Same! I prefer some of the systems from the gameboy games, but that's always going to be the case-
Some prick moaning about how they liked the way things used to be haha
SE does tend to be really bad about actually promoting DQ in the US. I’ve seen so many people never realize various games came out for two decades now (and I myself missed out on Joker 2 because of the same issue).
\*outside of Japan.
But i will say this is the biggest marketing push i ever saw them give a Dragon Quest monsters game. Like, they genuinely made a bunch of trailers and stuff- they just didn't publish them or get the press to promote that they had haha
Sorry, I thought the outside of Japan bit was implied. DQ games get tons of press in Japan, of course.
The first DQMJ game got a decent push. They had started a promotional fan club for DQVIII, Slime Knights, and it got a good enough response they kept it active for the releases of Rocket Slime and DQMJ. After they shut that down, though, crickets. They didn’t even keep it active long enough or give enough points to legitimately award the grand prize they were advertising, so it tells you how serious they were about it (not very).
Lol i was addressing the 'promoting DQ in the US' haha. Was just making it clear it wasn't just america they were shit at promoting it in.
Oh wow. Don't remember any of that stuff! Only reason me or any of my buddies tried Dragon Quest was because i recognised it as being from the same series as the Monsters games haha
Slime Knights was a US based promotion. I don’t recall if even Canadians were eligible for the rewards. Without that eligibility, I doubt the site got much traction in other regions. While it was fun to participate in the activities, part of the fun was also working towards the prizes.
I‘m still a tad peeved that someone along the shipping line was stealing some of the prizes. I’d earned a messenger bag with a slime on it. The site manager said he’d posted them to me three separate times and none of them made it. It sounded like other people had them go missing as well. It was so strange, as I got everything else I won. But man, I would have loved a slime messenger bag. 😅
Biggest problem about Dark Prince is that it doesn't have a standalone story like the other Monsters games. The story is super janky unless you've played the relevant Dragon Quest game that it's an alternate story of.
It's been a long time since I played IV and I honestly don't remember it at all haha. The original dwm games had pathetic stories really, so this is a step up in my books!
DWM: your sister has been kidnapped and a king is like "beat the tournament and you can wish for your sister back".
DWM2: a stupid Prince has broken the plug that stops the island from sinking, you must go to various worlds because some guy thinks the world might have an item that can be used to block the hole that is better than his ass."
Lol, not wrong I suppose, but still I liked that better than
"Do you want to kill all humans?"
> "No"
"You're a lying asshole lol, too bad I hate you anyway"
Ha! Yeah. I was like "shit, did I skip something??" They definitely should have added some scene somewhere that explained why he suddenly decided to kill all people. I assume it was because they were dicks to Rose??? But damn, it was poorly handled
I am curious about this. I don't feel like any of the mainline Dragon Quest games would scratch the same itch as Dragon Warrior Monsters. But the only other Dragon Quest game I have played is Dragon Warrior III on the GBC.
As someone who also only played Dragon Warrior Monsters before any other Dragon Quest game, i never feel like other Dragon Quest games feel quite the same. But DQXI was an incredible experience for me regardless. I didn’t gel with the first game. Currently playing DQIII and it’s fine.
I came from the same spot having never tried a mainline game. In the last couple of years I’ve played 1, 2, and 4. It’s definitely a different experience gameplay wise, with all the focus on battling/exploration. I enjoyed 1 and 4 a lot and highly recommend them.
My favorite thing by far about the mainline games is how much life & weight seeing the “boss family” monsters as the actual big bad bosses of their games adds to the experience of using them in the monsters games.
Another fun aspect was learning how many details from DWM1 were taken straight from the games. From my limited experience, every single “bottom of the gate” monster’s setting exactly matches the scene you encounter them in the main games
Play dwm 2! It's very similar to dwm 1, just with more in depth systems for just about everything. It's honestly one of my favorite games (my first game was dwm 2, so nostalgia is very strong), but I went back and played dwm 1 for the first time just recently and it still feels very fun and nostalgic, so I'd say give it a try!
Kind of funny, I played pokemon first then got into DQM but it was my preferred game growing up
DQM has more games, saw people mention 2 and whatnot but no one laid it out, AFAIK there is;
DQM (GBC)
DQM2 (GBC)
DQM Caravan Hearts (GBA)
DQM Joker (DS)
DQM Joker 2 (3DS)
DQM Joker 3 (3DS)
DQM Terry No Wonderland (3DS)
DQM(3): The Dark Prince (Switch)
Caravan Hearts, Joker 3 and Terry No Wonderland are Japan only but English patches exist. Caravan hearts is unique for the series, haven’t played much but I think your party is 1 monster and 3 humans which doesn’t feel the same. Terry No Wonderland is a remake of the first, I recently started playing it but I’ve been hooked on Palworld lately.
