Hobbies And Interests
Encounter Control Abilities
You will randomly run into fights as you travel through the various locations in the game. You may find yourself running in circles to try to start encounters to level up characters. At other times, you may find moving around a zone annoying because you keep getting attacked by enemies that are too low in level to offer any decent reward.
There are two abilities that can save time and energy by allowing you to control encounter rates. Whistle is acquired by Yangus when his humanity skill is raised to 4 points during leveling up. This ability automatically starts an encounter when it is used from the menu. Holy Protection is acquired by the Hero when his courage skill is raised to 28 points. It stops all encounters by enemies that are a lower level than your party.
Metal Slimes
Metal Slime monsters are fairly rare random encounters. Metal Slimes give more experience and better items than other monsters of around the same level. They are also quite difficult to kill. Metal Slimes have the maximum amount of defense, are immune to any magical spell or skill, and have about a 50 percent chance of running away each turn. Normal attacks will do one point of damage to them. On lower level Metal Slimes, this is actually an effective way to kill them. The lowest level versions only have three or four hit points. The Metal King Slime, the strongest variant, only gets 16 to 20 hit points. The trick to killing the later versions before they run away is getting a critical hit. The Hero's Lightning Thrust skill, acquired by increasing the spear skill to 59 points, and Yangus's Executioner skill, acquired by increasing the axe skill to 66 points, will instantly kill any Metal Slime if they hit. The odds of hitting with either skill is just under 50 percent, but those odds are better than the chance the Metal Slime will run away before you can whittle its hit points down with normal attacks. The Hero and Angelo both get Metal Slash from raising their sword skills. This ability has a better hit rate against metal creatures.
Alternate Ending
The method of getting the alternate ending in "Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King" is a little counterintuitive in comparison to most role-playing games. Your actions and choices during the game have no effect on what ending you get. You will always see the original ending when you beat the final boss. In order to see the alternate ending, you need to keep playing after watching the ending. A dungeon called the Dragovian Trials will unlock after beating the final boss. Go to the dungeon and beat the first boss to receive the Argon Ring. You do not need to complete the dungeon. Once you have the Argon Ring, fight the final boss again. Once he dies, you will see the alternate ending if you have the Argon Ring in your possession.