This is useful to use along with online walkthroughs. A detailed walkthrough, with specific strategy suggestions for each boss, would require a book much longer than this one. This book does give a primer on how to begin and then goes on to describe the various battle skills and spells, as well as handy descriptions and recipes of armor and weapons and items. The maps are nice also. This book has enough information to play the game, even without the walkthroughs. The walkthroughs, though, give some protection from the trauma of being beaten in battle and their suggestions can get you through parts of the game more speedily.

The good about this guide is that it is NOT a walkthrough, is a GUIDE, meaning that you don't get spoilers of any kind, just a guide to optional interesting items, a bestiary, treasure chest locations and maps of cities, a guide, if you want someone to tell you where to move the cursor you are probably better off with some IGN text one. To me this is a good thing because you still have the story to look forward to and don't have to worry about impossible mazes or whatever, and it is fair.

This guide does have great info and it's huge has lots of maps but it doesn't hold your hand and tell ya how to get from point A to B. Doesn't give away any story but there's alot of missing infomation i was more frustrated because the lack of info. It give's info on some aspects of the game while others just non-existent. This is more of a game atlas then a game guide with some side information i suggest gamefaqs or other online sites be better if you really want to have a guide then i suggest getting the piggyback uk version of the guide be bit more expensive but has full info and walkthrough i got mine at amazon.co.uk i give the piggyback version 5 stars but this guides just falls quite bit short as a game guide.

If you're knee-deep into Dragon Quest and you're thinking about buying this strategy guide, don't hesitate. This is the most well constructed guide I have ever used. There weren't any big spoilers and there wasn't a 'take you by the hand because you don't know how to play games' walkthrough section.

This is a great guide. It has all of the items, most of the chest locations, extensive bestiary, great alchemy info that you can easily cross reference with other sections, and pages on the different locations with recommended level info. The illustrations are beautiful, and the format is well presented. I find myself constantly using this guide while, at the same time, feeling like I am figuring out the game for myself. People who didn't like this guide were probably looking for a little more 'hand holding.' Nothing wrong with that, but I preferred this format.

This item came very fast and in great condition..i got this item for my brother and it is working just fine and dandy..thank you for your buisness and i hope to do some in the future.

While this makes a nice companion of sorts, it is in no way a comprehensive strategy guide. Most of the item locations are given as "unknown..." and it doesn't even list most of the bosses. I just wish I had known all this before I bought the book, since I could have simply downloaded a decent walkthrough on Gamefaqs and saved myself $18.

Now, for some of the positives: it does give nice maps for all areas, and shows where most of the treasure is located on the overland maps, but not in towns. It has a nice section on alchemy, although it admits that there are probably some recipes that aren't covered in the book.

As much as I hated the book, my husband loved it, hence the 3 star compromise. If you just want an atlas, by all means you'll love this. I admit to wanting a little more hand-holding from my strategy guides, so I wasn't a fan.

While this makes a nice companion of sorts, it is in no way a comprehensive strategy guide. Most of the item locations are given as "unknown..." and it doesn't even list most of the bosses. I just wish I had known all this before I bought the book, since I could have simply downloaded a decent walkthrough on Gamefaqs and saved myself $18.

Now, for some of the positives: it does give nice maps for all areas, and shows where most of the treasure is located on the overland maps, but not in towns. It has a nice section on alchemy, although it admits that there are probably some recipes that aren't covered in the book.

As much as I hated the book, my husband loved it, hence the 3 star compromise. If you just want an atlas, by all means you'll love this. I admit to wanting a little more hand-holding from my strategy guides, so I wasn't a fan.

I am the sort of person who always buys strategy guides for the more complex games, so naturally I had to pick this one up as well. But for all its pretty pictures and fancy charts, there is very little "strategy" mentioned here. The book (quite intentionally, as it states in the preface) leaves out a lot of details about the storyline, the order of events, and the strategies for dealing with the main plot elements. The alchemy charts are nice, though it can be a bit cumbersome flipping back and forth between the sections to find all the answers. The charts are fairly helpful, though the monsters are sorted in the unique numerical order as they are listed in the in-game "battle records", rather than being sorted by type or listed alphabetically, which makes cross-referencing a real chore. Very little useful information is given about the storyline unless you are willing to flip around from section to section following the vague clues provided in the descriptions. Finally, it seems as if the manufacturer cut a few corners as well, and both my copy and the only used one I saw at the store were falling apart, the spine glue weakened to the point that individual pages were falling out.