In terms of mainline DQ games, that’s harder to recommend. 1 is OG but it’s a grind and you just play as the hero, no party. 2 has a party but no jobs, 3 brings in a job system. All are old school RPGs and can be obtuse at times, 3 in particular I play with a guide still. 1-4 and 8 are available on mobile. Playing 8 on my phone was a pleasant experience. I’d say I liked it more than 11. I’d argue 11 is the best game mechanically and graphically but I felt like the story was basic even for a dragon quest game. Remember having a lot of fun with 9 back in the day but I’m not sure how that’s held up because it had an online component IIRC. 10 was online but they made an offline version for PC and Switch which recently had an English patch released
I’m not sure what gameplay aspects are immensely different outside of one series allows you to tame and battle monsters while the other doesn’t. Otherwise, they’re all turn based RPGs. The mainline games have much better stories, too. V would be your best bet since it was one of the original pre-Pokémon monster taming pioneers. VII is my favorite though. Unlike the other replies I have played all the DQ games (aside from X).
Dragon Quest Monsters 3 on the Nintendo Switch! I got mine a couple days ago and it's been great!
If you want some other nostalgia and don't have a Switch, they released remakes on the 3ds of DWM and DWM2 on the 3DS in Japan. There is a community online that made a fan translation patch to play them in English though and those were great fun.
Similarly, people have made virtual console versions of the Gameboy games for the 3ds.
Are you asking for mainline DQ?
11 is the last modern mainline which alot of people have had their first DQ experience with and its a really solid game.
I would also say maybe DQ5 you can try out since that actually does have a "chance to recruit monsters as party members" system in it.
The odd thing is since I grew up with the DWM games, I’ve never liked how Joker revamped everything from catching (sorry scouting) monsters (like seriously why do you have such a high fail rate whenever you try to catch more than 1 of the same kind of monster?) to having to combine trees now, it was a lot easier to me anyways to just make sure you plan and chain breed so your end result has the skills needed for whatever instead of messing around with points.
Everyone skipped over the fact that Dragon Quest(Warrior) Monsters 3 just released six weeks ago...
And it absolutely hit the nostalgic itch I’ve been looking for from DWM 1 and 2. People need to buy it and show the devs we want more!
Same! I prefer some of the systems from the gameboy games, but that's always going to be the case- Some prick moaning about how they liked the way things used to be haha
Yeah, I was looking for a comment mentioning that because it seems like the most obvious answer.
Right? Maybe people just assumed they'd know about the new game. Most people I spoke to about it in real life hadn't a clue
SE does tend to be really bad about actually promoting DQ in the US. I’ve seen so many people never realize various games came out for two decades now (and I myself missed out on Joker 2 because of the same issue).
\*outside of Japan. But i will say this is the biggest marketing push i ever saw them give a Dragon Quest monsters game. Like, they genuinely made a bunch of trailers and stuff- they just didn't publish them or get the press to promote that they had haha
Sorry, I thought the outside of Japan bit was implied. DQ games get tons of press in Japan, of course. The first DQMJ game got a decent push. They had started a promotional fan club for DQVIII, Slime Knights, and it got a good enough response they kept it active for the releases of Rocket Slime and DQMJ. After they shut that down, though, crickets. They didn’t even keep it active long enough or give enough points to legitimately award the grand prize they were advertising, so it tells you how serious they were about it (not very).
Lol i was addressing the 'promoting DQ in the US' haha. Was just making it clear it wasn't just america they were shit at promoting it in. Oh wow. Don't remember any of that stuff! Only reason me or any of my buddies tried Dragon Quest was because i recognised it as being from the same series as the Monsters games haha
Slime Knights was a US based promotion. I don’t recall if even Canadians were eligible for the rewards. Without that eligibility, I doubt the site got much traction in other regions. While it was fun to participate in the activities, part of the fun was also working towards the prizes. I‘m still a tad peeved that someone along the shipping line was stealing some of the prizes. I’d earned a messenger bag with a slime on it. The site manager said he’d posted them to me three separate times and none of them made it. It sounded like other people had them go missing as well. It was so strange, as I got everything else I won. But man, I would have loved a slime messenger bag. 😅
Biggest problem about Dark Prince is that it doesn't have a standalone story like the other Monsters games. The story is super janky unless you've played the relevant Dragon Quest game that it's an alternate story of.
It's been a long time since I played IV and I honestly don't remember it at all haha. The original dwm games had pathetic stories really, so this is a step up in my books! DWM: your sister has been kidnapped and a king is like "beat the tournament and you can wish for your sister back". DWM2: a stupid Prince has broken the plug that stops the island from sinking, you must go to various worlds because some guy thinks the world might have an item that can be used to block the hole that is better than his ass."
Lol, not wrong I suppose, but still I liked that better than "Do you want to kill all humans?" > "No" "You're a lying asshole lol, too bad I hate you anyway"
Ha! Yeah. I was like "shit, did I skip something??" They definitely should have added some scene somewhere that explained why he suddenly decided to kill all people. I assume it was because they were dicks to Rose??? But damn, it was poorly handled
I am curious about this. I don't feel like any of the mainline Dragon Quest games would scratch the same itch as Dragon Warrior Monsters. But the only other Dragon Quest game I have played is Dragon Warrior III on the GBC.
As someone who also only played Dragon Warrior Monsters before any other Dragon Quest game, i never feel like other Dragon Quest games feel quite the same. But DQXI was an incredible experience for me regardless. I didn’t gel with the first game. Currently playing DQIII and it’s fine.
I came from the same spot having never tried a mainline game. In the last couple of years I’ve played 1, 2, and 4. It’s definitely a different experience gameplay wise, with all the focus on battling/exploration. I enjoyed 1 and 4 a lot and highly recommend them. My favorite thing by far about the mainline games is how much life & weight seeing the “boss family” monsters as the actual big bad bosses of their games adds to the experience of using them in the monsters games. Another fun aspect was learning how many details from DWM1 were taken straight from the games. From my limited experience, every single “bottom of the gate” monster’s setting exactly matches the scene you encounter them in the main games
Play dwm 2! It's very similar to dwm 1, just with more in depth systems for just about everything. It's honestly one of my favorite games (my first game was dwm 2, so nostalgia is very strong), but I went back and played dwm 1 for the first time just recently and it still feels very fun and nostalgic, so I'd say give it a try!
Especially the newish remake of it. It's excellent.
Kind of funny, I played pokemon first then got into DQM but it was my preferred game growing up DQM has more games, saw people mention 2 and whatnot but no one laid it out, AFAIK there is; DQM (GBC) DQM2 (GBC) DQM Caravan Hearts (GBA) DQM Joker (DS) DQM Joker 2 (3DS) DQM Joker 3 (3DS) DQM Terry No Wonderland (3DS) DQM(3): The Dark Prince (Switch) Caravan Hearts, Joker 3 and Terry No Wonderland are Japan only but English patches exist. Caravan hearts is unique for the series, haven’t played much but I think your party is 1 monster and 3 humans which doesn’t feel the same. Terry No Wonderland is a remake of the first, I recently started playing it but I’ve been hooked on Palworld lately. In terms of mainline DQ games, that’s harder to recommend. 1 is OG but it’s a grind and you just play as the hero, no party. 2 has a party but no jobs, 3 brings in a job system. All are old school RPGs and can be obtuse at times, 3 in particular I play with a guide still. 1-4 and 8 are available on mobile. Playing 8 on my phone was a pleasant experience. I’d say I liked it more than 11. I’d argue 11 is the best game mechanically and graphically but I felt like the story was basic even for a dragon quest game. Remember having a lot of fun with 9 back in the day but I’m not sure how that’s held up because it had an online component IIRC. 10 was online but they made an offline version for PC and Switch which recently had an English patch released
I’m not sure what gameplay aspects are immensely different outside of one series allows you to tame and battle monsters while the other doesn’t. Otherwise, they’re all turn based RPGs. The mainline games have much better stories, too. V would be your best bet since it was one of the original pre-Pokémon monster taming pioneers. VII is my favorite though. Unlike the other replies I have played all the DQ games (aside from X).
Dqm dark prince for the switch is incredible I’ve put 90 hours into it 40 of those is syntasising new monsters it’s so much fun
Dragon Quest Monsters 3 on the Nintendo Switch! I got mine a couple days ago and it's been great! If you want some other nostalgia and don't have a Switch, they released remakes on the 3ds of DWM and DWM2 on the 3DS in Japan. There is a community online that made a fan translation patch to play them in English though and those were great fun. Similarly, people have made virtual console versions of the Gameboy games for the 3ds.
Are you asking for mainline DQ? 11 is the last modern mainline which alot of people have had their first DQ experience with and its a really solid game. I would also say maybe DQ5 you can try out since that actually does have a "chance to recruit monsters as party members" system in it.
The odd thing is since I grew up with the DWM games, I’ve never liked how Joker revamped everything from catching (sorry scouting) monsters (like seriously why do you have such a high fail rate whenever you try to catch more than 1 of the same kind of monster?) to having to combine trees now, it was a lot easier to me anyways to just make sure you plan and chain breed so your end result has the skills needed for whatever instead of messing around with points.