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DQ8 Overworld - anything else like it?

J

Jonnyboy117

Member
The huge overworld full of hidden items and secret places is definitely my favorite part about Dragon Quest 8. To me, this was the promise of "next gen" (PS2/GC/Xbox) RPGs that was finally realized late in the generation. But I missed out on a lot of other PS2 RPGs, and I have to wonder if anything else had an overworld similar to the one in DQ8. The closest I've seen is FFXII, but I don't think it's nearly as cohesive or as interesting to explore. Any suggestions?
 
The next best thing to the huge, explorable 3D overworld of Dragon Quest VIII, filled with places to visit and secrets to find, is Skies of Arcadia on Dreamcast/GameCube. It's the only one that comes close in quality.

Unfortunately, a lot of PS2 RPGs didn't really do that much to advance fully 3D overworlds as they could've and should've, like Skies and DQVIII did... a lot of them use overhead perspectives (Wild ARMs, Suikoden V), point & clicks (Grandia, Suikoden III, Shadow Hearts), or connecting areas (FFX, FFXII, Star Ocean 3, Xenosaga).

I'd rank Tales of Symphonia below DQVIII and Skies, and then Tales of the Abyss below that -- Symphonia's overworld is nice, and you can explore some areas in a non-linear fashion fairly early in the game. Abyss' overworld is big but doesn't afford as much non-linearity, and unfortunately has crippling framerate issues.

From all that I've heard, Wild ARMs 5 is the next big thing in 3D RPG overworlds, and that's coming out soonish.
 
Overworlds like DQVIII should be the new norm for RPGS, honestly. I absolutely hate "Point and Click" warping like in FFX.
 
Yeah, DQ8 has a big overworld but it's mostly empty outside of a bunch of scattered chests laying about. I had more fun exploring Skies than I did in DQ8.

Blue Dragon looks to have a pretty substantial overworld...
 
Loved DQVIII's overworld. Nothing like exploring that little nook off in the distance and being rewarded with a rare weapon/item.
 
I thought FFXII did the overworld thing best of any recent console RPG. It could have been a little more cohesive, maybe if it streamed the environments instead of having loadtimes.

DQVIII was nice because it was bright and colorful but I thought it was pretty barren. The world didn't feel alive at all.

Skies of Arcadia's overworld may have been impressive years ago but it hasn't aged well. Play it again and you'll realize its almost completely linear and the islands are all very tiny. Still a great game tho.
 
Roque Galaxy is huge and the sense of scale is enorm, but it is mostly linear in its design unlike DQ VIII.
 
I just want to say, as someone who is playing DQ VIII for the first time now, that the overworld is indeed amazing. I'm only on the second continent now, but running around was never tedious for the 25+ hours I've put into the game so far. I wonder what other environments the other continents will bring.
What I will say though, is that exploring the world has one drawback: you will always have random encounters. Right now I always tend to put a limit to running around aimlessly, because there's always that interruption. There are items you can use to counter that, but they only last for a while. Don't get me wrong, I love the battles in the game and the diversity in the enemies as you progress. But if you want to thoroughly explore a portion of the map, you always get the same enemies and the interruption is still there. I hope there are means in the future that get rid of this element for a bit.

This was way worse in SoA, where you could only avoid random battles above the clouds, and you only got that ability near the end of the game.
 
winter said:
DQVIII was nice because it was bright and colorful but I thought it was pretty barren. The world didn't feel alive at all.
Click to expand...

What's so barren about it? I thought there was a lot of stuff there... not just neat things like treasure chests, but stuff to add flavor to the world like little creeks, waterfalls, crumbling ruins, things like that. It made the world feel very much alive to me. When you can go to this huge, out-of-the-way spot of the overworld that's difficult to get to and it rewards you with nothing more than an expansive view of the skyline, that's when you know you've got an impressive overworld.

winter said:
Skies of Arcadia's overworld may have been impressive years ago but it hasn't aged well. Play it again and you'll realize its almost completely linear and the islands are all very tiny. Still a great game tho.
Click to expand...

I think it's aged fine. It's structured to be fairly linear in certain regards early on, but as your ship progresses more and more areas open up to you. It's visually impressive and true 3D (which, again, is something very few RPGs have really pushed aside from Skies and DQVIII). And there are a ton of secret areas to find in it, which is exactly what these things should be geared around. It offers rewards for exploring.
 
ethelred said:
Symphonia's overworld is nice, and you can explore some areas in a non-linear fashion fairly early in the game.

