Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker 2 is Great

So I bought Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker 2 because I played a few hours of the first one, and was somewhat impressed. I say somewhat because the first game has some flaws in its presentation, which I'll get to at the end of this post.

So, the DQM:J series is similar to Pokemon, in that you go around a world and collect and train monsters to beat some competition. The difference between this series and Pokemon, though, is that you can "synthesize" monsters together to get a new one, and carry over powers and some stats to the new guy.

This, of course, reminds me of the Shin Megami Tensei series, wherein you fuse demons together to carry over powers and stats to the new ones. The mechanics are very similar, actually, with only a few differences. First, to "synthesize" monsters in the DQM:J series, both monsters must be at least level 10. This is annoying early on, when raising your guys to level 10 takes forever, but eventually you can do that in a few minutes even without the help of a metal slime.

What the DQM:J series needs to take from SMT, though, is the idea of a "compendium." In SMT, this allows you to repurchase old demons, in the interest of using them to fuse new ones or just to get them back if you don't like the demon you got as a result of a borked fuse. DQM:J doesn't have anything like this; once you fuse a monster, it's gone forever. The only way to get another guy is to raise more monsters, go all the way through the evolution trees, and get the new guy, or just catch a (slightly worse) one in the wild. Sure, leveling up to level 10 is easy when you have access to the later areas, and it's nice that three backup monsters (I.E. monsters not currently in your active party, but still with you) gain experience too. I just wish I could cut out the middleman and get back to raising some awesome monsters.

The DQM:J series does have a leg up on SMT, though. Each monster has a family tree going back a few generations, so you can see which monster came from what (for example, I currently have a tyrannosaurus rex with a giant hammer, and he is the result of several generations of synthesizing, and actually descends from my starting monster). Also, you can choose which sets of powers you want to carry over to the new monster, along with half the ability points (which work exactly like in Dragon Quest VIII). Half the points may sound bad, but keep in mind any freshly synthesized monster starts out at level 1, so you actually have the opportunity to earn way more ability points this way.

DQM:J also keeps track of monsters with a handy rating system, which serves to tell you how good a monster is. The rating system starts at F, and goes up through E, D, C, B, A, S, and X. I'm twelve hours in, and my best monster (the aforementioned t-rex) is a B+4 - also the highest rating I've seen. The + denotes a boosted rating a monster gets from being synthesized, so I'd imagine the best rating you could get would be X+4 or something like that. Anyway, ratings are handy when deciding how to fuse, because you don't want to synthesize a good monster into a lower level crappy one (the game indicates the results of synthesis before you commit to it, to cut down on crappy combinations).

So I really like the structure and system of the DQM:J series. What I didn't like about the first one was how the game played out. You start out as this ugly kid (with a wallet chain! ugh) on some random thief's island, and you set out to win the Monster Scout Challenge. To leave your home island, and to get anywhere in the game at all, you ride a waverunner.

In Dragon Quest.

You don't control it, either. They basically just serve as warp points, because guess what? You can't just hop on a waverunner and pick which island you want to go to. Oh, no. Each waverunner, spread around all the islands, goes to a DIFFERENT ISLAND. So you have to walk across an entire island to get to a different waverunner, which for no apparent reason can only go in a straight line to that specific island it's pointing at.

This gets tedious very quickly.

The world isn't very interesting, either. Now, maybe I didn't play far enough into it (about five hours), but generic and boring best describe pretty much every location I saw in that game.

Which are all reasons why I like Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker 2. First of all, the entire world is contiguous - you can walk from one place to another. Don't feel like walking all the way from the starting point to the farthest area? Why, pick it from a map menu and you're good to go! No stupid waverunners to deal with here.

Also, the world seems much more alive. There are monsters roaming around just like in the first game, but this time there are some giant monsters that will scare away all the other monsters when they show up. You can engage these monsters if you want, but it's best not to until you're leveled up a bit and probably with some better monsters, so you should just avoid them. I love them, though, because they make the world seem so much more vibrant.

It also helps that the levels are better designed, too, and the map is much easier to read. I haven't gotten lost in the game yet, and have actually enjoyed exploring every nook and cranny to find hidden treasure. Exploring is made much more enjoyable with good music, too (although they need more than one battle theme - I'm a bit sick of that now).

I will end this post with this: I am having more fun playing Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker 2 than I did earlier this year with Pokemon White.

Startling, isn't it?