Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker Review Review (DS)

What’s that coming over the hill?

Dragon Quest Monsters is by all accounts a well known monster fighting game in Japan. Of course to me that instantly sounded like a Pok�mon clone. This was, as it turns out, a very unfair assumption.

As with all these types of games, the story is not really that important. You are playing this for the monster collection and fighting.

First off, the story. You are a young man who is the son of the director of a secret organization, CELL. Due to your wish to join in an activity known as Monster Scouting, your father has put you in prison! After 10 days jail time, daddy dearest reconsiders and wants to see you. This is where the game starts. He wants you to enter the Scouting tournament, but there is a catch. He wants you to enter and fulfil an undercover mission that he gives you no details of.

Of course being keen to enter, you head straight off to the bases jet ski dock. Here you are given the choice of your first monster. Once you have chosen it is off to the first of the seven islands you will be exploring.

As with all these types of games, the story is not really that important. You are playing this for the monster collection and fighting. Of course it is an RPG, so you will need to talk to other NPCs and complete various side missions, but the core of the game revolves around those basics, collect and fight.

So let’s start with Collection. When you encounter a monster you are taken to the fight screen. Here you are given several options. To capture a monster you must Scout it. Your monster/s put on a display of strength to impress the opponent, by attacking it! The more impressed the monster is, the more likely it is to join your team. If you are successful you can add the new monster to your team.

The team can consist of 3 monsters at any one time, plus substitutes. You can also keep more in storage to swap out when you are at the various islands base camps.

There are 200 monsters to be found and tamed, each one with unique abilities and characteristics. To add to this variety is the ability to breed monsters. Once you have got a couple up to level 10, you can breed them and create unique new monsters.

Next to look at is the actual fighting. As mentioned, once a fight has started you are given several options. The most basic is just Fight. Here you monsters will just attack the opponents and see what happens. Good, but not much strategy involved. To add some depth, you get the option to actually tell each member of your team what to do, who to fight and how to do it. You can concentrate all of your monsters on just one opponent, tell them to not use magic, tell them to concentrate on healing and more. This adds some really nice strategy to the battles, without making them a statistics class! The system is smooth and intuitive, leading to battles that are fast to play and enjoyable.

Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker ReviewDragon Quest Monsters: Joker is not just about fighting and collecting though. There is exploration to be done. Each of the 7 islands is rendered in 3D and whilst not being all that big, all of them offer plenty of challenge as you go from battle to battle trying to level up your beasts. As well as cave based exploration there is a lot of open air wandering to be had. Which leads to a nice feature, the day and night cycle. As night falls you get totally different monsters roaming the open space!

All in all this is a nice monster game. It looks good, sounds ok and there is plenty to see and do. With the variety of monsters to collect and breed, this should keep you interested far longer than the story will!

Give it a go, you may just like it!!

The Good: Plenty of variety. Smooth combat. Good graphics
The Bad: Levelling up can be tiresome as you battle the lower classes. The islands are a little small.


Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker Review Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker Review Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker Review Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker Review Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker Review 


Silver Y AwardSilver Y Award
4 4 / 5

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