On gameplay alone, I'd give MM8 a solid 4. It's a damn fun game, but nothing mind-blowing. But gameplay alone does not make a game. And when a game has graphics THIS bad, no amount of gameplay is going to turn it around. They would have been bad 4 years ago.
Animations consist of moving, attacking, or dying.
Although some of the spell effects look kind of cool, I think that's just in relation to the crapulence of everything going on around them. I would be amused if this game was on a Genesis or if it were from a CD full of shareware titles, but its not. I found myself wandering in circles in most towns since nearly every building was virtually indistinguishable from the next. Temples and catacombs suffer from the same problem, with each room appearing nearly identical to the previous. A good game shattered by assalicious graphics.