When I found out that Square-Enix was releasing another installment of Dragon Quest Monsters–formerly known as Dragon Warrior Monsters in the US due to issues of trademarks–was coming out, and on the DS, I was ecstatic. I remembered spending hours on end raising critters, breeding them into stronger critters and, finally, using my Gameshark to cheat like crazy after I beat the game (I’m not lying; merely altering the truth to the point of fabrication) and looked forward to Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker to arrive for the DS. This was only reinforced when I purchased Phantom Hourglass, played a bit, and then discovered that the people at Nintendo were too busy rubbing their bags of cash all over one another to notice that repetitious, obnoxious, and unnecessary tasks don’t equate to quality gaming. I’d strongly suggest taking a look at the Zero Punctuation review for a better idea.
Moving right along, I swooped down on DQM:J like a hawk on a gimped rabbit and, if this says anything about it, I proceeded to play it for almost twenty-four hours in a matter of two days. Two days. However, as much as it pains me to admit, it’s hardly a god-send of gaming like I had hoped it to be.
You start out as Gohan, the son of Goku…Wait, sorry. You LOOK like some bastard-child Dragonball Z character and you start out in a jail cell, being taunted by a stereotyped French fellow named Black Jacque (something to this effect). You’re sent off to win a tournament, the name of which I forgot, in order to accomplish some obscure goal for your less-than-loving father. On your way out, you get to choose one of three starting monsters. Admittedly, the options are a lot better than having to start with a Slime, like before, but only marginally so. The story is off to a decent start when you find out you have to hunt down ten essential widgets–Darkonium Crystals–in order to participate in the finals. Of course, there’s other plot-lines that creep into the mix but it’d be rude of me to spoil those for anyone who may be interested in purchasing this game.
The gameplay, overall, isn’t too bad. Moving from island to island isn’t too awful and, on occasion, having to watch the little trip will have some benefits. The battle system is about the same as it was in previous installments of Dragon Quest Monsters. Your party can consist of up to three active monsters and three back-up monsters. Initially, it can take some getting used to and it may be a bit of a pain in the ass. It certainly has Pokemon beat in variety because, honestly, I’ll take blasting my enemies with a bolt of hellish darkness over Pikachu’s Thundershock any day. Please note, angry hordes of Pokemon fans, that I am also a lover of the Pogeymans and, given the chance, would love to show you mine. XD
Digression aside, the only real complaint I have about this game is synthesizing. In Digimon World DS: Dusk and, its counterpart, Dawn, you have to do serious level-grinding and digivolving/degenerating in order to get powerful monsters. Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker pulls a similar stunt by requiring you to synthesize–the PG-friendly alternative to breeding–two monsters to get better ones. To explain better, Monsters have one of several letter ranks, ranging from F, which equates to total suckage, and X, which equates to massive destructive power. The steps required to get an X rank monster, however, are nothing short of nibbling off your own left arm and using it to bludgeon yourself over the head repeatedly if you’re anything like I am at gaming. It’s necessary for the two monsters to be at level ten and one to be a plus and one a minus. Or there’s the plus-minus monsters, that can breed with either. Then, of course, there’s the issue of making sure the moves are all transferred right and so on. It’s not TOO complex, really, but it’s also a lot more thought than I really want to put into something like how I want the result of my hot, censored monster-sex to turn out.
Overall, Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker is a nice break from Square-Enix’s usual inappropriate fondling of the Final Fantasy series, but there’s better options out there as to what you could be wasting your money on. Really, you’d probably be better off breaking out the good, old Nintendo Gameboy Color and buying yourself a copy of Dragon Warrior Monsters from eBay. Your monsters will thank me when they have genders instead of mathematical bits to determine whether or not they can have a few drinks before meeting up for certain activities later. Har dee har har.
Or you could just buy Portal. Just saying. (Seriously, Valve, about that check. You know you want to pay me. I’m not using reverse psychology or anything. XP)
