Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker
Score: 98% ESRB: Everyone 10+ Publisher: Square Enix Developer: Square Enix Media: Cartridge/1 Players: 1 - 4 Genre: RPG/ Adventure
Graphics & Sound: Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker is the third of the series available in the US, and the first one in a very long time. Too long actually, given how much fun this is. But at least it was well worth the wait! The graphics in DQM: Joker are quite beautiful. The characters were designed by Akira Toriyama, most famous for his Dragonball Series. The main character did remind me a lot of the kid Trunks from Dragonball Z. The backgrounds, islands, monsters, all of them are perfectly done. There are seven islands total, and they are all very different and unique. You don't feel like you're just playing the same place colored differently. You truly feel like you're in a different place. The graphics are also very fluid, and nothing is blocky or ragged looking. The sound effects are great. The little details down to people's footsteps and the creaking of doors are all taken care of. The sound of the water is amazing; I wanted to just put it on repeat and listen to it for relaxation. The background music is very well done too. It is upbeat and fits the game quite well. There is different music when you're in battles, and the battle attacks have their own sound effects also.
Gameplay: Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker is a free-roaming RPG similar to Digimon or Pokemon. In DQM: Joker, you play as a monster scout. Your job is to scout as many monsters as possible to make the strongest team you can. When you first start the game, you have the choice of Continue or New Game. You can only have one game save, so if you choose New Game, it will wipe out any previous saves. Anyway, to start a new game, all you have to do is enter your name (or the name you want your hero to be called). From there, the game will explain everything you need to know about what to do and where to go. If you're ever lost, just talk to the people you see. They will give you direction. When you're ready to save, you have two options. You can go to a scout post and do a full Save from there, or you can use the Quick Save option from the Main Menu. Quick Save allows you to take a break whereever you are, even in the middle of a dungeon. After a Quick Save, you must turn the power off and that save file can only be loaded one time. If you turn the power off without saving again, you will have to restore your last full Save. Also at the scout post, you can rest. Resting swaps the outside from night to day or day to night. This is very convenient since some monsters only come out at night and some only come out during the day. To beat DQM: Joker, you're going to need the strongest monsters you can find. You can either scout them or synthesize them. To scout them, you simply choose scout from the Battle Menu. Your monsters will attack like normal, and the enemy will decide if their show of power is enough to make them want to join you. You can also create new, stronger monster by Synthesis. Synthesis is much easier in DQM: Joker than it was in Digimon World: Dusk. Each monster has a charge of positive, negative, or neutral. The only limitations on synthesis are that the monster must be level 10 or higher and they have to have opposite charges. Monsters that are neutral can be crossed with any charge. Once you scout or synthesize a monster, you'll be prompted to give it a name. If you don't feel like coming up with different names, you can just go down to enter and it will fill one in for you.
Difficulty: Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker is a very easy game to play. The controls are intuitive; everything is easy to figure out. Since there's no strict timeline to follow and no real rules about where you must go and when, if you want an easier game, you take it slower. You can level your monsters by fighting as much as you want. If you're dying to push yourself, go take on the harder boards quicker. Before you get on the jetty to the next island, it tells you the island difficulty, so you know how challenging it is going to be. You can beat the game in less than 30 hours easily if you want, but you would miss out on quite a lot of it. Given that there are over 200 monsters that you can befriend, it's obviously not going to be easy to get them all! There are also the online and wireless aspects to consider. If the game isn't difficult enough for you, you've got the choice to play against anyone you'd like to get beaten by. You can choose to play in the tournaments or just chance encounter battles online. If you're just playing over wireless from one device to another, each player will need their own copy of the game. You can fight head to head battles or swap monsters. Swapping monsters can make the game much easier if your friend will give you a higher ranked monster.
Game Mechanics: I love the controls in Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker. Well, for the most part, they're like any other RPG on the DS. You move the hero around the islands using the D-pad. My personal favorite part is the fact that you can move the camera. That's a feature that I'm so used to on PS2 games, but really missed having on every DS game I've played. In DQM: Joker, you can move the camera left with the left shoulder button and right with the right shoulder button. At just about any time, you can bring up Main Menu by pressing (X). From here, you can see the monsters in your current party and your substitutes. To cycle through their attribute screens, you use the shoulder buttons. You can also cast any spells your active monsters possess that can be used outside of battle. If you choose Heal All from inside the hero's Character Menu, it will use any healing spells that your monsters possess to full health. It's a good way for a quick heal, but it will cost you magic points. Inside of most Menus, you can use the Select button to sort items, weapons, skills, and monsters. The touch screen is only used for moving the map around so you can see and for selecting choices inside Menus. Honestly, I love Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker. This review is several days late because I just wouldn't stop playing long enough to write it. I haven't played Pokemon, but I loved Digimon World: Dusk and I would definitely say that Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker is better than Digimon Dusk hands down!
-Cyn, GameVortex Communications AKA Sara Earl
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