Grandia 3 or Dragon Quest VIII

[Siri]

I heard someone mention that you dont actually see your characters on screen during battles in the DQ series... its not the same in VIII is it ?

Also just how cute is it ? Enough to make you barf ? I think that could bother me....

From what I've heard of the previous games and from what I've played of VIII, the visual formula of battles have changed slightly - you don't see your characters while making battle choices, but during the actual fighting sequence it will use different camera angles and such to capture whoever's involved, and shows your party actually doing something. there's also little generic animations when the group prepares for battle in a new area, or when the party wins.

As for the cute factor, I think the main concern is if you can stomach the visual style of manga as a whole - as the art design is done by Akira Toriyama, influences from Dragonball and perhaps Chrono Trigger are rife. you might need a second opinion here, but personally I think if you can stomach a typical japanese animation you'll have no qualms with the game.

[Pliskin]

As for the cute factor, I think the main concern is if you can stomach the visual style of manga as a whole - as the art design is done by Akira Toriyama, influences from Dragonball and perhaps Chrono Trigger are rife. you might need a second opinion here, but personally I think if you can stomach a typical japanese animation you'll have no qualms with the game.

Sounds like i'll be ok then. I may just download a few battles from Gamespot or something... see if I like the look of it.
I'm still leaning towards Grandia though... shame I cant view Video Game Plus website at work to see how much they both are...

'Access Denied by SmartFilter: Forbidden, this page (http://www.videogamesplus.ca/) is categorized as: Games. '

Damn you net police !

[Siri]

Both are ?0?529.05, so make that about ?0?531 each.

if you have to get it through VG+, then I would recommend against picking up DQVIII for now - The game comes in a Cardboard sleeve that holds the game and the manual (as the game comes with an FFXII demo in the case as well), and as it's a bit loose the Jiffy bag would probably maul the outside box. A bit like what happened to mine at the hands of the postal service thanks to the USPS card envelope :-/

[Pliskin]

Ok I've gone for DQ. I read the IGN review... which was pretty terrible.

I think I have made the right choice. You guys seem to love it... so I'm sure I will too. I need a good one to kick off my interest in RPG's again.

Thanks for all your help

Wish me luck !

[gossi the dog]

Have fun as it's excellent.

bear in mind GameArts is a part of Enix these day.

Not quite true that. Enix have a significant shareholding in the company but don't own GameArts outright.

[PresiDenton]

I would of waited until DQVIII gets its PAL release tbh. Its going to have extra content in it and so trumps the US version automatically.

I would of gotten Grandia III personally as its not been confirmed to be getting a PAL release yet.

But its personal preference at the end of the day I guess huh?

[gossi the dog]

There are no extras in the PAL DQVIII. All the extras they mentioned in the press release were already added to the US release over the original Japanese version. Plus with SE previous track record chances are it'll be bordered 50Hz, which looks crap and do you really want to spend an extra 10 hours or so playing a 60 hour game for no real reason?