When comparing Always Sometimes Monsters 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 Always Sometimes Monsters is ranked 48th. 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 An interactive tale of morals
The player is given many choices throughout the game, should they do something good or do something bad. Each will have their own outcome, of which will influence later parts of the game.
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 Depressing to play
The overall narrative of the game tends to frame the player as some form of loser. Despite all the choices the player is given in the game the outcome tends to be one of two scenarios that are either sappy or flat out sad, neither of which given any sense of fulfillment or happiness.
Con More interactive story than RPG
This game is more or less and interactive story with branching choices. Despite being made with RPG Maker and defining itself as an RPG it plays at best as a casual RPG that leans more towards a regular adventure 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.