Imaging making the game not dead easy like DQXI, with not just lovely character, but sexy characters, without modern censorship and without modern bash on sex appeal or fan service. Now add funny moments that are actually funny and finally add the sense of adventure that old JRPGs used to have. That sum what DQVIII do well.

You actually die in this game and dying have consequences, dead character can only be revive on save points (till you get the magic to revive, but that's like 20h into the game and it's a 50/50 magic) and getting wipe out take half of your money. I would not say this is a hard game, it's not, but is not completely easy.

The look is a 10 out of 10 for a PS2 game, the jump from DQ7 is HUGE, the biggest in all the series. Toriyama's character design is beautiful, even for NPCs. Jessica gets a lot of fan service costumes and details, I'm always grateful for that, because is something modern mainstream games are not allow to have anymore. For me the weakest part of the design are the monsters, i can't get used to the goofy monsters of DQ games. Scenarios and overall world looks awesome.

The world is very open and the sense of "going in an adventure" is very strong, there's no waypoint or HUD message saying where to go all the time.

The story is super simple and classic, cliché, i would say.

Alchemy and Monster Arena do a decent job to add some variety to the formula.

My main complain is how painfully SLOW everything is... No skip, nothing have skip here.
Saving takes take like 10 unnecessary question and/or menu movement, same with item movements, menu navigation, everything. Random encounters makes exploration feel slow too, I feel for PS2 era we should already have real monsters on the map.
Also, this game is grindy, unfortunately, the main and almost only way the game knows to add difficulty is raising levels, farming is almost mandatory. There's very little place for skill or tactic in this game, gameplay is super straight foward, plain for RPG standards. Status-effect, buffs/nerfs, elemental rock-paper-scissor... pretty much all is negated in most important battles, they feel useless to be honest.

So if you want a comfy adventure and you have the necessary patience, i recommend this game, its one of those works where you can clearly see it was made with love. In my opinion this is the right game to get into the Dragon Quest series.

In a very PS1 fashion way, this game is unique, for good and for bad.

The good:
>Battle system is very original, the real time combo system is fun and kind of deep if played in Hard.
>NO RANDOM ENCOUNTERS... In a PS1 JRPG! That's really awesome.
>Dungeons again, very original, you explore them like a 2D platformer. They look great, lot of different themes, labyrinthine design and full of puzzles and without holding hands.
>20+ character to choose, each with a unique move set and unique Finisher attack. Tho I would have preferred less characters but with more evolution to them, like a 4th move or a 2nd Finisher when reaching certain level.
>Good blend of 2D sprites with 3D light effects.
>Beautiful art design.

The Bad:
>Like most JRPG of this generation, the game is quite slow; mandatory dialogues, no cutscene skip, etc.
>There is no visual change on characters; armors or weapons does not reflect on the battles, not even on effects, like fire or ice damage.
>As good as dungeons are, the towns feels useless, there is close to nothing to do on them. Go there, get the Einherjar, get out.
>The World map is pointless.
>The Story seems good but it get nowhere, it's like everything got cut at the end, also VERY ANTICLIMATIC Ending, i know there's a secret Ending, but the normal ending should feel like and Ending.

I feel the game is good but overstay it welcome.

Just like with the original from 2005, if you take it as a RE this is a bad game; the story and setting are dumb and Leon is pretty much John Rambo, i always resented that from RE4, it turned RE from a survivor horror series to a full action game... That aside, if you take it simply as a Action game this remake is great:
The content is amazing, the game feels big, complete and sufficient. (I'm not even talking about extras or DLC, just base game)
The new mechanics feels just right, like they truely belong to the game; the quick weapon swap, the parry or the way they implement the original QTEs as a more gameplay-ish mechanic. And the pinnacle to all this improvements are boss battles, they are no doubt better than the original RE4 boss battles. This are the best boss battles of any RE games so far. Just a little caveat to this, you MUST play it in Hardcore, that's where this game shine.

I have 2 main complains:

1. There's is a level of modern "sanitization" to the game... You know, the "This is problematic now, remove it" kind of bullsh!t.

2. The hold-my-hand spoilers on the loading screens. You don't have to find out how to beat things, the game spoils you the emotion of discover the enemy's weakness by yourself. I hate when games do that.

So, even when i love classic zombie RE games, at the end this is a very amusing and fun game to play, i can't get mad to that.
Also, this game runs pretty bad on PS4, lots of bad textures and framerate. The Island scenario is a framerate disaster, it was clearly designed for PS5.

Replaying this as preparation for Blasphemous 2 and because i only play it once back on release (2019) and it was quite a barebone game back then.

The added spanish dub is just incredible, back on release i was baffled why this game being developed by spanish devs and so heavily based on spanish culture didn't have spanish audio. But the work done worth the wait, it's in my opinion the best spanish audio in any game.
The Amanecidas are a welcome addition too, since the original bosses has all the look but they were not that interesting gameplay wise, the Amanecidas scratch that skill itch for me.
A new canonical Ending, lot of skins, NG+ modes and other little extras makes the game feels so much bigger and better now. The art is still incredible and weird and it's refreshing to see this Bizarre and Baroque Catholic setting instead of the more traditional "medieval" or "dark" fantasy. Love the weirdness of this game.

