When comparing The World Ends With You vs DRAGON QUEST VIII, the Slant community recommends DRAGON QUEST VIII for most people. In the question“What are the best Android RPGs?” DRAGON QUEST VIII is ranked 16th while The World Ends With You is ranked 27th. 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 Steady progression
There is a fair learning curve to the game that allows players to steadily learn while they progress.
Pro Retooled gameplay to work on single screen
The original version of The World Ends With You was for the Nintendo DS, which utilized two screen s for the gameplay. With the Android and iOS port the gameplay has been retooled to work on a single screen.
Pro Deep gameplay
Unlike the majority of games on mobile The World Ends With You has great depth to the gameplay. The amount of options and length definitely shows that this game was developed for core gamers in mind.
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 High price
Like all Square Enix games on Android, The World Ends With You asks a very high price for what is essentially an old game. Though it does seem like at least a little bit of work was put into this port as the graphics are redone in HD and gameplay has been adjusted for a single screen.
Con Contains in app purchases
Despite being a $17.99 upfront paid game there are also in app purchases that are $0.99 an item.
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.