*Does the Black Mage dance*
Well, I gave up on DOSbox and tried the simpler of the two alternative methods I came across. It turns out that the main problem with the game is that it requires a certain type of memory that any NT-based Windows OS just doesn't do. At all. Ever.
So I had to download a modified version of CDSHOCK.EXE, designed to get around the memory problems, and replace the original one with that. Now it works perfectly, with much better sound than I usually get in DOSbox (though still a little buggy on the speech).
I just hope it isn't really as scary as everyone makes it out to be...
