I liked the characters and the world of DQVIII, and the battle system was actually pretty enjoyable; a bit odd since my interest in the traditional turn based systems is almost gone at this point, and this one was about as traditional as it gets. Hell, I didn't even mind fetch quests as much as I usually would because the world was huge and fun to explore. The only major problems I had were the kind of bland story (but I could live with that since the characters made up for it) and the constant need to level grind. I hate level grinding, and I can honestly say it's kept me from beating the game. After about twenty hours I just couldn't take it anymore.