Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker Nintendo DS

Lots of Level-Grinding

By Tawna  Nov 21, 2007

Pros: Improved from earlier games in the DQM series, 3-D cartoon graphics

Cons: Still requires lots of level-grinding; Moving player feels like walking through water

Because I’m a devout fan of Dragon Quest video games, I got Dragon Quest Monsters to add to my collection. Monster collecting games like Pokemon do not appeal to me, because they involve tons of level-grinding. This game is no different. In the... game, there are 7 different islands. Each island has different monsters, ranked according to their power from “F” being lowest to “A” or “S” being highest. Going from one island to the next involve a dramatic increase in the challenge in this game—hence, the need to level-grind to increase the levels of the monsters in my party. Fusing monsters is a key element to this game. However, doing so is a bit tricky. Fused monsters start off with stats that are half those of their parents. So, it’s best to level-up the monsters so that they won’t be too weak when starting out. Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker is the third entry in the Dragon Quest Monsters series to reach America. This game features many modifications. The player can now store up to 100 monsters in inventory from the beginning. The monsters no longer have the WLD feature that makes them unruly or run away. When monsters in inventory level-up, they gain skill points, which the player can allocate at leisure. The player assigns skill points to certain skill sets for their monsters to learn. Each monster can learn up to three skill sets when fusing them together. When both monsters know much of a skill set, but haven’t mastered it, their child can learn a more powerful version of that skill set. Another major change to this game is that the player no longer uses meat treats to tame monsters. Instead, the player tames monsters by using a scout feature, in which monsters attempt to impress a new monster by displaying their attack power. It works fine at taming multiple weak monsters at the beginning, however, the more of a type of monster a player has, the harder it is to impress. This game makes minimal use of the touch feature. Touching the bottom screen moves the map and makes selections in inventory. The top screen shows the action in the game. I, however, tend to play the game without touching the bottom screen at all. It’s an optional feature that people can use, if they want to. The most appealing aspect of Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker is the graphics. The game is full 3-D, just like Dragon Quest VIII. Pokemanics craving monster collecting in 3-D can look here to get their desires met. This game uses a wi-fi feature that ranks the player against other players according to performance. The wins prizes for connecting to the network each day. The player can also battle copies of another player’s team, and can get a prize for winning, too. I have yet to try that, but I keep starting this game over from the beginning. The further I go into the game, the more level-grinding I have to do, and I *hate* level-grinding. However, folks that love level-grinding would probably enjoy Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker. Read more Less