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Anyone who has read this site for more than 3 months or so knows how I feel
about Pokemon RPGs. Each time a new one comes out, my wife and I clear our
calendars and dive in. She refuses to put the game down until she's beaten the
Elite Four; I won't stop until my PC is filled with one each of every species of
Pokemon (yup, I have one each of every species my PC right now - all 646). But
being the voracious players we are, our goals are usually accomplished in a
month or two, and the year-long (or maybe more) wait for the next game is
agonizing. If you are anything like my wife and I (you don't need to be quite as
intense), I've got the game to help ease the agonizing torture of waiting:
Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker 2.
Aside from Nintendo's Pokemon, DQM: J2 (yeah... its too long to keep typing
over and over) is the premiere monster hunting title on the DS. It is set up
largely the same as the Pokemon games: Find monster, hurt monster, capture
monster, use monster against new monster, eventually fight others with monsters
to see who has better monsters. It is impossible to fault DQM: J2 for taking on
some of what makes Pokemon games so good; there is a reason they sell bazillions
of copies. If you are a seasoned PokeManic, you'll see similarities at every
turn, but honestly, most players won't be able to pick out the minutia. None of
this matters, of course, as what DQM: J2 does with Pokemon's monster hunting
base is nothing short of brilliant.
Much like the Pokemon games, you won't find much in the way of story in DQM:
J2; but unlike the Pokemon titles, a decent attempt at a slightly more fleshed
out tale is included and more than welcome in this spin-off/sequel. You control
a generic hero who stows away on an airship bound for the game's main island,
where monsters are captured, trained and made to do battle. The airship soon
crashes, leaving everyone aboard scattered around an unexplored jungle. The
gameplay still clings to the monster hunting/training/battling mechanics, but the plane crash is the perfect catalyst to set
it all off. Reassembling the scattered crew is only the first of many scenarios
you'll find yourself in, and each one twists the game in a new and compelling
way.
The only drive provided to the player in Pokemon games (and almost all other
monster hunting/raising/battling games) is, "Hey you! Grind, get better, train
more Pokemon, take on Gym Leaders and become Pokechampion!" And despite Pokemon
being one of my favorite series, I have to say this: This same, weak sauce story
has be nearly identical in every Pokemon RPG from the very beginning, some 15
years ago. It is refreshing to see someone challenge Nintendo's juggernaut
series by building a game that includes most everything missing from even the
newest Pokemon titles. I think a small list is called for, yes? Here are a few
things DQM: J2 includes that Pokemon games refuse to:
*You can re-name your monsters as many times as you like.
*All monsters
can be seen on the 3D battle screen. No more random encounters and crossed
fingers!
*Monsters are able to equip weapons. This tiny tweak adds a whole new layer to the game and the genre
as a whole.
*Instead of gaining set abilities at set levels, monsters are
given skill points for the player to spend on whatever they please - attacks,
stat boosts, etc.
*Monsters can be combined with other monsters to form
powerful new hybrids (yes, you can breed in Pokemon, but monster synthesis works
more like combining weapons or items. No eggs, no wait time, just new monsters
from old).
All five additions should be compelling reasons for anyone who enjoys Pokemon
to give this one a try, even if it is just to see a game that does things the
way you keep wishing the next Pokemon game will.
I mentioned the enemies are indeed visible on the 3D plane you'll be
wandering around. They look pretty nice in full 3D, as do the environments and
characters. To be able to see everything - main character, monsters, items, all
of it, in beautiful 3D (don't get to excited; this isn't 3DS 3D, this is Mario 64 3D) is a real treat. Aside from some
clipping issues and jagged edges, DQM: J2 looks great and really puts the
now-retired DS system through the paces. The sound and music are well done and
appropriate as well, though a few sound effects tweak the ear as though they
were pulled from the Atari chiptune grindcore library. You'll get the joke when
you hear it.
Author's Note: As with all Dragon Quest games, the art is done by Akira
Toriyama, the creator of my favorite anime/manga of all time, Dragon Ball Z. Of course I'm going to give high marks
to anything that Son Goku's father touches, but trust me, you don't have to be
Toriyama fan #1 to see the beauty in this game's presentation.
The game controls pretty well, though at this point, I couldn't imagine
playing it on anything other than the 3DS, with it's fan-freaking-tastic analog
pad/nubbin/whatever. DQM: J2 is a full 3D, semi-free roam title that is forced
to compensate for the imperfections caused by the regular DS' four-way d-pad. On
the the d-pad, the game is playable, even enjoyable. On the 3DS analog nub? It
controls like a dream, and the camera behaves exactly as you'd like it to about
85 percent of the time, a HUGE percentage when held up against other recent,
uncontrollable camera games (I won't name any names). For when the camera
doesn't follow your telepathic orders, the shoulder buttons usually allow you to
manually swing your view around to the correct angle. With a smarter-than-normal
hands-off camera and the ability to easily correct it's mistakes... Ah, heaven.
Add to that an easily controllable 3D
character and Dragon Quest's signature simple-to-understand battle menus and you
have a game that is just begging to be played, played more and finally played
through the night more than once or twice a week. And I haven't even talked
about the online component yet!
Since local multiplayer was impossible at the time of this review (no one has
the game in the U.S. yet), I am only going to talk about Wi-Fi features
exclusively. The game boasts stat exchanges with other players, online monster
trading (which is much more streamlined than the Pokemon version of the process
and even one-on-one battles. There is plenty to do online in DQM: J2, and I
can't wait to see how the online community
explodes when the game finally hits retail
stores in September.
DQM: J2 isn't without its annoyances, though. If you aren't a fan of the
grind (NOT MTV's defunct dance show), this
one will drive you nuts. Nearly the entire game is spent collecting and
strengthening monsters in battle. You battle, you grow, you battle again. That
pretty much sums it up. In fairness, SquareEnix did their best to keep the game
as interesting as possible when you aren't fighting monsters, but it is all just
standard RPG story stuff. Unless you have a strong motive (you need to finish
the game, you need to collect all the monsters, etc.) or a deep love of Dragon
Quest, you will probably quit this one long before you finish it.
Other tiny issues include a frequent lack of story direction, some confusing
menus and one of the weakest RPG opening chapters I've ever seen, but no one
thing is big enough to dent this game's impressive quality. The graphics, the
style, especially Toriyama's work, the gameplay and the barely quantifiable amount of stuff to accomplish come together to
make Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker 2 one of the last, best Nintendo DS games and the second greatest monster hunting
RPG on the system.