I really like Dragon Quest 8. I played Dragon Quest as a child but never got far in them, let alone beat them. The farthest I got was Dragon Quest Monsters but it was on an emulator which let you cheat with save states and rewind, although I was pretty young so I don't even think I did rewinding. The GameBoy Color had tons of remakes of the original Dragon Quest games but they were too difficult for my young self. DQ Monster was way better than Pokemon but none of my school friends played it so I dropped it and with it, Dragon Quest overall.

Fast forward to high school, a relative gave me gift card to an exclusive entertainment store. They had a limited selection of games but out of all of them Dragon Quest 8 was the best next to the shovelware selection. Now I can't remember if it had a demo disc of FF12, its been a while. Boy, what a choice that was. Fantastic game, very *very* high presentation values. At the time of release you have to remember that open world games weren't a thing on consoles, besides the Xbox classic. The PS2 being able to render that type of world with a day/night cycle genuinely blew my mind away, it was always the weaker console and everyone knew it next to GameCube multiplatforms.

The orchestra soundtrack was sublime. The voice acting was top-notch, it was cast by British TV actors and the London symphony if I remember this correctly. I don't think DQ8 ever became a Greatest Hits in USA or Europe, which is a damn shame considering how high quality it was. The first time you enter a cave the protagonist pulls out a torch, tiny details like this go a long way to establishing immersion and atmosphere. After DQ8 I reconnected with the franchise and got Dragon Quest Swords and went back to the DS DQ5 and got DQ9. The 3DS version fixed the major glaring issue, not being able to marry Jessica. Tons of quality of life changes like on-screen encounters. Just an overall 10/10 JRPG. The heart of DQ8's story lies in the father daughter tragedy.