Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker
 

I just wanted to bring to everyones attention this amazing DS game. I got it when it came out about a week and a half ago and have been playing it whenever I can. And really, the things I have been hearing from importers and the Japanese reviews do not lie. This game is amazingly addicting, a high-end graphical treat and dare I say even managed to find that certain something Pokemon Daimond/Pearl was missing.

The game has taken about 11 months to reach America since its Japan release. A fate I hope similar Dragon Quest games I hope don't share, especially considering elaborate British voice overs and 'er gov speech impediments for many of the characters added in probably being a big part of it. But I also am hoping this game will sell well for another reason, as the DS remakes of Dragon Quest IV, V and VI are still unannounced for American release. Considering Dragon Quest VIII sold 500,000 copies in America, I hope this game can sell at least half that many being a DS title that plays like it so that Square-Enix can feel that Dragon Quest is appearing to rise in popularity in America and continue to bring more of them over here. In other words, not just think we only like Final Fantasy games.

In any event, to put into perspective how addicting this game is to me, I've ended up buying three other games in the last month, including Mario Galaxy. I barely play any of them because I just want to keep playing this one.

So, uh whats it like? What kinda game is it?

Its an RPG, like a Traditional Dragon Quest game in gameplay, graphics and music. And in fact, all the major people who work on the main series work on this game, including Akira Toriyama, Yuji Hori and Koichi Sugiyama. But unlike the normal Dragon Quest series, you don't play as a party of humans, but 'scout' and train monsters from the Dragon Quest series as your party to fight. Which, by the way, there's 200+ monsters in the game.

I was skeptical that this game would be as good as a normal Dragon Quest game myself, but the game does allow you to control the monsters like you would control your regular team in a Dragon Quest game (or a normal turn based RPG).

The best part of the game though is probably the synthesizing two types of monsters together to make stronger monsters, along with passing their abilities along. Its like in Pokemon with IVs and Abilities and making new Pokemon, only it takes 1/10000 the time, you have WAY more freedom of what kind of abilities can be passed on and you don't have to level your monsters up to a huge level to have them be effective/see if their synthesis has even worked correctly.

In all, this game is addicting, graphically amazing and pretty much just like playing a normal Dragon Quest game, but instead of it being story driven, its gameplay and objective driven.

Ah okay. Sounds interesting I might have to pick that one up after Christmas. I liked Rocket Slime (yeah so what) so this might tickle my RPG bone for a while.

I'm sort of interested in it, but I heard it was super short. About how long is the main quest?

I don't know. I've already put 25 hours into the game and I'm not even done with the first main big 'task' they're setting me out to do. But I'm trying to build up a really strong team and doing a lot of side stuff, not just complete the main game tasks and race through the game.

So I suppose its just like any game of this type, based on if you want to just collect only the monsters you encounter on th way and level them up only fusing a few as needed to get through the game. Or do the extra stuff and find more monsters and try to unlock more fun out of the game.

i have found memories of playing the original dragon warrior monsters on the gb. hot damn that was fun.

Is it true that you can't directly play with friends online?

I haven't looked at any of the online features of the game yet. From what I've heard, I think the online features are about trading monsters and something to do with a 'nationwide constest' to see what kind of monsters you synth and with what abilities/strengths.

Since this game hasn't really 'taken off' yet and because I haven't finished the main game or gotten a finished team yet, I've just been way more engrossed in the main game. Gonna look at the online features after I beat the game and have my finished team/most of the monsters.

I got this when it came out, because I love the Monsters series (Or any Dragon Warrior/Quest game).

It's eating my time, and I'm not even past the second boss.