"A "Monster Catcher" That Feels a Little Dusty."

Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker is the fourth game in Square Enix's line of Monster Catching games that originally spawned on the GameBoy Color in 1998 in order to cash in on the Pokemon Craze. Where Dragon Quest Monsters got its accord was not only the unique breeding system and compendium of over 200 monsters, but also in the nostalgic ability to befriend and train all of the baddies you had to fight your way through in the six Dragon Quest games that had been released previously.

Joker expands upon previous Dragon Quest Monsters games by changing the skill and capturing system, as well as by being the first DQM title in full 3D.

STORY: 4/10

In Joker, you play as a roguish young lad who is working for a secret agency called CELL to infiltrate and win the Monster Scout Tournament that is being held in Green Bays, an archipelago of seven distinct islands, teeming with the signature monsters of the Dragon Quest Franchise. Your goal is to collect 10 mysterious crystals known as "Darkonium" and win the final battle challenge to be crowned the Champion and discover whatever secret plots are behind the whole thing.

The flaws I find with this story, as with a lot of games like these, is simply the thinness of it. There isn't a whole lot of character development (that is, there isn't any at all) especially considering that your main character is a silent protagonist (a Dragon Quest tradition) and that your party consists of numerous monsters that roam the countryside, which are also not known for their talkative natures. The story is shallow, and while I like the "secret organization" spin, in the midst of collecting Darkonium and catching, raising and breeding, (known as "Synthesizing") your monsters, you tend to forget the actual reason you're even IN this tournament.

This isn't a game you buy for its thrilling plot, but I found it hard to stay connected to the story.

GRAPHICS: 6/10

All of the character and monster art is done by long time Dragon Quest concept artist and anime and manga Idol, Akira Toriyama, who is best known for the Dragonball series. The monsters are all the same familiar beasts they've been since day one, including classics like the Slime and the Dracky as well as some new monsters from Dragon Quest VIII like the Capsichum, an odd pair of sentient bell peppers who have bonded together through the use of a giant skewer.

The game looks halfway decent, though I find the 3D looks a little too grainy at times. The game has a bit of a problem with its resolution, so you lose a lot of the detail on some of the monsters, especially the smaller ones, during battle. A lot of the special attack effects also leave something to be desired. I suppose one could add that lower end spells, like Frizz, aren't supposed to be nearly as exciting as, say, Kaboomle but, in conjunction with the lower resolution on graphics and the battle camera, you sometimes can't tell a spell or ability has even been used aside from reading the battle text.

I, personally, have never been too terribly fond of Toriyama's art style. He really only knows how to draw maybe six different kinds of people. Joker is a relief from that particular problem in that most of the action focuses around the monsters you recruit which are, for the most part, much more unique and interesting than 99% of the NPCs you'll end up interacting with, like typically pretty woman #1 or big muscleman with a helmet #4,523.

I absolutely detest the design of the main character. Seriously. Can we have a JRPG hero who doesn't have insanely wild and spiky hair?

I found the use of pallet swaps for some of the monsters in this game to be in slightly poor taste, especially considering the only color swaps the first DQM title used, that I can think of, were in the Slime family, creating the Slime, Babble and King Slime and their Metal counterparts which were, in all fairness, entirely different monsters. Did we really need a Slime and a She-Slime as separate creatures? Couldn't a different kind of slime with the same skills as the She-Slime have sufficed? Perhaps it could have been possible to choose the color of a monster that has traditionally been pallet swapped in the past or have it randomly selected for you. It isn't just slimes, either. Just about every family of monsters has at least one pallet swap monster that is arbitrarily more powerful than its lower ranked (and, one would presume, inferiorly colored) counterpart.

SOUND AND MUSIC: 4/10

I didn't really find the sound effects of this game to be all that astounding. The after battle jingle, the attack sounds and the level up jingle are all the same as in every Dragon Quest game since the very first one. It lends the game that charming nostalgia and familiarity that only an established franchise can provide, but it's also a little stale.

The battle music is a remixed version of the battle music from the first DQM and the overworld music, which varies by Island, was bland and uninspiring. I don't remember any of the tracks from this game at all.

I liked the fact that the music was turned off at night. I gave a sense of stillness to the game's Night cycle.

