Dragon Quest Monsters – Joker: Hands On
Pokemon on autopilot
Tags: Dragon Quest Monsters - Joker Categories: DS Previews, Previews
Posted by Mike "Two Tone" McConnell on Nov 2nd, 2007
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The furor over the release of Dragon Quest VII, (Dragon Warrior VII for all of you reluctant to revise your childhood,) for the Nintendo DS, was prefaced by two side installments to the series being announced for the same system. The well received, Dragon Quest Heroes: Rocket Slime, and the forthcoming Dragon Quest Monsters sequel, Joker. The whole series dates back to the Game Boy Color era, although like many Japanese RPGs, the west has only received a few of the installments. Joker looks to be an upgrade to the interface, but keeping to the Pokemon-esque combat.
The demo we played didn’t detail much of the story, but the main character is in the Monster Scout Challenge, and gathers a variety of monsters along the way to completing the competition. As you’re searching through ruins for treasure and monster alike, even cleared dungeons offer some replay value.
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The battles themselves are reminiscent of Pokémon, But Dragon Quest Monsters – Joker isn’t a simple clone. The battles are much more automated where players set three monsters on a certain attack style, and watch what happens.
While this follows an earlier formula it doesn’t change the fact that RPG’s are suffering from people attempting to reinvent the wheel, and doing so by trying to use cubes. RPG’s will always have a certain appeal. Tabletop games are moving into the virtual space easily. The system isn’t the problem, RPG players are looking for an engaging story– which Dragon Quest delivers, even in this side installment. Making the game by default have automatic combat doesn’t allow you to feel involved with the game at all, instead it feels like there is a barrier to your adventure. Combat is supposed to be frustrating, and Joker does allow you to use stealth to evade some creatures. This prevents the game from becoming tedious, but it doesn’t help the fun factor.
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With Wi-Fi action to keep fans rapt in this spin off, it is a shame it will have such a limited appeal. Longtime fans of the Dragon Quest series will get their fix waiting for the next real installment, however even hardcore RPG/Monster Hunter fans will not find much to engage them. The party management seems rather shallow and the combat even more so. As this already hit in Japan last year, and is due out here in a very short time, it is quite doubtful that there will be any massive changes before the street date.
So Dragon Quest Monsters – Joker is an incomplete experience, it is one the fans will still clamor for. The great character design is there, and Dragon Quest rarely disappoints in the narrative, but the combat hurts this for converts and casual fans.
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Tags: Dragon Quest Monsters - Joker
Posted by Mike "Two Tone" McConnell on Nov 2nd, 2007 and is filed under DS Previews, Previews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can post a comment, or trackback from your own site.