Overall, though the game is no doubt one of the most exciting FRPG games I have played, and is capable of providing hours of fun and excitement, the BradyGames strategy guide fell fall short of the mark in trying to live up to its name. If there IS another guide on the market (I have heard rumors of a British company developing one), it may be worth holding out for that one rather than picking up the BradyGames version. Then again, there's always the Internet...

dragon quest 8 is a game that takes a lot of time to complete but if you know what to do it is really fun. dragon quest 8 is a extremly long game i have played 123 hours and i am still not done. in this game you are screwed if you dont get alchemy recipies, this game is extremely good if you know what to do at times you wont know what to do and it will take you a long time to figure out so it might get a little anoying. overall if you do what you are suppose to and you get really far into the game it is good.
(if you ever plan on completing this game you are going to need a whole lot of time )

Not a bad a game. I got it because it is getting harder and harder to find RPG games with the old fashioned turn based system. The enemies are a little cheesy, but the dialog isn't too bad. It also has the japanese animation feel to it. I give it a four because I have always been a fan of these type games. Final Fantasy I back umpteen years ago is what hooked me into these types of game...but FF now wants to incorporate real time into its games, so a game like this is a nice return to the turn based type games. I recommend this for those that like turn based RPG's, japanese animation AND if you like only loosing half of your gold money when you die...as opposed to having to start back where you last saved.

Wow brady games this is the absolute worst game guide i have have ever seen. The info is at best incomplete and at worst completely missing. The generic review mentions bosses, don't hold your breath. None of the bosses i have fought yet are in the book (im 70 hours into it). Also don't expect anything aproaching a usable walkthrough just go to gamefaqs.com for a REAL walkthrough this stinker sucks. I think this is worst brady games has ever done in terms of a guide. I can get better info on the web why bother with this worthless guide?

Good grief! I certainly learned my lesson after buying a copy of this book at the same time that I bought a copy of DRAGON QUEST VIII for myself. The strange thing is, everything I heard about the game itself was true -- it's a *fantastic* game that I would recommend to any and all RPG players. The sad thing is that this book, meant to accompany this outstanding game, is complete rubbish. Don't be fooled by looks, folks -- BradyGames published this 225+ page monster with sleek graphics and pretty pictures, but the content is just NOT there.

Imagine how irate I was when I sat down to start playing and decided to consult the guide to see what the recommended strategy for the first boss fight in the game was. Not only is the boss not mentioned (save one terse entry at the very end of the book), but neither are any of the events leading up to that encounter! I quickly thumbed through the book (which I should have done before I bought it, silly me!) and realized that it was all pictures and no words -- no helpful hints, no real suggestions, none of that silly thing I expected -- the walkthrough. In fact, I was amazed when I actually saw real alchemy recipes in the book -- I'm surprised they didn't leave those out, too.

In short, this book flaunts all the pictures and maps you could dream of, but fails to deliver on what the guide is intended for -- to provide a WALKTHROUGH. People don't pay $15-20 or more to get a blurb -- one or two per city! -- letting them know that (surprise!) there are things to be done in this town or in this area of the world.

Shame, shame, shame on you, BradyGames. Even if you don't want to "spoil the story" or "ruin" things for all players, the least you could do would be the publish the minimum necessary to be considered a walkthrough. The sections in this book consist almost entirely of pictures, with so few words that it basically looks like a digital photo album. Publish the maps and text in different chapters, put maps in the front and walkthrough in the back, do ANYTHING you want to avoid spoiling the story, but at least include the information somewhere in the guide!

Don't waste your time or money on this piece of junk, folks. Trust me -- there are *real* walkthroughs (and FREE ones, at that!) all over the Web. Let's just hope that BradyGames doesn't publish a similar book for FFXII this fall -- that would be a tremendous disappointment, indeed.