GAMEPLAY: 6/10

The Gameplay in Joker is pretty straightforward RPG fare. There are no random battles, since all the enemies appear on the overworld with your character. This makes avoiding combat easier as it does simplify the hunt for that elusive rare monster. Battles are still turn based, as usual, and they proceed in the usual fashion. Normally your monsters are controlled by the AI and can be assigned different strategies, based on their skills. You can set monsters to be all out offensive sweepers, healers or buffers. You can also tell them not to use magic and skills in case you need to conserve MP.

You can order your monsters directly, as you in a regular RPG and since the personality system from DQM1 has been removed this does not seem to have any negative effect on your monsters, so time when strategy is needed can be met effectively.

Outside of battle you control your character in the world in the usual way. The map is on the touch screen and you can move it around with the stylus. I don't like the fact that once you move it, if you press it again it resets. It's kind of annoying if the map is large and you want to look at different parts of it. It would also have been nice if the markers on the map would display a small tooltip when clicked. As it stands the legend is available in the manual, but having one on hand in game would have also been useful.

The real meat of the game comes from the synthesis process, which replaces breeding from other DQM titles. Monsters are no longer male and female but they have "charges" and are either Positive, Negative or Neutral. In order to synthesize, you need two monsters of at least level 10 who have different charges. Positive, for example, must be synthesized with either a Negative or Neutral monster. Once you select your two beasts, you get a choice of anywhere from one to three possible outcomes. You pick the monster you want the synthesis to create and then confirm.

Over the course of leveling your monsters they will acquire Skill Points, much like in Dragon Quest VIII. Most monsters have two sets of skills, an abilities set and a stat set. The Flamespirit monster has Fire, which gives it skills like Frizz and Flame Slash, and it has Defense, which raises its defense and HP stats alternatively. At certain fixed levels, monsters will gain a number of skill points based on how many skills they have. As you assign skill points, you get new skills.

When you synthesize, your new monster inherits the sum of the parents stats divided by four and each of the parents' skills, as well as the skills that the new monster has naturally. You may choose three skills, total, to take. (out of what could be 8 skills) If there were skill points placed into a skill inherited by a parent, the baby inherits half of the allocated skill points. This allows you to have a level 1 monster with a few spells or better stats than normal. The goal with synthesis, beyond creating rare creatures, is to give the baby the best possible stats and skills.

If the parents also reach certain skill point related goals, inherited skills may be "upgraded" and the baby would inherit a skill set that is fundamentally better than the one possessed by the parents.

I found the synthesis system to be fun and it's kept me from completing story tasks until much later, at times, because I keep wanting to make new and better monsters. I prefer it to the old breeding system of DQM1 and I also think that it sets this game apart from other monster catching/breeding type games. It could be argued that it makes every monster the same, but thanks to the skill system, and the fact that most monsters have an "attribute" and resistances that can different from others it's a little more streamlined from the old DQM system. I also like the fact that you get a good look at what you could potentially create before you synthesize, which aids in selecting the best monster of the bunch.

Aside from that, the rest of the gameplay is fairly standard. It doesn't really gain any points, since it's traditionally formulaic. I found that the later on in the game you got, the more tedious the game became, though. It got to a point where continuing the story was more of a chore than a joy. The sheer number of potential companions can make raising an effective party daunting, at times, especially since you have to be constantly Synthesizing new beasts to get better skills and stats and that all newly created monsters have to start at level 1.

Overall, I'd say that Joker is a good monster catcher, with good potential, but using a very tired system. The Dragon Quest style is very set in its ways and doesn't really do much in battle to make things fresh.

CONCLUSION:

Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker is a sub-par title, in my opinion. While making new monsters is fun, that's about the only fun part of the game. I can't say I cared for anything else. I never had a chance to try the online stuff, like battling in the World Cup for downloading enemy teams to battle, but frankly I wasn't really interested in any of that to begin with. Joker does it like so many other JRPGs on the market, but instead of only having a small party of generic heroes, you have potentially 200 companions, some of whom are better and more interesting than others, but who you have to train from 1st level a hundred times over.

If you're one of those die-hard monster collector people, or if you're just really keen on all things Dragon Quest you might like this game, but honestly, I'd sooner recommend Pokémon Diamond and Pearl over this title for a monster game. If you want a traditional JRPG on the DS, this will do, but there are also better games out there.

I give Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker a score of 5/10, which is an average of the areas I covered in my review.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 03/10/08

Game Release: Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker (US, 11/06/07)