...
Click to expand...

It's possible to get really shafted in ToS if you get out of sequence fairly near the start of the game!
 
Jonnyboy117 said:
The huge overworld full of hidden items and secret places is definitely my favorite part about Dragon Quest 8. To me, this was the promise of "next gen" (PS2/GC/Xbox) RPGs that was finally realized late in the generation. But I missed out on a lot of other PS2 RPGs, and I have to wonder if anything else had an overworld similar to the one in DQ8. The closest I've seen is FFXII, but I don't think it's nearly as cohesive or as interesting to explore. Any suggestions?
Click to expand...
Wild Arms 5 apparently.
 
cilonen said:
It's possible to get really shafted in ToS if you get out of sequence fairly near the start of the game!
Click to expand...

Makes things more difficult, but you don't get shafted. I played it out of sequence. It's more fun that way.

That's the way it should work, btw -- there's no point in allowing non-linearity if you're just going to scale the difficulty. The whole point is to challenge yourself by doing something you shouldn't necessarily be doing at that time.
 
cilonen said:
It's possible to get really shafted in ToS if you get out of sequence fairly near the start of the game!
Click to expand...

Are you talking about running into stronger enemies? Cause I love the danger of going into areas I'm not supposed to be in (and finding out the hard way). Scaling of any kind is absolutely horrible (usually tailored for hand holding).

I remember playing Dragon Warrior on the NES and fighting Scorpions and Mage Drakes way before I was supposed to right out the castle (at the most southern part, north of the Mountains). Its awesome
 
That's one of the many reasons I think that DQ8 is firmly and definitively one of the top 3 great RPGs on the PS2.
 
Yoboman said:
What? Didn't Nocturne have a point and click overworld?
Click to expand...

Not really but close. You're represented by a little icon that skims the overworld and you click to enter structures and locations.

It wasn't a cohesive explorable world like the other games being discussed so I'm sure why it was brought up either...
 
Adored it.

Spent 120+ hours with DQ8, scooped up all the named monsters, decimated all sidequests, traversed every inch. It was awesome.

Surprised at how so many found the game boring, DQ8 easilly stands as one of my most cherished PS2 experiences.
 
I much rather prefer clicking on a point and being put there automatically... Running to the next point on the map and fighting tons of boring fights is something I would rather not do when I don't have to. Especially when you need to backtrack some.
 
Wild Arms 5 is the closest thing to DQ8 in terms of overworld. And apparently it's the best game of the series so don't miss it.
 
This wasnt the promise of the next generation. In fact it seems to have been the downgrade. All the previous psone FF games had the large overworld filled with stuff, even xenogears had an overworld. Then FF X came out and didnt have one.
 
ethelred said:
Makes things more difficult, but you don't get shafted. I played it out of sequence. It's more fun that way.

That's the way it should work, btw -- there's no point in allowing non-linearity if you're just going to scale the difficulty. The whole point is to challenge yourself by doing something you shouldn't necessarily be doing at that time.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I know - I played it deliberately that way the second time round because I found I could! :D

Just thought I'd mention it in case someone new to the game wouldn't be aware what they were getting in to.

BlueTsunami said:
Are you talking about running into stronger enemies? Cause I love the danger of going into areas I'm not supposed to be in (and finding out the hard way). Scaling of any kind is absolutely horrible (usually tailored for hand holding).
Click to expand...

It's been a while so I forget the names of places, but after you cross the mountain pass on the first continent where you first meet Sheena, it's possible to head north, across a bridge and into the top continent before catching the boat across the sea. If you enter a town up there you trigger events that should only happen after you clear out the eastern continent and get the pass to head through the mountain gate up there - so it forces you to complete the whole northern continent's internment camp places and dungeons before the eastern one - it's tough, but fun as it makes the eastern continent a cakewalk. You also can't quit doing this halfway and go back to the boat you're supposed to take as it's gone once you trigger things in the north.
 
Darunia said:
This was way worse in SoA, where you could only avoid random battles above the clouds, and you only got that ability near the end of the game.
Click to expand...

But Legends fixed it with the White Map; also, it had slightly lower random encounter rates than the DC version. And yes, SoAL's overworld was awesome. It was definitely a lot of fun to explore and discover.
 
Dragon Quest 8's world was amazing, but I definitely want more from current-gen overworlds.

