Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King

Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King is the eighth installment in the Dragon Quest series, developed by Level-5 and published by Square Enix for the PlayStation 2 video game console. It was also later…

87 27 November 2004

Adventure Role-playing (RPG) Strategy Action Fantasy

Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King is an adventure developed by LEVEL-5, released 27 November 2004 on PlayStation 2. The main story takes about 72.5 hrs to finish.

Verified 27 Sep 2026 Sources: IGDB , Wikipedia

What Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King is

Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King is an adventure game developed by LEVEL-5 and released in 2004. It was published by Square Enix. It is available on PlayStation 2 only.

The premise, in the publisher's words

The court jester Dhoulmagus of the kingdom of Trodain stole a powerful magical scepter sealed beneath the royal castle. Using the power of the scepter, Dhoulmagus destroyed the castle, placed a curse upon the kingdom and its people, and turned King Trode into a troll and the princess into a horse. A sole surviving castle guard journeys with the king, the princess, a reformed bandit named Yangus and a few other companions in search of the evil jester and a way to break the curse.

Description from the publisher · source

How it plays

It is played from a third person perspective. Its themes are action and fantasy. It is a single-player game with no multiplayer component.

Where it sits in the Dragon Quest series

Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King is the 31st of 122 entries we hold in the Dragon Quest series. It arrived 8 months after Dragon Quest V: Tenkuu no Hanayome. The next entry was Itadaki Street Special in 2004. Its critic score of 87 is 14 points above the series average of 73. The highest-rated entry is Dragon Quest VII Reimagined at 92.

See all 122 Dragon Quest games in release order →

How it was received

Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King holds a critic score of 87 out of 100. That places it above 88% of the 7,530 rated adventure games in our database, which average 72. Games released in 2004 averaged 70, so it scored 17 points above the year average. Player ratings track closely with critics at 87, across 129 votes.

How long it takes, and what that costs

The main story runs about 72.5 hrs. Completing everything takes closer to 101.5 hrs, roughly 1.4 times the length of the critical path.

What it launched against

Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King launched on 27 November 2004, within three weeks of Half-Life 2, Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II - The Sith Lords and World of Warcraft. It reviewed better than all of them.

Released around the same time: Half-Life 2, Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II - The Sith Lords, World of Warcraft.

Cheats and codes

We have not confirmed any working cheat codes for Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King yet. Rather than reprint a list we have not tested, this section stays empty until one is verified.

Know one? Send it in and we will test it →