When comparing DRAGON QUEST VIII vs The Forgotten Nightmare, the Slant community recommends DRAGON QUEST VIII for most people. In the question“What are the best non-arcade portrait mode story driven Android games?” DRAGON QUEST VIII is ranked 1st while The Forgotten Nightmare is ranked 3rd. 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 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.
Pro Good for those new to the genre as well as those who have played text adventures before
The game is easily accessible to anyone, gamer or not. The story is well written and what is asked of the player is explained adequately, so there is little confusion of how to control the game, which is great for those new to the text adventure genre. For those that are familiar with the genre, the story is intriguing and allows for plenty of exploration.
Cons
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.
Con May be overly religious for some
The story in the game has may religious overtones that may turn off some users.