so unnecessary. I mean having some monsters be worth a fair bit more xp is fine but the difference is astronomical and this is the only real way to grind without wasting dozens of hours of your precious time and yet it involves so much randomness. A level of randomness is acceptable but there’s randomness to even find metal slimes in the first place because they’re pretty rare (at least you don’t have to find them in random encounters here thank god). After that there’s randomness in whether or not the slime will just flee immediately and there’s even more randomness in trying to get a critical hit to kill them, that’s multiple levels of random and if you get unlucky in any one of them it is frustrating as fuck! Again this wouldn’t matter so much if metal slime hunting wasn’t the fastest and most optimal way to grind XP since they are worth such a ludicrous amount more than regular enemies.

Without those things I think this would be 5 stars honestly, I enjoyed it so much. This game is just delightful, endlessly charming, warm, comforting and so endearing and silly. Its nice to delve into something that isn’t complex or witty or groundbreaking, it is just plain, simple, joyful fun. By the end credits I was smiling with goosebumps as the overture played on the main menu screen, *Keanu voice: yeah i’m thinking i’m dragon quest fan.

Persona 3 Reload is great just like the original, which I played a couple years ago as this series was cementing itself as one of my absolute favourites. I have a ton of thoughts to dump on this as a remake and as a modern persona game as I think it does a ton of things right - taking the most important entry in the series and elevating its high points to such highs and continuing what persona 5 established in its gameplay and mechanics. But even so, this is a remake of a game that really showed its age when I played it, and there's a number of things that could have changed more. I had been looking forward to this for ages, sidelining like a dragon because even though i've played it before, persona 3 was a game that I felt needed the modern overhaul and I couldn't wait to see how it would retell this really heartfelt story. But despite this, i'd grown wary of some of Atlus' cash hungry business practices and felt quite cynical early on due to them leaving out the female protagonist from Portable and The Answer from FES on release, meaning there's still no 'perfect' version of the game to play. I will hope that the answer at least makes its way into Reload as DLC. Both of these additions are beyond just nice to have too, as the female protagonist gave players a fresh new perspective on the game, new social links including ones with the male party members, excellent new music, a new velvet room attendant and lots more - suffice it to say 'Kotone' (her canon name), has come to be beloved by fans. Then there's The Answer which, while controversial in its excessively drawn out gameplay and muddy storytelling, did actually have a share of great moments when it dropped with P3 FES back in 2007 - like worthwhile character interactions and lore-dumping that ultimately provided more conclusive answers to the game's ending and backstories that showed each party member's previously unseen 'awakening'. The Answer also wasn't afraid to delve deep into each character's grief and trauma and I really like this aspect of it, as each character develops and grows closer to the protagonist throughout the game, only to be parted from them unexpectedly before the credits roll; seeing how each character must come to terms with this is quite a bold decision and while its definitely not amazing, I respect the dedication to these characters to have them argue and bare their scars so outwardly. I would have loved to see both of these additions make their way into the game and 'modernised' like much of the rest of the game, but what we got is still very good.

There's a lingering sense however, that this IS still a game from 2006 with a gorgeous coat of paint, there's aspects of it that I wish had changed more because even with turbo mode on an emulator that let me play at like 3x speed, I felt the length of the original persona 3 and the drawn out pacing quite heavily. I want to get most of my criticisms out of the way but fundamentally, persona 3 in its main story beats, like during full moons and voiced cutscenes, is usually awesome, especially after the summer break, which I personally find to be something of a turning point in the story. It offers some of the most insightful and interesting character development in the series, genuinely heartfelt character interactions and an earnest narrative with a central, all-encompassing theme around death and how it impacts people that I vibe with very much. Inbetween full moons however, I still find a fair bit to be desired, since the world feels smaller and more contained with not a ton to do and the social links in particular are really lacking, something they built on a lot in the following games in my opinion. While ultimately so worth it, you have to push to get to the best stuff a whole lot in persona 3 and the same applies here, but its easier to digest and enjoy because of the stellar presentation, near-constant high quality voice acting that was missing from the original and an improved version of tartarus that is far more enjoyable to explore. This is a highly faithful remake and on one hand I like that, it lets people experience the original for what it was in many aspects and retains that killer mid-late 2000s 'vibe' that I love, but in other aspects, I think it could do more. The s links in this game could really have been changed for the better, there's so many characters I actively dislike and don't want to hang out with and thankfully, since I knew what they were about already, I could fast-forward a lot of them, but still...in Persona 5 I felt like I could build those relationships and get more benefits from them, it was a give and take to some degree, for one I felt like I could say what I wanted to more often and kind of 'roleplay', and in turn you get advantages from hanging out with them in the form of new skills and stuff, I like that. In persona 3, a more primitive experience that established this formula before it was built upon, you have to not only enable, but actively encourage bad habits and toxic behaviours in people to kind of 'suck up' to them and I don't care for it. Particularly noticeable with a couple of the male schoolmates, you do just have to tell people what they want to hear even if that means telling them that they're doing the right thing when they so clearly are destroying their lives, you get more points towards building your s links by being like ‘your problematic behaviour rules’ and its not like most of the s links really change themselves for the better, they just grow to like you more.