I want a world with the structural variety of Earth, I want seasons to affect where I can travel, I want rain to flood rivers and block passages, I want to be able to travel underground, I want the tides to come into play when I'm at sea.

There is so much room for improvement, and yet I see none of this being addressed in the near future.
 
DQVIII was perhaps one of the most epic games I've ever played and it was mainly due to the stunningly ridiculous overworld. Sure, the random battles could put a bit of a hamper on the experience of taking it all in, but it's amazing. If DQVIII on PS2 can do overworlds like that, there is simply no excuse for RPG's of this gen.
 
Definitely one of the best out there, very beautiful and big, only real flaw was the lack of content and load times when going into villages/caves. That game really pushed the PS2, and it shows with how slow the game is.
 
In this context, World of Warcraft has to be mentioned. It may have many other flaws, but the fact that you can explore a huge, huge world without any loading times or "zoning" whatsoever is still amazing.
 
DQ8 Overworld - anything else like it?
Click to expand...

I wish. DQVIII and Skies of Arcadia definitely take the cake here, with SoA probably edging DQVIII out, IMHO. I have a tolerance for shitty overworlds, but even I must admit that in way too many RPGs, it's represents one the biggest missed opportunities. :/
 
What really almost ruined exploring the overworlds of DQVIII and SoA for me was the random encounters, they desperately needed the option to outright turn them off like Wild Arms, a system like WAIV where you had to earn the right to turn off random encounters as you finished a certain portion or section would've been awesome.
 
Yeah, battles really ruin all of my RPGs too. Damn game getting in the way of the amazing, amazing stories they tell! ;p
 
Yep. DQVIII is definitely one of the best games on the PS2 or any system for that matter.

And the overworld map is pretty awesome.. Loved the first time you take the road and go down by the ocean...was pretty cool.

How does it look on the PS3 upscaled and in widescreen. I haven't gotten around to opening my new copy to test it.
 
Thanks all for the responses. I played SoaL for GameCube and did enjoy the exploration, although I thought DQ8 was much better in that department. (The slow combat and insane encounter rate almost ruined Skies for me). I'll definitely be keeping an eye on Wild Arms 5 thanks to this thread. I watched a friend played through a bit of the first WA but have missed the rest of the series.

I suppose WoW and FFXI provide huge worlds, although I dislike almost everything else about MMORPGs. Are the worlds in these games as well crafted and secret-filled as those of DQ8 and Skies of Arcadia?
 
Jonnyboy117 said:
Thanks all for the responses. I played SoaL for GameCube and did enjoy the exploration, although I thought DQ8 was much better in that department. (The slow combat and insane encounter rate almost ruined Skies for me). I'll definitely be keeping an eye on Wild Arms 5 thanks to this thread. I watched a friend played through a bit of the first WA but have missed the rest of the series.

I suppose WoW and FFXI provide huge worlds, although I dislike almost everything else about MMORPGs. Are the worlds in these games as well crafted and secret-filled as those of DQ8 and Skies of Arcadia?
Click to expand...

I think nothing currently comes close to WoW content-wise. But I didn't play DQ8 or Skies of Arcadia, so maybe you will be looking for "secrets" that don't exist in WoW.
If you're open to PC gaming, Oblivion has quite a massive world too.
 
Souther said:
Yep. DQVIII is definitely one of the best games on the PS2 or any system for that matter.

And the overworld map is pretty awesome.. Loved the first time you take the road and go down by the ocean...was pretty cool.

How does it look on the PS3 upscaled and in widescreen. I haven't gotten around to opening my new copy to test it.
Click to expand...

DQ8 looks ****ING awesome with upscaling and smoothing on. :D :D

EDIT: Playing it right now. :P
 
My jaw dropped when I was able to fly... probably the last thing on PS2 that made me go "wow".
 
Mejilan said:
Yeah, battles really ruin all of my RPGs too. Damn game getting in the way of the amazing, amazing stories they tell! ;p
Click to expand...
Sadly, that's exactly how I felt playing Kingdom Hearts II and Final Fantasy XII. That's not to say that those stories were amazing. It's more that I hated the battle systems.
 
i really didn't understand why there weren't more overworlds like that. we saw most PS1 rpgs have overworlds, but then it went into the "no overworld" thing.

i hope there are overworlds again. Oblivion is an amazing overworld exploration thing. if they did that for normal rpgs in a somewhat similar fashion, it would be very cool
 
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