As the game opens, you find yourself on the tail-end of a nice bit of jail time. Why? Well, because your dad, the warden, decided it is appropriate punishment for his son, as he's been a bad boy recently. Wonderful dad, eh? And to make things even worse, he promises to release you, so long as you guarantee to enter into the Monster Scout Challenge as a CELL recruit, with CELL being a super-secret organization he himself belongs to. Think the movie Varsity Blues and that whole "I don't want your life" line.
Once you undertake this task, you soon discover the universal truth of Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker: nobody gives a damn about their wave runners. Taking place in a cluster of islands, you'll find each of the islands has their own distinct flavor. And, traveling between them is as simple as nabbing one of the readily-available wave runners and trekking to your destination.Once there, you'll find yourself battling monsters. Lots of monsters. You'll battle monsters with your own line-up of monsters. You'll use your monsters to try and scout (or recruit) other monsters. Basically, the word monsters isn't in the title for nothing.
So, you'll encounter other monsters you find out in the game's many environments, so none of this random encounter stuff. Once you engage a monster, they toss their crew in and you toss your crew in and they tough it out. It's fairly cut and dry, with your troops pummeling the enemies down attack after attack, or choosing to go the route of scouting them.
Scouting enemy monsters is also fairly simple, where your monsters showcase their talents in the hopes of impressing the enemy monster. If you're successful, you'll have a new soldier on your hands, free to rename and toss into battle at your whim. Successful recruitment depends on the percentage your monster is able to impress the other monster, meaning that there is always a slight chance they'll be successfully scouted, no matter how small of a percentage your guy impresses them.
Inevitably, the parallels between this and other monster-capturing kingpin Pokemon must be drawn. Pokemon is clearly the better title, since its approach to control (Pokemon has stylus-based controls to navigate its menus, where DQMJ does not) is more deliberate and precise. Ultimately, they're both the same game with a different skin, just in the end it comes down to Pokemon having the better control scheme.Square Enix didn't focus entirely on the single-player mode. They actually put a lot of hard work into the game's online mode, known as Wildcard World Cup. Here, players can take their monsters into some pretty tough encounters and have their stats tracked via leaderboards. It isn't a picnic, however, as you have to fight without giving orders to your monsters or using items. So, while it may appear to be lacking any kind of features, it actually ends up being pretty fun.
Visually, the game shines, however it isn't without its flaws. The pop-up is pretty bad, at times, with whole rooms looking vacant for a handful of seconds before a couple of NPCs just appear out of thin air. The character design and animations are crisp and clean (most notable in the crazy variety of monsters in the game), however, as they bring a lot of life into the title. Some of the environments could've used a bit more detail, as they seem to be designed in a hurry. Each island is distinct enough, though.
Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker is a large game that you can genuinely sink some time into. As we've said, in the end we couldn't help but compare it to Pokemon, which has ruled the genre for quite some time. It does a lot of the things that Pokemon does well, but fails to do them all. The controls could've been better, the camera can be a nuisance and the constant battling can really start to drag you down.
It's still a good game, though and mainly brought down by the fact that the genre is just too saturated.
Final score: 7.5/10
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
11-13-2007 @ 11:42AM
James said...
I loved Dragon Warrior Monsters on the GBC, can't wait for UK release on this!
How come the review doesn't mention anything on breeding/combining? Is that no longer a major aspect of the game?
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11-13-2007 @ 12:15PM
MD said...
Actually, with the evolution aspect of the game mostly tied to the weird doglike critter you bond with, combined with either 'recruiting' or fusing new monsters, with a bit more of a plotline it's really more like DemiKids than Pokemon.
But nobody noticed DemiKids except me and a handful of freaks. Sadface.
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11-13-2007 @ 1:10PM
Brello said...
Maybe I'll get this someday? I don't know, what little interest I had in it has long since faded. Being a square-enix game, it's probably $40 for no particular reason, also.
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11-13-2007 @ 2:11PM
ELIJAH the ChaosDragon said...
Sounds good, i think i might just snatch this one up. They should make a remake of Azure dreams or a legitimate sequel.
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11-13-2007 @ 3:33PM
Ihar `Philips` Filipau said...
I have played already couple of hours it on my R4 and I'm little bit disappointed.