This isn't to say they're all like this or that they are outright bad, Yuko is great in this game, I love her VA and how naturally she comes across, huge props to Shelby Young, it really does feel like im just listening to a friend, such a compelling performance even though she plays a quite minor character. Akinari is also one of the most beloved s links in the series for good reason, its really sentimental and melancholy with obvious ties to the game's central theme and the way it wraps up and the new scene they add for it at the end drive that home since the player character isn't so different from him, loved it. The SEES girls have pretty solid s links its just annoying that you still have to max out your 3 social stats to be able to hang out with them which is a crazy grind. What does bother me is that you could have the male party members as social links but they just aren't, you could replace kenji, nozomi and kaz with akihiko, junpei and ken, I mean those are in portable and they would fit those same arcanas well enough. BUT, with this being said, they do still do a lot to characterise P3's cast further such as during new hangouts inside and outside of the dorm and being able to talk to your friends almost every day and hear their thoughts on the developing story or just on their lives in general adds a lot, something that 3 does have over 4 and 5. In general I love just chilling with my buddies and the SEES party members are great, but they don't necessarily start out amazingly, early on they don't leave much of an impression, I find them quite one-note and uninteresting to start with, its only around july onwards that genuine character drama, flaws, dilemmas and development begins.

In general I do find Persona 3 to be quite a 'tell, don't show' sort of game in large portions, and the remake doesn't exactly resolve this completely. Its something that doesn't actively bother me or anything and its ok for a game to have quite straightforward narrative beats and dialogue if its done well, but up to when shit starts to ramp up properly around september, does anything really happen? There's an overarching mystery to do with tartarus, the origins of SEES, the kirijo group, where Pharos came from etc, but its stagnant for a huge portion of the game - when it gets going, I like where it goes, but its such a straight line gameplay wise and narratively for such a long time that it does the old joke of 'trust me it gets really good after the first 30 hours' too much justice. Not to say its outright bad up to that point, I don't think it is, but its nothing to write home about, and then it just flicks a switch. Its around the time Aigis joins, the game goes from a fairly repetitive life-sim and dungeon crawler to becoming this truly engaging mystery with drama and stakes - something I think persona 4 and 5 do a lot better because of stronger pacing and more immediacy in its writing and gameplay, such as witnessing the scene of a murder and having to save yukiko in 4, a party member who will just die if you don't make it in time, or taking down kamoshida in 5, a genuinely great first villain that I actively wanted to see beg for forgiveness (exploring the palace is good fun too). This makes persona 3 harder to recommend and genuinely mean it for someone that's never touched these games or anything like them before, this will be where a lot of new players start and i'm sure it will do well in getting them onboard but I don't love it the same as I love 4 golden or especially 5 royal.