This isn't a typical Strategy Guide. Brady Games took a unique approach to this one. At first I was a bit miffed, but now I like what they've done.

They tell you right in the "Introduction" of the book that they're taking a different approach. "In our quest to avoid spoilers, we have left out some information concerning secrets .." & "we wanted to guarantee that players could fully enjoy the intense experience of Dragon Quest without losing any of the suspense and surprises".

I have to admit, after looking at their guide, I didn't even think there was a Boss in the first dungeon (Waterfall Cave). Oops!

Anyways, the book is beautiful, long (240 pages), and on High Quality Paper. It has pull out maps, monster guides, weapons guides, alchemy guides, basic walkthroughs, etc. It's all you need & more to complete the game.

It's invaluable. Two big thumbs up.

When is a strategy guide not a strategy guide? When it becomes a souvenir. This isn't the first time I've bought a thick, well printed guide and found that, for all the pretty pictures and catalogs of monsters, it really wasn't all that helpful. Perhaps this is because 80% of my rating for any guide is quality of walkthrough and extent and utility of maps. The remaining 20% is readability, and this guide suffers in all three categories.

The book is erratic. Sometimes there are good place maps and sometimes there aren't. The big foldout maps don't always follow the in-game maps, which means that things aren't always where you expect them to be. And putting all the foldout maps on one large foldout is an invitation to torn pages. And yet, there are a lot of maps. Sometimes with annotation and sometimes not.

For some reason, the Bradygames team opted to take a walkthrough, edit anything out that is more than a vague hint, and then present the bits of information left in as out of order a fashion as possible. Fortunately Dragon Quest VIII is a kind game. It's hard to mess up the game by doing something out of order, but I find it frustrating when something that should be straightforward doesn't make sense for hours.

Most of this is really about why you buy a guide in the first place. At almost half the price of the game, I expect my guide to provide answers when I need them, although I appreciate the publisher's reluctance to put spoilers in plain sight, they should be there somewhere. And for all the infinite variety of monsters in DQ8 this isn't a game where you need an extensive bestiary. Especially when there is nary a hint of how to fight major battles.

Hence my three-star rating. This is OK as a reference tool, but if you want a real guide you are better off with the on-line walkthroughs. Especially if you are trying to fight some of the less obvious boss battles. This is a shame, because Bradygames' guides represent a huge amount of publication effort.

This guide is the first of its kind to be published. A wee bit daft in the concept, but I believe this guide makes the player think on what stratgey to use with the info giving. I admit the details are vague, however I would rather be surprised than disappointed. Of course, each player has different preferences in what a stratgey guide is and how to use it.

"An atlas is a bound collection of maps supplementary illustrations and analysis," remarks the Brady Games staff in the introduction to this guide. This is, if you couldn't guess, an experiment. And while I'm giving this three stars (for reasons I'll explain) I must agree one-hundred percent with those who gave it one or two stars. If you're picking up this guide to actually help you get through the game, you're looking in the wrong place. If however, you're interested in all the extras, you may actually get a use out of this guide.

Let's start with the good. Everything outside the "atlas" section of this guide (which is the walkthrough) is good. Excellent explanation of characters, sidequests and very detailed items list.

The game basics section, which is basically an instruction manual, is good. It helps you clearly understand the gameplay components. If something is confusing you in the instruction booklet, it'll be here. Fine and dandy, no doubt.

The characters section is also very well done. Each character has a profile and then a complete list of all their spells, skills, beginning stats etc. If you're looking for the best way to use your skill points, this guide can help.

Likewise, the items and abilities list is also very detailed. So is the weapon and armor lists. Aside from those little things, the monster arena is explained very well, and the bestiary is very good too. Even the sidequests have great explanations.

