So we covered some great bargain RPG finds such as Arc the Lad :TOS, Bards tale and others. Now we come to Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King (PS2) otherwise know as the famous Dragon Warrior series in Japan. This game can be found for $14 at most gamestops and ebgames.

What you need to know about this game is that it is old school, designed for those that loved rpgs in the 90's.
It is as turn based as it gets, has random battles, can be a leveling grindfest, and even has the main character not speaking(think shining force, etc)

The story itself is rather cliche about a cursed king and defeating an evil wizard and saving the world. What sets this game apart is:

-An excellent alchemy system of mixing and making weapons, armor, shields, etc.
-Skill points so your characters can gain new abilities in a weapon of your choice as well as character specific skills.
-Another bright spot was monster collecting to form a strong team for the battle arena. These monsters can be summoned in fights to make the game a lot more bearable.

Now i admit, the music was redundant and the level grinding was overdone, but I spent 75 hours on an rpg for the first time in a while.

I recommend this game for the old school turn based rpg lovers.

I've been considering getting this game for a long time, because my PS2 hasn't been played in probably 2+ years, and the only play it really has gotten was everquest... So, it's pretty much a new system...

Maybe soon..

Yeah, this game was a lot of fun, definitely a nod back to the old school way of doing RPGs, while presenting it with a beautiful looking world and a decent amount of character customization.

I can't say I was completely happy with the mass renaming of the classic Dragon Quest spells and skills (just like I hate it how SquareEnix is re-naming the xx-2, xx-3 spells from the older FF games to xx-ra and xx-ga in the remakes), but they did manage to cut down on an ability list that was getting rampantly out of control, while leaving enough to keep things interesting.