Once things really start moving however, Persona 3 has some of the biggest stakes and most affecting moments out of the 3 modern formula persona games, with the revelation with Yukari's father and then Shinji, Chidori and Mitsuru's father's murders creating excellent narrative highs that drive the motivation behind SEES and their ultimate responsibility. But, on a more personal level, they allow the characters to shine so much and come to terms with themselves and their resolve, this is felt even more strongly in Reload which features really powerful voice performances, beautifully animated cutscenes and new, extended dialogue and scenarios that allow these moments to breathe where the original might have just cut right back to your day to day life after experiencing the most traumatic shit the characters' have ever seen. In particular its cool to see Junpei go through such a change because even though I don't like Junpei and find him incessantly annoying, he does have an absolutely raw cutscene when Chidori dies and the VA put in the work for sure, goth girl attention really changed the man huh. I am also a Ken defender and really like where things go with Ken, as I know a lot of people hated him in the original and I do find him underdeveloped and underutilised in P3, but here, they clearly actively try to make Ken more likable and sincere I think. He's a kid that has to go through a fucked up childhood and I think he earns being as conflicted and angry as he is and people like to pin the blame on him for what happened to Shinjiro but its the perfect conclusion to Shinjiro's arc and the perfect driving force for Ken to discover how to move on and live his life. I like the new hangout scenes with Ken a lot where you go out and have food with him and then fight him on the rooftop, it might be more lacking in terms of change and development when compared to say, Yukari, but I vibe with Ken's story a lot and find it kind of refreshing in a way (plus I kept him in my party throughout the game since he's buffed so much now). My favourite character by far though is Aigis, I love Aigis when she's just an ass whooping robot and I love Aigis when she blossoms into her own person just like the rest of the main cast, she's a very important character that I think the game would be actively worse without, I like her that much, she is in my top 3 persona characters for sure. In general I find her funnier and more enjoyable to hang around than Junpei, the actually intended comic relief and then when the major themes come crashing in and Aigis must learn to live and let go, it hits me like a truck every time. Her s link and her final scenes with the protagonist never fail to make me feel all sentimental and in this game it is just handled perfectly, pristine stuff, just having someone to protect and to look after can be all you need in life - those lyrics of the end credits song coming from Aigis' perspective while the protagonist closes his eyes for the last time in her lap give me goosebumps fr.
Another outstanding character that I was looking forward to returning is Elizabeth, voiced by the ever great Tara Platt, Liz's original VA and also the original VA of Mitsuru. Elizabeth is another lighthearted and endlessly funny character and the best velvet room attendent by far, I love how goofy her hangouts are and the way she is basically an alien to the world, enamoured by every little thing and behaving strangely due to a lack of understanding of social norms, just great setup for comedy and earnest, joyful moments. I also really like her formal demenaour and how it contrasts with her eccentric personality and the fact that she is like, canonically one of the strongest beings in the universe or something and the insanely hard optional superboss of the game. Her requests are also a nice change of pace for the game and are something that could have been carried into 4 and 5 I feel, since they encourage interacting with the world, putting more thought into how you fuse personas and reward you with helpful items and cosmetics for completing milestones in tartarus - genuinely surprised this isn't a thing in 4 and 5 actually?

As for the dungeon crawling / combat gameplay, lots of things I could say about Persona 5 Royal basically also apply here, i'm just going to list my thoughts:

- really fun 'all or nothing' combat system that might not be for everyone but gives a great power fantasy and allows you to snowball enemies, shuffle time is a fun mechanic to help with the grind and i'm glad it made a return.
- absolutely gorgeous animations, breathtaking menu design and special attacks and incredibly satisfying finishers, Atlus are at the top of their game with this stuff, the visuals are absolutely stellar.
- a well rounded and balanced party that is an improvement over the original since character strengths and flaws feel less overtuned, you can use anyone you like really and it won't make a huge difference; there's also less of a focus on insta-kill attacks and light/dark attacks can be cast as normal elements and of course, you can control your whole party now! While I do like the moments that having ai party members can give and it allows for personalities to come through in their decisions, its just more sensible and enjoyable to be able to control them so that was a given really, it had to happen.
- exploring tartarus might still not feel as satisfying and since the floors are mostly randomly generated, its not as interesting to me personally, but they have done a lot to make exploration feel more streamlined and involved, with materials you can gather all over alongside treasure chests, new mechanics revolving around a resource called 'twilight fragments' that work well and my favourite new addition - monad doors, since they give a solid challenge and great rewards including being able to map out whole areas. Its a shame they removed being able to use different weapon types with the protagonist though, I liked being able to have a bow or a greatsword.
- mechanically they learn from P5 royal in places where it matters, shift is literally P5's 'baton pass' which was a no brainer I think, such a simple mechanic that has such a dynamic impact on the overall feel of combat and its not as overpowered as P5R where the buffs you get from it might have been a step too far. The stylish aesthetic takes a lot of notes from P5 too and even has the same kind of finisher screens for each party member and there are smaller quality of life mechanics they carried over too, like being able to advance s links slightly even when they aren't available. P3R also pushes this further with even more QoL changes such as teamwide buffs/debuffs being instant rather than one at a time. Fast load times, quick, snappy animations and plenty of other stuff I could go on about make this feel like a much more streamlined experience which I can only commend, I mean I almost forgot that party members in the original would get tired and perform worse in tartarus until you wait a few days, could have been a cool mechanic but instead everyone just disliked it.

