I got this recently... for some reason since I got a PS2 earlier this year this game was on my list of games to try, and when I found it and a few other games last week at a store that sells loose (that is, disc only) PS2 games for $2 (the ones with cases are $7 or so...), I bought it. Whether I liked it or not, at $2 it was obviously worth getting, even though JRPGs definitely aren't one of my favorite genres...
On the one hand I had heard it partially compared (in its uplifting tone, humorous elements, and exploration) to Skies of Arcadia, which is of course my favorite JRPG, but on the other hand it's very traditional, and having to fight constant random battles while I wander around lost is something that bores me very quickly and causes me to stop playing games. Getting to a boss and then being told "You're too low level, go back and run in circles for an hour and then return" does that too... witness why I have not gotten very far in Secret of Mana -- an Action-RPG I know, but for the 'grind' argument, the perfect case. Virtually every time I get to a boss, I get slaughtered and get game over and have to do it all over again, but this time I have to run around killing the enemies in that area for a long time before I can challenge the boss. Needless to say, this is absolutely no fun at all and it didn't take all that long for me to stop playing the game. Meanwhile, I played, finished, and absolutely loved Illusion of Gaia, a game which does none of that.
Anyway, DQVIII. Well, I think I'm at about 10 hours now (at the abandoned underground monastery dungeon). So yeah, for whatever reasons, I'm having fun... it's pretty good, really. The graphics, music, and voice acting are all fantastic, first, and definitely help the game and make it fun to play. The story's good so far, nothing overly complex, but it doesn't need to be. What I've seen so far has largely been interesting and fun, enough to make me keep going and be entertained. As my liking Skies of Arcadia, Lunar, and Grandia might indicate, I don't necessarily like RPGs to have depressing, convoluted plots full of too much pointless tragedy and the like...
As for the combat, it is extremely traditional, that's for sure. Really, beyond the annoyingly long load times before and after battles, the main thing I'd complain about is turn order... that is, it's really, really frustrating to, say, try to heal someone near death, but then have it be up to random chance as to whether your character lives (your person goes first) or dies (if a monster goes first and kills them). A simple turn order indicator like some RPGs have would have made a big difference, for sure.
Other than that, I think it'd have been better off with an automap you uncover as you explore, instead of the somewhat odd maps you get that reveal entire areas, but leave you blind until you find them. It would be more fun and more satisfying if the map simply was revealed as you explored... it'd give you a great reason to explore, too. As it is "find the chests" seems to be the main one, but for me at least "reveal the map" would probably be an even better reason to explore.
Anyway, it's kind of odd. It looks modern and has some of the best graphics I've seen on the PS2, but plays like a mid '80s game gameplay-wise. That means very, very simple core gameplay. That's surely part of why I played it so much in just a short time, in fact -- it's easy and relatively effortless to play (I don't mean "it's an easy game challenge-wise", because it's not, but even when it's harder, it requires little real effort beyond "go get a few more levels and then come back." That's what I mean. Sure there is strategy, but compared to the games I'm comparing it to here?). It requires almost none of the skill and strategy that I'd have to use to play Baldur's Gate or Neverwinter Nights 2, two RPGs I've been playing off and on for over a year now... in my opinion those two games are clearly far better than DQVIII, but because they take all that effort and thought to play, it's a very different kind of experience from a JRPG, where you spend most of the time listening to story without having to make any real decisions like the moral choices in a modern PC RPG or going through simple (whether or not they are hard, they are simple) battles. PC RPGs used to be a lot more like that back in the '80s, but they have changed while many JRPGs haven't... and DQ here is one of the ones that has changed least, but at least they did add elements like the map. I don't mean that as an insult really though -- older PC RPGs aren't bad games, by any stretch of the imagination. But Baldur's Gate is the game that really got me into the RPG genre, unless you count Quest for Glory... going from that to JRPGs, it took me a long time to not dislike them for their relative simplicity and lack of strategy, moral choices, more extensive NPC interaction, etc. Skies of Arcadia was probably the first JRPG I loved... but anyway, despite those caveats, DQVIII is a pretty fun game. I just wish JRPGs would find a way to cut back on the grind (I HATE GRIND!) and endless string of simplistic, repetitive battles and replace them with something that's more meaningful. For me at least, even a simple positional system (such as Lunar 1 and 2 (SCD/Saturn/PSX vers) or Grandia or FFXII or Skies of Arcadia) goes a long way. DQVIII does at least have a slight positional/grouping element with which enemies you can attack... being able to attack all enemies of one type in a hit, for instance. That's nice, but even more would be better.
So yeah, it reminds me a lot of Grandia, a game I started playing sometime last year. Every so often I go back and play a bit of it, really like it, and then slowly start to get bored again as the simplistic, often thought-free (apart from bosses) combat and great length of the game sink in again...
Seriously, if more of the fights in these games required the thought and strategy of the boss fights (assuming that you're at the perfect level to be challenged, but not overlevelled), they'd be a lot more engaging really... but like with Grandia II or most of these games, it's like "okay, that was fun, I beat the boss, back to the same old "mash the 'Attack' button repeatedly for a long time until I reach the next one...
"
Oh, as for FFVI, I only tried to play it once, but quit three or four hours in out of boredom. The only FF games I've gotten farther than that in are the two I have for PS2, FFX-2 and FFXII... XII is pretty good (an interesting fusion of traditional JRPG and MMO stuff...), X-2 okay. I haven't played a DQ game for more than a very short amount of time before.
Q -- the difference between the challenge it offers and the one offered by DQ8 is that the former is strategical and cerebral, while the latter is mostly one of stamina.