Now why didn't those explanations find their place in the walkthrough? Because Brady Games decided to make what should've been the walkthrough an "atlas". Meaning, it's got virtually nothing but maps. This, they claim, is to keep from spoiling all the suspense and plot elements of the game. I don't know about you, but lately I haven't had a problem with BradyGAMES spoiling anything in their guides. After the disaster of their FFIX guide, they seem to be doing a good job in concealing plot twist and leading us through the game in a respectable fashion. Basically, they're trying too hard NOT to spoil the plot that the solution seems to be... don't give people a walkthrough at all! These maps are gorgeous, and they even point out things you should do in dungeons, the problem is they don't EXPLAIN anything!

There's more crimes to this. You don't know what to do in the town at all. They constantly tell you to listen to what it says in the game. Yes, that's fine and dandy and all... and Dragon Quest VIII is by no means a hard game, but the reason I grabbed the guide in the first place was to get a leg up on the main quest without constantly having to talk to characters over and over. So that when I got stuck, I could know what to do. You will not get that kind of help from this guide. Are you lost? The maps will help, but what about if you're just not sure of your objective? Or you forget. The guide doesn't help there.

The next crime, where are the boss strategies? They don't exist in the atlas. Not even a boss guide in the back. Trust me, if I'd known the walkthrough was that terrible, I would have certainly been willing to flip to the back for a boss guide.

Somehow, however, I let the guide slide with three stars. And as I said, I'd explain. The walkthrough/atlas is terrible, but everything outside of it is beautiful. The sidequests are explained in depth, the monster arena section is gorgeous and the maps are beautiful. Basically, as I stated before, everything outside this walkthrough is beautiful. And for that, the guide hits high, and gets some of my respect.

The problem is, the part that the guide is supposed to... you know, GUIDE you on, is too vague. Gorgeous maps don't explain what to do at certain parts.

A strategy guide is supposed to include strategy. This is by far the worst BradyGAMES guide since the dreadful Final Fantasy IX guide. At least we're not referred to a website, but this guide could've certainly been better. This is not what I like to see from BradyGAMES. Not at all.

The Good
+Pretty much everything outside walkthrough

The Bad
-Because of how bad the walkthrough is, I can't honestly recommend anyone actually buy this guide. It's helpful for all those extras but in actually completing the main quest, the walkthrough is terrible and doesn't deserve your money. Hold on to your money, and save it for something else.

An actual strategy guide, perhaps.

This strategy guide is strange. It offers maps, details locations of some (key word being "some") treasures, has a listing of the monsters, weapons, and abilities. It has a section dedicated to side-quests, one dedicated to the characters and their progression through the game, and a tutorial chapter that's standard in all strategy guides. The strange part, though, comes when you get to the walk-through. It describes very little, and has little hints like "items appear after certain events," yet doesn't tell you what event that is. It even leaves out boss fight sections, a norm in every RPG strategy guide. I was stunned when the first boss battle appeared and found it wasn't in the guide. Some would say this is good as it doesn't spoil the surprises, but I disagree. A book can be detailed and still leave out all those spoiling elements.

Now, I'm a lover of strategy guides for one reason. I don't have a lot of time to play video games and strategy guides get me from point A to point Z without missing much along the way. Replay value means nothing to me, yet it bugs me when I know I haven't achieved everything the game has to offer. This strategy guide, however, seems to want you to play through the game again, to discover everything without its help. It's sort of a mentor; it shows you the many right ways but doesn't say which is best.

Despite all of that, though, the guide does help in one aspect. It has maps, and for anyone who knows Dragon Quest, maps are very important. It's easy to get lost in the Dragon Quest games, and a nice little map to guide us away from confusion helps immensely. Another great section is the item section, which details how to make every weapon or piece of armor in the Alchemy Pot.

Instead of recommendations, I've compiled a list of pros and cons so that you can decide if the positives out-way the negatives:

+Detailed character section to help guide your characters progression through the game

+Appendixes of weapons, armors, items, and abilities, as well as monster lists and and "Infamous Monster" section

+Maps of the world and dungeons

+A section for side-quests

-A tutorial section of game basics that can be found in the handbook provided with the game

-Vaguely detailed in the walk-through

-Doesn't always provide item locations

(ADDED)-Doesn't provide any info for the last section of the game, including leading up to the final boss fight and the extra quest