In terms of where it could be improved, full moon 'scenarios' are almost identical to the original and still feel sort of like you're just going in a straight line until you beat a boss. I feel like they could have pushed this further such as in the hotel with the mirrors, they could have made it a taller tower with multiple floors to explore and regular shadows to bump into, but instead its pretty much exactly the same - you're told where to go, you go there, there's a short character segment and then you fight a boss, I was hoping for something a bit more engaging than that. The full moons are the thing you look forward to and creep towards during your routine day-to-day life, its the moment where the story develops and the characters must fend off a greater threat so its a shame that they still feel straight out of 2006, but despite this I do still really enjoy the major boss encounters and they felt just right on hard difficulty. It does come off lazy during certain moments in the game such as when you first encounter aigis and have to chase her by running in a straight line across like, 4 or 5 screens for some reason. Going into club escapade and seeing all the npcs just posing and not moving on the dance floor is also dissappointing, that 'minigame' where you have to ask for their drinks made me think of pokemon scarlet/violet gyms which is...well, the less said the better.
I'm also left a little baffled at times by the games' own logic and world since it leaves a lot of questions open and I found the whole 'memory loss' aspect of the ending quite bizarre and unnecessary, it doesn't make the ending any more impactful, but then it doesn't make it any less impactful either, what a fucking ending... The way they really drive home the player characters’ death and make its impact feel as heavy as possible is just great, what with the added dialogues with s links and party members right at the end and multiple instances of chatting about the future, like the devs are knowingly teasing us. Knowing how it ends actually makes its most impactful moments and interactions that much heavier,

Overall I loved my time with this and I realise that because im replaying persona 3 not long after the original, I am very burnt out and much more aware of the little nitpicks I am making. This is still not my favourite persona game but man does it make me excited for what is to come, this is a beautiful game in its best moments and enamoured me and even made me cry like, 3 times? Memories of you is still the greatest track in all of persona and speaking of the soundtrack, I do actually really like this games' ost! I know some people find it to be a 'flatter' and less interesting iteration of the original, but in general I really like how much jazzier and softer parts of it are, I am also so glad to see Lotus Juice back even though I don't find his lyricisim impressive at all, I love his rapping and his flow and how much it adds to the aesthetic of persona 3. I don't think the ost is as good as the original though in fairness, the original has that punchiness in its percussion and is so early-mid 2000s that I can't help but love it, though I am glad that they kept the kind of 'weirdness' of the originals' soundtrack in songs like deep breath deep breath (literal auditory panic attack) and a deep mentality (one of the strangest, but simultaneously coolest tracks in the entire series with those bizarre edited vocals and hard hitting breakbeats). I guess its kind of another way that this remake takes from persona 5 since the soundtrack is mostly toned down with the edges smoothed out, incorporating more jazzy elements and a wall of sound. This isn't to its detriment neccesarily, I mean persona 5 + royal has my favourite soundtrack of all time and it still retains that early 21st century alternative vibe so im all for it, but that original soundtrack is just so strange and cool. I held off from listening to the new memories of you because I wanted to hear it in game and i'm so glad I did because it destroyed me, getting multiple minutes of instrumental feels like christmas again. Thank you as always Shoji Meguro, one of the GOATS, Atsushi Kitajoh you did an outstanding job with the material. Persona to me is moreso about the feelings, the aesthetic and the joy of just existing and interacting with this parallel world full of fun characters that become your mates than it is about an amazing narrative with complex roleplaying elements or anything but I also just love the combat/exploration gameplay wholeheartedly. I do start to feel the fatigue of this formula with the sheer amount of dialogue and day-to-day stuff you have to go through, but i'd still be ready for it all over again when Persona 6 eventually carries the torch since they craft experiences that aren't quite like anything else.