Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King is a RPG and is the first in the Dragon Quest series to be released on the PlayStation 2. It was developed by role-playing game developer Level 5, who is responsible for other popular role-playing franchises such as Dark Cloud. The designers and creators for Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King are Yuji Horii, Akira Toriyama, with music composer Koichi Sugiyama.

Dhoulmagus, an evil jester, has stolen the forbidden scepter from its resting place in the Trodain castle. Using the scepter, Dhoulmagus freezes time, turns the inhabitants of the land into thorns, and the king and princess into animals: the king becomes a toad-like beast, and the princess becomes a horse. You take the role of "Hero" (whose name you can choose in the game), along with Yangus, Jessica and Angelo, and attempt to track down Dhoulmagus and put a stop to his evil reign.

Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King is the first in the series to utilize a full 3D graphics engine. This allows you become fully immersed in the game-world, traveling to locations like villages and forests in a realistic 3D environment, as you would in real life. The game also features a new skill point system that lets you learn new abilities. The art style is decidedly anime inspired, and features "cell shaded" graphics. Shell shaded graphics give the characters and environments a cartoon-like animated look, and are also used in the game The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker.