GBAtemp Recommends #059: Dragon Quest Monsters

[Hadrian]

Welcome to the 59th issue of the GBAtemp Recommends Revival Project! This project is a weekly feature where we share our favourite games and applications with you. The things we recommend may be "old school" titles, a Homebrew, a ROM hack, sleeper hits, an application, etc, but one thing's for certain, we think they are fantastic and deserve your attention!​

GBAtemp Recommends!​

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Written by SexBortzNATOR​

Remember when Pokemon Red/Blue and Yellow were hogging the handheld stage in 2000? I do, only because I was distracted and wanted to fit in with everyone. As soon as I beat the elite 4 with my Pikachu, I sharply lost interest in the pokemon miniverse for a while (till the crowning pinnacle of the Pokemon series Silver/Gold/Crystal). But for those 3 years between the Pokemon releases, I slipped into a world more imaginative and complex than Pokemon could ever hope to be. This world was the mystic world of Dragon Quest Monsters.

The game was derived as a spin off of the first 6 Dragon Quest games. Instead of a story driven RPG, this time you collect another signature trademark of the series: the monsters. There were over 250 of them in the original DWM, and they were all badass.

The story is weak and only there to give the game purpose. You are Terry (a younger version of Terry from DQ6) and your sister has been taken by a mystical monster. You are also taken by a similar monster and told maybe you can get her back if you win the Starry Night Tournament. In order to do this, you have to traverse a multitude of magic gates containing monsters of all kinds. And its up to you to tame, train, and breed your way to victory.

The game consists of you travelling into mystic gates to traverse randomly generated worlds, collect monsters, and then at the end, battle a boss monster. Once you clear a gate, you can head over to the arena to take the next class of fellow monster masters. Then its back to the mystic worlds. Anywhere in there, if you feel like your monsters aren't powerful enough... breed them together.

"Breed? You can do that in Pokemon." Yeah if you like taking hours to grind a weak baby with bait and switch tactics. Listen up, reader. This is where DWM cashes its chips and wins it big. The game's central focus is powering up your monsters. When you catch monsters, each one is either male or female. Obvious. When they reach double digits in level (10), they are old enough to breed. The monsters have to be male and female. The new monster produced has half the average of the parents stats and (hopefully) better growth ratings. So a new monster will likely be better than a wild one. And once that monster has grown up, breed it again... and again... And by the time you look back, you will have some pretty serious monsters on your hands.

The best part about this (or at least my favourite part) is that all of the monsters are available to you from the beginning of the game. You don't need anyone to trade with or anything. Its just you, your monsters, and the huge mystic world.

Genre: Turn-Based RPG
Release Year: 1998 (JPN), 1999 (Eur), 2000 (NA)
Developed: TOSE
Published by: Enix Corporation/Eidos Interactive
Designed by: Yuji Horri
Released For: Gameboy Color

Also Known as: Dragon Quest Monsters: Terry's Wonderland (JPN), Dragon Quest Monsters (Eur)
Ports/Remakes: Dragon Quest Monsters 1+2 (PSX), Dragon Quest Monsters: Terry's Wonderland 3D (3DS)

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[dragonmaster]

oh yes I know this game, I even play the gba version of dragon quest monsters on my tablet. Along with digimon they were games that I liked and own, I think I may have the gbc cartridge.

 

[chartube12]

Possibly was my favorite game from the game boy color as a kid. Definitely the most played game of the gbc era. Pokemon TCG was a close second.

 

[FireEmblemGuy]

Possibly my favorite GBC game. I still try and do playthrough every year, even if I can't find my cart.

 

[Aeter]

This thread came too late for me as I actually found this game a few days ago.
This game also has two sequels worth trying: Dragon Warrior Monsters 2: Cobi's Journey and Dragon Warrior Monsters 2: Tara's Adventure

 

[BORTZ]

The sequels don't do the original justice.

 

[Clydefrosch]

the sequels work very differently, they're more like a real rpg again, with a little more emphasis on classical stories ( you end up somewhere, realize some people need help, then you help them, they give you stuff, then you go beat a boss and repeat that again)

i liked how they had more monsters in the second one, but i also often stopped playing this halfway through, because the maps were so annoying and it was sometimes hard to find where you were supposed to go next.

the first part was better in its simplicity i guess

 

[lordgoober]

heh. I started replaying this again when I got my Revo K101 in last week. I wonder how long it will take for the guys who are working on the translation patch for the psx remakes to finish. I'd love to be able to play in english on my Go

 

[shakirmoledina]

I am not sure why but games with such graphics tend to play better than ones with better graphics. Possibly due to the focus moving away from the graphics. Personally playing dqm on the ds was less fun than the game on the gbc; it's a different game but just the feel is unique.

 

[BORTZ]

heh. I started replaying this again when I got my Revo K101 in last week. I wonder how long it will take for the guys who are working on the translation patch for the psx remakes to finish. I'd love to be able to play in english on my Go

The translation team for that hit a roadbump and had since been derailed. As far as i know, the last "update" was december 2010.

 

[lordgoober]

there was an update post at the beginning of this year.

 

[kylster]

I'm going to give this game a try on my Exhilarate rwar anyone know a good reliable GBC emu for Droid?

 

[drobb]

I loved this game, in fact still have the cart and its actually sitting in my old gbc right now. hmmm may have to play it again. and i agree, while i liked the DS Joker games, they werent quite the same as this. Also, does anyone know a good emu for android they would recommend? Id like to try it on my tablet or even my S3

 

[Unagi]

Crowning achievement in gaming: breeding all the way to Darkdrium. Fuuuuck, that cost me 362 hours, 14 hours, 25 minutes. I went crazy, and when I finished breeding that motherfucker he was like +64. Needless to say, at level 1 he could stomp almost anything. This was the first game I TRULY completed. I set out to get the hardest to obtain monster (some several dozen breeds) and I ended up getting it.

 

[KiTA]

Oh god, this game. I used to play this game on my Gameboy while waiting between classes. I remember running around dungeons with my pet Metaly, "Dood."

I hope to god we get the 3DS remake in the US. If Nintendo hadn't fallen to the dark side of region locking I'd own it already.

 

[ouch123]

This is one of those games where I played it near to completion, only to have the cart's battery fail on me. I picked it up a few times in-between, but due to the volatility of the save file, it basically meant completing the entire game within the span of a few days. Sadly, I never finished. Still, one of my favorites for sure. This and Final Fantasy Legend III (SaGa 3) were my favorite RPG's on the Gameboy/Color. Good times.

 

[tl2e3le4f]

I love this game. I hope they localize DQM3D! One of the reasons I got a 3DS.

 

[Hadrian]

I love this game. I hope they localize DQM3D! One of the reasons I got a 3DS.

I'd rather they localised Rocket Slime 3 more than anything, I can't say I liked the look of the remake.

 

[rastsan]

this game I actually finished 4 times. I still own 1 of every cart. I even have the backup tools for the gb and gbc. Purchased just for the sole purpose of extending my game play of this game. compared to them the ds version joker just - sucks. I still played joker though...
I too would love to have rocket slime and the 3ds terrys wonderland...

 

[FireEmblemGuy]

I can't say I want the remake to make it over here, honestly. Joker was pretty bad and I only managed to play about 45 minutes of Joker 2 before giving up in disgust. As far as I'm aware DQM 3D is basically the original game's story ported over to a slightly upgraded version of the Joker engine, and the story wasn't the reason anyone was interested in the game as far as I'm aware.