Though in beginning it looked like "Better Pokemon", it appears to suffer from the same "devil in details" deficiencies as Pokemon as well as original ones.
- too much random battles
- some amount of backtracking
- the stoopid slow text typing effect
- smallish font though plenty of screen space is avaiable
- game too verbose at some places, teaching you to hammer A just to skip it all cruft appearing on screen; often in flood of redundant messages some important info is missed
- for such large number of random battles, start and end of battle are waaaay tooo loong
- monster information window is non-interactive and also uses smallish font; there is no way of knowing (esp in beginning) what means what
- on-screen keyboard is alphabetical - not standard QWERTY
- monsters defeated in battle are sent to storage what forces to backtrack to storage to get the monster back
- visual design of some maps is flawed: you run over plain, but then hit "invisible" wall; in reality you hit an edge of plain and there is a change of landscape; figuring out which way to go - as well as finding the corner - take some time
Albeit being raw in some aspects, I think the game would be interesting to all who like the genre.
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11-13-2007 @ 3:37PM
Eddie said...
This game is better than Pokemon in may ways, but not in all.
I understand about the controls. But common' this game is better in at least these things:
- No RANDOM battles
- You can talk to characters in the game and they will ASK if you want to battle, instead of just attacking and making you not want to talk to anyone
- 3D (hellooo...)
- 3D battles, and attacks (hellooooo...)
- Synthesis. You can create monsters that you would never run into otherwise
- DQM:J is a little more adult like, and let cute
- The music is CLASSIC :-) (good ol' NES days)
- etc etc etc.
I'm sad that the comparison made with Pokemon wasn't a little more in-depth. I really like both, but Joker is brutal, IMHO.
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11-13-2007 @ 3:38PM
Ihar `Philips` Filipau said...
Forgot to mention. Game is completely controlled by keys - touchscreen is optional. That makes game suited for commuting. I will certainly buy it when it hits the Yorupe.
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11-13-2007 @ 3:49PM
Ihar `Philips` Filipau said...
Another point they could have improved - compared to Pokemon.
Capturing monster doesn't give you experience points.
That's lamest moment in Pokemon - in DQM:J it all seems to be much simpler in that aspect. Yet some monsters require quite elaborate effort with many attempts. In Pokemon when several 50+lvl monsters were wasted to catch single low level rare monster (it's silly situation when any attack kills the guy), getting no experience points after half of an hour long (or even longer) "battle" was quite demotivative.
@Eddie: how there is no random battles??? most places are cramped with reappearing monsters making it impossible to pass w/o a battle.
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11-13-2007 @ 4:37PM
Eddie said...
@ Ihar `Philips` Filipau
What I mean is that in DQM:J you can try to avoid monsters if you are low on health or just want to go through without being bothered.
But in Pokemon (P&D) if you walk into a cave you get into a random fight every 3 steps... which is a pain in the ass if you just want to get to another town (unless you have "Fly"...).
Don't get me wrong, I finished Diamond, and bought Pokemon Battle Revolution... but it's very nice to grab DQM:J and try to get the right monster, level him up, fuse him, and them find the next monster so you can end up with an SS (Rank X) monster. Much more satisfying for me.
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11-14-2007 @ 1:24AM
Deuz Augustine said...
Get Max Repel.
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11-14-2007 @ 10:20AM
onepointfivevolt said...
I actually love this FAR MORE than Pokemon. Then again, it feels more like a Dragon Quest game than a monster raising Pokemon game, so it's somewhat of an unfair comparison.
I don't get why this review said the menus weren't touchscreen usable. Umm, they are. I also didn't understand the comment from someone above here that said you had to backtrack to take your monsters out of storage. No you don't. Just add to team or set as substitute.
And as far as the level grinding... it's a Dragon Quest game. Don't forget that. The levelling up required here is nowhere near as vicious as some past games. I think it goes pretty quickly, actually.
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11-16-2007 @ 11:44PM
Ry Guy said...
Alright, everyone reading this comment, keep this in mind. This is not a Pokemon ripoff. This is a Dragon Quest game where you capture your party members. That's all it is. It's a regular RPG with monsters. It's a Dragon Quest game, only taking advantage of the Monster Catching craze.
This game should NOT be compared to Pokemon. The games are highly different experiences.
Your ability to enjoy this game will highly depend on your ability to enjoy a typical Dragon Quest game.
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