DRAGON QUEST: THE JOURNEY OF THE CURSED KING, Publisher: Square-Enix, Format: PS2. Price: £39.99. Family friendly? 12+: More than 40 million Dragon Quest games have been sold worldwide to date, but in Europe the franchise remains something of a mystery enjoyed only by gamers who import their interactive entertainment.

The Journey of the Cursed King marks the first official European release of the legendary series.

And to make certain it succeeds, Square has pulled out all the stops. The soundtrack gets a brand new British voiceover, a full orchestral score, a revamped menu system, improved battle dynamics and polished-up animations. This is no mere port from a Japanese original.

The new additions greatly enhance an already great game for a new international audience.

Anyone not familiar with the series will surely baulk at the preposterous plot that sees people turned into brambles (that's right, brambles) and the beautiful princess morphing into a horse.

You play one of the king's loyal guards who arrives at the village of Farebury in search of an evil jester called Dhoulmagus. He has stolen a forbidden sceptre from the king's castle and used its magical powers to curse the kingdom (hence the rather fruity nature of most of the inhabitants). Now he roams the land looking for fresh victims.

The visuals in Dragon Quest are uniquely Japanese, being a combination of child's picture book and manga cartoon. The acclaimed artist Akira Toriyama, who was also the creator of the Dragon Ball Z series, designed the characters.

It's a genuine free-roaming adventure, too. Your characters have total freedom of movement and can go wherever you wish.

Anyone who has played a Final Fantasy RPG will feel right at home from the monster battles to the spectacular attack patterns available via your team. As you'd expect, each of your playable characters have unique attributes that can be fine-tuned for maximum battle effectiveness.

It's an epic game - and one that requires quite an investment of time and perseverance. But, if you have the patience to see it through to the end, you will be rewarded with a thoroughly engrossing (albeit slightly off-the-wall) adventure.

SBK: SNOW BOARD KIDS. Publisher: Rising Star Games. Platform: Nintendo DS. Price: £29.99. Family friendly? Yes.

Combining downhill snowboarding action with Mario Kart-style dynamics, SBK: Snow Board Kids is a fun pocket-sized racer for Nintendo's improving hand-held.

Take to the slopes by choosing from six cute characters and race to the finish through some detailed courses while trying to maximise your score by performing stunts.

Each course is littered with useful power-ups and characters have their own attack moves (fireballs, freeze attacks etc). These can make the difference between coming first and finishing last. Your trick repertoire can also be used to defend against attacks by opponents and is activated via the touch sensitive DS screen.

Points earned by finishing in the top three places can be spent on new snowboards, special moves, different characters and new game modes.

The racing is smooth and fun and the scenery really whizzes past when you're at full lick. The graphics are smooth and the handling of the characters doesn't feel too loose.

If you enjoy a quick blast of Mario Kart this snowboarding racer will be a good value blast.

MONSTER HUNTER: FREEDOM. Publisher: Capcom. Platform: PSP. Price: £34.99. Family friendly? 12+

First thoughts on Monster Hunter: Freedom were chiefly of disappointment. It seemed odd that the PSP version has no online playability when it is such a large part of the home versions.

Initially it seems the game is very simple: you collect a mission then go out into the forest looking for a monster to slay. There are mini-games as well, mainly of the fish, dig or search variety, and items collected can be traded up for better weaponry or improved armour.

There's a lengthy tutorial for beginners and once that's out of the way you can get into the serious job of hunting monsters rather than making your way around the map.

The fights are exciting but more difficult than need be thanks to the lack of a "lock on" feature. Far too often my first assault missed because the creature I was battling moved.

But the more you play the easier it is. You'll get used to the occasionally recalcitrant camerawork as well.

Published: 23/05/2006