When comparing Golf With Friends vs DRAGON QUEST VIII, the Slant community recommends DRAGON QUEST VIII for most people. In the question“What are the best Android games without in-app purchases/paywalls?” DRAGON QUEST VIII is ranked 43rd while Golf With Friends is ranked 76th. The most important reason people chose DRAGON QUEST VIII is:
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.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Simple, but fun
The simple controls are easy to pick up, but hard to master. When you're playing with friends, it's a nice competitive environment with ample originality and thought put into the level design.
Pro Interesting ranges keep players enguaged
From rolling logs, rotating parts of the range, and super-speed convener belts, the more difficult ranges have obstacles which would be virtually impossible in real-world minigolf.
If you want to go even more interesting, you can change your golf balls out for cones, which will roll unpredictably and turns the difficulty up to 11.
Pro Active developers
This game is still extremely early access, but the devs are regularly updating with bug fixes and additional content.
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 Hard to view the range before shooting
Some of the ranges have obstacles which are hard to see before shooting - for example jumps over a streams, drops, or other obstacles. You can zoom out and pan around from your starting position, but you can't preview the range from the top.
Con Non-ergonomic menu
The main menu isn't very intuitive, but it does look nice. After a bit of hunting you can find what you're looking for, but it could certainly be made easier.
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.