This is probably my 3rd favorite metroidvania of all time. The presentation is top-tier but the gameplay is a bit janky or clunky compared to other metroidvanias. It lacks some traditional traversal move to make the game a bit more fluid and also lacks a bit more variety on fight moves. Also, even after so many updates i still encounter a considerable number of bugs, especially against bosses, Sierpes boss is a clipping mess.

Being a Miyazaki's Souls game already make it better than 90% of games out there, i want to make that clear, but i got some problems with it:

I think the open world adds nothing good to the souls formula, sure, we finally have a open world game with top-tier level design castles and dungeons, but souls-games already had that. On the other hand i think that being open world actually hurts some aspect of the souls experience, like NPC Quests, which were already weird and messy on normal souls, but now it's just impossible to keep track or discover it by yourself. Another thing hurt in my opinion is NG+ (a big part of souls-games)
NG+ and FromSoftware style of NPC Quests are not designed for a 150h game, it's way too much. Being totally honest after a reaching like 90~100 hours of gameplay i stop caring about the game and just wanted to rush everything to end it, i was tired/bored of the game. That have never happen to me on any other Miyazaki's game.

Another thing that puzzle me is what the heck was George Martin doing in this game? Cause the story is the same thing Miyazaki is being doing for 14 years... The lore is almost the same if we change Great Runes by Lord Souls.

Also some open world areas like Montaintops, Nokron or Deeproot runs like sht on PS4, literally a power point presentation, the worst performance i have seen on PS4 so far, it's like Dark Souls Blighttown on PS3 again.

The good of the game?
The main legacy location (Stormveil, Raya Lucaria, The Capital, etc) are excellent, on the top of FromSoftware level. I think a shorter game with just those would have being better.
Bosses are ok, but there's a lot of repetition, tho. They got to fill those open world areas with something.
Lot of magics if that's your play style.
Last boss looks cool, but is a horrible fight, it's a "run and try to catch me" game more than a fight.

So, what i'm saying is: It's a good game, but compared to all previous FromSoftware Souls-game i have played (DS1, BB, Sekiro & DS3) it's my least favorite. This is Dark Souls 3 but stretched and diluted on a open world map.

Just another Megaman... A very plain one.
When i think about Megaman 8, i can still hear the music in my mind, or recall the clown level or the ice skate level, or remember the flying robot on the fortress. But this one is just... forgettable.
About the changes and new mechanics, i don't like the Gears system or how bolts are not collectible anymore but just coins.

The only good thing about the game is that even on normal, this game is hard enough, that give you a good reason to upgrade and buy stuff. So that's a good change compared to Megaman 8.

In pretty much the whole playthrough all i could think was: Megaman is stuck, the structure feel dated, i don't want to play the same game again. Megaman needs an evolution, maybe a reboot. Let's make a good story for a change or more/longer bosses, or different types of levels, even a new fckng final Boss that is not yet again Dr.Willy-on-a-skull! Compared to other games of this genre, Megaman 11 feels old and barebone, Megaman can not even shoot upwards after all this decades...

This will be a long one, cause this was one of my favorite PS1 games and it was the very first RPG i played in my life.

First thing to clear is; this game suffers from all the well known JRPG problems of its age: Slowness, no customization on character (no costumes, armors doesn't reflect on characters appearance, not even the weapons) annoying random encounters and the most important: painful EASINESS, which IMO is the biggest flop of this game, cause it affect others thing the game do well, like gameplay.

The story is mid, the whole idea is good, there's some good moments, twist or revelations, but ultimately fails to have you emotionally involved in the long run. I liked the ending, for the most part, but Yuna should have died.

So, with bad things clear out, here is why i still like the game:

1. I like the the way it does turn base combat, with commands executing in a kind of simultaneous way, this allow the Combo System, which i love.
2. I love the Master System, it's like an In-game-rewarded "trophies/achievements" system.
3. One of my most beloved role on Final Fantasy is Blue Mage, this game is the reason why. Here, Blue Mage is a universal mechanic for all characters.
4. Love the music, it's not as good as FF, but is very good.
5. This is probably the only RPG where i like the whole roster.
The rest is just a bunch of little things and quirks i like about the game, like how the money in this game have value, a lot mini games, the faeries thing, etc.

I just wish the game were harder, all those nice mechanics and quirks are ultimately worthless because the game is WAY too easy, it's just a walk until you reach the very last locations (The Tomb, Capital and Final Castle) that help to make the game feels boring, your are never in peril, i finish the game with only 1 game over (against the last boss and mostly because I thought it was scripted to die) I wish that final area difficulty was the default from the beginning. It also lack some end game dungeon/area where you can use all the things you master. The game let's you play after the last save, but there's no real reason to do it, since you already kill 99% of enemies.