I have a complicated history with this game. This game was the first time I ever installed an emulator and a translation patch, because the very existence of this game was kinda mythical to me as a younger kid and I finally had the means to actually try it out. I would look at screenshots of this game on RPG websites and think to myself "oh man, there's a special GBA Dragon Quest Monsters game I can't play because they never released it outside of Japan!", and I love so many of the Dragon Quest games! Dragon Quest Monsters is one of my favorite Game Boy titles!
Then I actually played it.
Honestly, I gotta say...this is probably the worst Dragon Quest Monsters game I have ever played, and possibly one of the worst RPGs I've ever played. And I've played a lot.
I had to force myself to play this game all the way to the end and I don't think I would've been able to finish this game without save states and the ability to speed up the ROM. I can't imagine what this game is like on its original hardware without any game guides but it sounds like a miserable, drawn-out experience.
This game is the epitome of "great ideas, poor execution" because a lot of the ideas do sound kinda cool before you play the game. You have caravan management! Monsters treated more like characters than like disposable weapons you swap out as soon as you befriend a stronger one! A customizable party of caravan friends to help you! A game that's a prequel to Dragon Quest 7 but takes place in the world of Dragon Quest 2! You can really tell that they wanted to make a game that shook up the formula of the previous two games.
Then the actual gameplay happens and perhaps changing up the formula was a bad thing.
- The caravan system means that you are constantly depleting rations that have to be refilled with items and gold, which means the early portion of this game is absolutely grueling and it feels like the player is being actively punished for trying to explore.
- Since your monsters are just set characters that you constantly change into different forms using monster hearts and a process called Reformation, this game is a monster collection game without any monster collecting. Sure, you collect hearts, but something about that felt more hollow than just befriending the monster like in the other games.
It really doesn't help that your caravan monsters don't really have much of a personality to speak of. Most of your monsters' dialogue is like "I wanna help the caravan!". The most basic "Yay helping!" personalities. The third one, Carol, is basically a baby monster that roars at you whenever you talk to her, and it honestly feels kinda weird to be physically altering this baby monster into different creatures all the time.
- Your caravan members all act in battle along with your monsters, which means random battles are an absolute chore of scrolling through a bunch of different actions from your caravan members. Every time you hit that "Fight" command on each turn, you have to wait for like ten people to finish attacking so a lot of the gameplay is just sitting there and waiting for the text to stop scrolling.
- This being a game that takes place several hundred years after the end of Dragon Quest 2 is a bit of a fun oddity but ultimately the story itself is "you are transported into another world and help some kid find four glowing orbs to heal his sick parents". I literally forgot the first half of the game because none of the story-related dialogue is that interesting or exciting. This game does a whole "here's all the exciting places you visited in sepia tone!" thing during the credits and I was just sitting there, unable to remember who any of these people were.
And if you think the whole "taking place in the world of Dragon Quest 2" thing would make it interesting....it doesn't. I think they did it mostly to reuse maps.
Add random events on the world map that hinder process into the pile (boy I sure love a grind-heavy game that sometimes gives me a random event that turns random events off!), a boring, meandering story that often leaves you without any clue of where to go (at one point you have to go to a specific boat port to reach a new continent, but of course the game doesn't tell you this), poor level scaling which means that the late-game section of the game requires hours of grinding, and an honestly kinda boring overworld that's just bumbling into places and hoping it has the next glowing item or event flag you need to collect, and you have yourself a really mediocre game that I think was never translated because everyone just kinda collectively looked at it and went "yeah okay, we don't need to inflict this on other countries".
On the bright side, at least the sprites are cute and I think the people who made the English translation patch did a very good job. It's just that sadly, what was translated is quite the turd.
For completionist's only. Spare yourselves the fate that I subjected myself to.
Then I actually played it.
Honestly, I gotta say...this is probably the worst Dragon Quest Monsters game I have ever played, and possibly one of the worst RPGs I've ever played. And I've played a lot.
I had to force myself to play this game all the way to the end and I don't think I would've been able to finish this game without save states and the ability to speed up the ROM. I can't imagine what this game is like on its original hardware without any game guides but it sounds like a miserable, drawn-out experience.
This game is the epitome of "great ideas, poor execution" because a lot of the ideas do sound kinda cool before you play the game. You have caravan management! Monsters treated more like characters than like disposable weapons you swap out as soon as you befriend a stronger one! A customizable party of caravan friends to help you! A game that's a prequel to Dragon Quest 7 but takes place in the world of Dragon Quest 2! You can really tell that they wanted to make a game that shook up the formula of the previous two games.
Then the actual gameplay happens and perhaps changing up the formula was a bad thing.
- The caravan system means that you are constantly depleting rations that have to be refilled with items and gold, which means the early portion of this game is absolutely grueling and it feels like the player is being actively punished for trying to explore.
- Since your monsters are just set characters that you constantly change into different forms using monster hearts and a process called Reformation, this game is a monster collection game without any monster collecting. Sure, you collect hearts, but something about that felt more hollow than just befriending the monster like in the other games.
It really doesn't help that your caravan monsters don't really have much of a personality to speak of. Most of your monsters' dialogue is like "I wanna help the caravan!". The most basic "Yay helping!" personalities. The third one, Carol, is basically a baby monster that roars at you whenever you talk to her, and it honestly feels kinda weird to be physically altering this baby monster into different creatures all the time.
- Your caravan members all act in battle along with your monsters, which means random battles are an absolute chore of scrolling through a bunch of different actions from your caravan members. Every time you hit that "Fight" command on each turn, you have to wait for like ten people to finish attacking so a lot of the gameplay is just sitting there and waiting for the text to stop scrolling.
- This being a game that takes place several hundred years after the end of Dragon Quest 2 is a bit of a fun oddity but ultimately the story itself is "you are transported into another world and help some kid find four glowing orbs to heal his sick parents". I literally forgot the first half of the game because none of the story-related dialogue is that interesting or exciting. This game does a whole "here's all the exciting places you visited in sepia tone!" thing during the credits and I was just sitting there, unable to remember who any of these people were.
And if you think the whole "taking place in the world of Dragon Quest 2" thing would make it interesting....it doesn't. I think they did it mostly to reuse maps.
Add random events on the world map that hinder process into the pile (boy I sure love a grind-heavy game that sometimes gives me a random event that turns random events off!), a boring, meandering story that often leaves you without any clue of where to go (at one point you have to go to a specific boat port to reach a new continent, but of course the game doesn't tell you this), poor level scaling which means that the late-game section of the game requires hours of grinding, and an honestly kinda boring overworld that's just bumbling into places and hoping it has the next glowing item or event flag you need to collect, and you have yourself a really mediocre game that I think was never translated because everyone just kinda collectively looked at it and went "yeah okay, we don't need to inflict this on other countries".
On the bright side, at least the sprites are cute and I think the people who made the English translation patch did a very good job. It's just that sadly, what was translated is quite the turd.
For completionist's only. Spare yourselves the fate that I subjected myself to.