When comparing Crashlands vs DRAGON QUEST VIII, the Slant community recommends Crashlands for most people. In the question“What are the best Android games without in-app purchases/paywalls?” Crashlands is ranked 18th while DRAGON QUEST VIII is ranked 43rd. The most important reason people chose Crashlands is:
For just the medium difficulty setting there is hours upon hours of content, and that's even if you skip all the side quests and just focus on the main story. Plus there are two harder difficulties to try and in the near future a tool will come out which will let you build your own adventures as well as play other people's.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Hours of content just in the main quest alone gives the player plenty to do
For just the medium difficulty setting there is hours upon hours of content, and that's even if you skip all the side quests and just focus on the main story. Plus there are two harder difficulties to try and in the near future a tool will come out which will let you build your own adventures as well as play other people's.
Pro Pleasing graphics that show off a well designed and polished game
The graphics look nice and you can tell time has been put into designing them. While not the most flashy, there is a certain style to the whole game that makes for a very cohesive experience.
Pro Pick up from your last save, no matter the device you are using, thanks to the built in cloud saving
Playable on Android, iOS and PC you're able to transfer the one game between multiple devices (on same or different operating systems) and take it with you anywhere you go. with a Butterscotch ID (the devs self implemented cloud save system).
Pro Excellent progression system where you never feel like you are grinding too much
Progression never feels sluggish or rushed, everything has a good pace to it from the farming of materials and grinding out the various components for the tons of items, to the incredibly unique combat/interaction system, it all blends well into a long gaming experience.
Pro Hundreds items to craft in a deep and varied crafting system that will keep the user busy for hours and hours
There are over 500 items that can be crafted in the game, giving the player quite a lot to experiment with and explore when it comes to crafting items.
Pro Great soundtrack that suits the humor and setting of the game quite well
A great mix of chill and energized music, that fits the setting of the game at all times. A pleasure to listen to on its own as well.
Pro Multiple game modes
Once you've finished the basic mode there's also a challenging and insane mode for replayability.
Pro Good writing
You don't need to read everything to enjoy the game but the writing is very good and really adds to the enjoyment.
Pro Lots of entertaining pop-culture references
Pro Fine grained controls over leveling each character
Instead of a class system that is found in all of the previous Dragon Quest titles where players upgrade their player through beating monsters a certain amount of time, Dragon Quest VIII uses a skill system to level up the characters and learn new skills by placing skill points earned through battle into the available skill tree, this allows for a more fine grained approach of leveling a character up.
Pro One handed gameplay design
The game plays in portrait mode to cater to the hardcore Japanese gaming audience that enjoy being able to play with one hand while commuting.
Pro Really long game
Including side quest the game can easily last over 100 hours.
Pro Classic JRPG battle system
As one would expect of a JRPG there are random battles on the map that are strictly turn based.
Cons
Con Cloud saves not through Google services
An extra account will need to be used in order to take advantage of the cloud saving as it does not work with Googles solution to cloud saves. While this does allow for the cloud saves to work cross platform, people may not want to take the extra step to make a new account with Butterscotch Shenanigans.
Con Not free game
Con Removed content from North American PS2 release
Things like the original orchestrated music and voice acting that were in the original North American Playstation 2 release have been removed from the mobile version of the game. Most likely to save room.