I thought the exact same thing when I picked up Joker. I couldnt believe that the DS was capable of that. I couldn't believe that SE had the balls to attempt something like that on the DS either. But I am sure glad they did. Joker and Joker 2 pro (with SOuimets patch) took quite a few of my hours.
I was actually a bit bothered with a few things in Joker.
1. The axing of so many monsters and renaming of others. I realize this was done to "localize" the names, but some of them were so much more creative in the DW franchise. Also it created some interesting issues such as the name "Gold Golem". When talking to my friend who only ever played the newer Joker games he thought I was talking about this guy
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But after seeing how puzzled he was about making one I realized that he didnt know what I was talking about. When I kept saying "It takes a special fusion. Blizzardy +5 x Blizzardy x Phoenix +5 x Phoenix" he kept asking why 4 birds would make a golden statue and I finally got that he had no idea that I meant this guy:
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Who got renamed something dumb.
Anyways. That and 2, the lack of random areas (a la DWM or Terry's Wonderland) and grinding got old FAST.
Do I have hope for the Monsters games? Yes and no.
Yes: Because now Horii has acknowledged that the Western world would like to play the Dragon Quest titles. IF these two titles sell well enough (please purchase them, along with Heroes if any of you have a PS4), then the other two MIGHT stand a chance at seeing a Western sky. Am I hopeful this will happen?
No. Because its a miracle that 8 is A) being (de)made and ported to the 3DS and that B) its allegedly being brought across the seas to us English speakers. IMHO, 8 deserves to be remade on the finest of hardware, whether that be the mobile freedom of the Vita or the confines of the vastly superior PS4. If you have ever played the PS2 version you know its
FUCKING* beautiful. Regardless, I would take 8 in just about any form available to me. But given those two opinions (which should be taken as facts
) I dont think 7 and/or 8 will sell well enough to merit Horii pushing Squeenix to allow him the budget to get us the monster series.
HOWEVER
I am strangely ok with that. The main number series has always had fun stories and lord knows that 7 and 8 are no slouches when it comes to content. Either game will take you a sizable amount of hours to complete. I know, the monster series will too, but the fun of those games doesnt come from reading endless dialogue or completeing fetch quests. It comes from crafting your next sweet monster who can crush anything that comes your way. And then doing it to the poor monster tamer that challenges you. With the two main series games coming our way, I have hope that we might be able to extract some data from them and make at very least a working menu/skills translation. Which, if someone can just do a quick overview of the story and a main quest walkthough on a wikipage somewhere, thats all we really need. Right?
*I dont like swearing, so dont take that lightly. When I say that word, I mean every ounce of emphasis I can get.