Review: Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker

[I'm a little late in posting this but life has been busy for me since I got a normal 9-5 job.]



I know there are a lot of closest Pokemon players out there that are afraid to admit they love to catch 'em all, but I have found a shining ray of hope for all you. Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker is a Pokemon like game that has you questing for all the monsters in the Dragon Quest universe.

You're character is sent on a mission to enter a monster scout tournament where scouts from all over the world has finish quests in order to become the ultimate monster scout. You travel through a series of islands impressing monsters to join your three monster team to help you battle through dungeons and caves to gain treasure and more tougher monsters for your team.

Along the way you meet a special creature that asks to fight by your side as you help him collect power from various temples on each island. This power will be used to help protect the world from a great evil.

Your character has the ability to give each monster orders each round and heal one monster once each round. Each monster has its own abilities to destroy enemies, affect them or heal their teammates. You can modify their abilities as their experience grows and you can fit them with weapons which you can buy in scout stations.

Monsters can be bred together to create new monsters or stronger monsters at the scout stations and you can try different group types for different fighting strategies.

To capture monsters you have to impress them with a showing of power by your current team. The higher percentage you get on impressing the monster the more likely they'll join your team. Some times you have to try a few times before the monster will join even with a high impression rate.

The graphics are pretty nice 3D graphics. There is no overworld view, just a first person or third person behind view when running around the land. The graphics aren't as polished as Dragon Quest 8 on the PS2, but they are pretty similar. Think less smooth. The characters and monsters are colourful and comical in appearance. I love how clever some of the monster names and appearances are. Better than the Pokemon characters.

The music is pretty normal. Basic adventuring music. I tend to turn the volume down on most of my games anyway, so I wasn't missing much on this basic midi sounding game. There is no voice overs, just text talk and the sound effect are standard Dragon Quest. Hacks, slashes and fairy noises.

Gameplay is pretty fun. Each island is a decent size and you don't have to spend hours running from point a to point b. The fighting system is easy to pick up on and you have more control over your monsters actions then you would think. Give orders to your monster will result in them performing that exact command, but you do have a choice to just let them fight as they want to too and that works well on easy enemies.

I really recommend this game to adult Pokemon fans and Dragon Quest fans. This game really brings the fun of both games together as well as just being a wicked RPG.

Rating: 8 out of 10