Dragon Quest Monsters Joker 2

Introduction

I mentioned that Dragon Quest V was the first DQ to allow you to recruit monsters. In 2000 DQ released Dragon Quest Monsters (released here as Dragon Warrior Monsters), a game dedicated to recruiting and using monsters. It was clearly meant to copy Pokémon in the hopes of getting some of its popularity. That said, from the beginning the DQM side series has done enough on its own to stand on its own merits. For one, Dragon Quest was an already established series with its own monsters. With the DQM’s you get the novelty of recruiting your favorite monsters from the DQ games, up to and including the final bosses. Next, DQM stayed with the DQ formula for battle and gameplay. Finally, DQM introduced a deep breeding/synthesis system that we’ll cover in a little bit.

Now fast forward to 2011, when Dragon Quest Monsters Joker 2 came out. I have to admit, I’m not a fan of the long name. The first DQMJ came out in 2007 and they added Joker both as a nod to the main character and to note how DQMJ was different than the previous DQM’s. But I don’t think DQMJ is sufficiently different to warrant an extra subtitle and would rather DQMJ was just DQM3 and that this game was DQM4. It gets even worse; both Joker games got a remake where they added Professional to the title, leading to Dragon Quest Monsters Joker 2 Professional (DQMJ2P).

Long names aside, the DQM games are fun games.

The Setting

I really liked the setting of this game. An airship is on its way to a monster scout (the people that recruit monsters) tournament. It gets hit by a strange storm and crash lands on a nearby island that’s filled with monsters. The crew and passengers are scattered with only the hero and the first mate left at the ship. With little choice the first mate tasks the hero with becoming a monster scout so that he can explore the island and search for the missing people.

Deserted on an uncharted island filled with monsters is a very good fit for a game like this. In addition, the hero begins encountering ghosts that resemble the passengers and captain, adding a chilling effect to the mystery of exploring the island.

Synthesis

A key mechanic in the DQM games from the beginning is synthesis (previously breeding). You combine and lose two monsters and get a new monster made from them. The new monster starts at level 1 with stats equal to a quarter of its parents’ sums; the new monster is almost always stronger at level 1 than either of its parents were. The child also can picks some of the skill sets (see below) of the parents as well as the skill set of its new type. Thus, synthesis is key to building up powerful monsters. I synthed early and often. The new monsters start week but level quickly and become more powerful than their parents at equal levels.

The really cool thing about synthesis in DQM is the types of the children. In the Joker games you get to pick one type of three possible based on the parents. Most synth’s are considered generic which is the new monster will get the rank (rarity and general power) of the highest rank parent and you can choose which family (e.g. slimes, dragons, zombies, etc.). Special synths can rank up the child to produce a rarer and more powerful child. E.g. Synthing a Tyrantosaurus (a red T-Rex wielding a giant spiked hammer) and a Drakularge (a large-bellied dragon) produced a Great Dragon (a golden kind of D&D looking dragon of great power).

Synthing is also the only way to eventually get the DQ final bosses. In this playthrough I only got one: Dracolord, the first form of DQ1’s final boss. Dracolord, since DQM1, has always been synthed by a Great Dragon with a Servant-at-Arms (a six-armed zombie warrior with different weapons in each hand).

Skill System

A place where I think DQMJ took a step back compared to the earlier DQM games is how it handles skills. In the Joker games each monster has a few skill sets that you put Skill Points, gained at certain levels, into to learn skills and spells. This includes getting upgrades for certain skills. The problem is some skill lines are valuable from the beginning and scale well. E.g. Oomph (double attack power of target). Available reasonably early (about 32 SP, depending on the Skill set) and doesn’t become obsolete. Compare that to skill lines like the breath weapons and attack spells. The first tier of breath and attack spells quickly become obsolete but you need to go through them to get their more powerful upgrades. You may need to max out a skill set (something I wouldn’t do until the endgame) to get an attack skill that can keep up with your normal physical attacks. It just isn’t great value. Thus, in the endgame my monsters were getting skills usually acquired around the 1/2 to 2/3 point in any other DQ and I quickly learned to not bother with attack skills.

Compare to the early pre-Joker DQM’s where monsters get three skill lines for their type and any skill line their parent had. You could only keep 8 skill lines and you learned the skills and upgrades by level. If some skill lines all gave something at level 16, so be it. I remember generally getting late and endgame skills in the earlier DQM’s. That said, I say all this but with my aggressive synthing I only started hitting level 20 in the lategame. But if I didn’t synth so much my monsters’ leveling slowed to a crawl and I would’ve needed to level grind to keep up anyway

My Party

Since I did so much synthing I didn’t hold onto any one monster for too long. Thus, instead of describing individual monsters I’ll describe the general roles they went into.

The Muscle

 

 

Abyss Diver

Tyrantosaurus

Great Dragon

Dracolord

Generally had the highest attack and HP. After the early game I purposely also kept this role in the Dragon family because I like me some dragons. For a while this member had little MP. However, he was my only source of resurrection for a time with Zing (50% chance to revive). When I synthed an Abyss Diver this spot got a huge power boost as the Diver leveled incredibly fast and still had good stat gains. Later, I synthed the Dracolord as my final entry in this spot. He had the same good attack as previous entries but also had good other stats including tons of MP. And by that point I not only had him with Zing but Midheal (single-target healing) to be a backup healer. Abyss Diver, Tyrantosaurus, Great Dragon, Dracolord

The Speedy Support

 

 

Bodkin Archer

Merman

Gryphon

Lethal Armour

This spot probably changed the most generation to generation. When the Bodkin Archer took this spot is when he gained a ton of agility. This was also the first spot to get Oomph. From that point on he would later get spells like Insulatle (reduce party damage from breath weapons), Kabuff (increase party defense), and Acceleratle (increase party agility). He also had the second best attack on the team and with that agility was good for sometimes picking off enemies before they could act. I didn’t stick to a single family here so entries were across the board. We had the best Bodkin Archer, aquatic beast Merman, flying demon Gryphon, and animated armor Lethal Armour.

The Healer

 

 

Snowmangler

Slime Knight

Magic Slime

Dark Slime Knight

I like my healers and I like my slimes. Throughout the game this spot held slimes that at least had the Healer set, containing the single-target Heal spells. The spot was also surprisingly tanky with several members with great Defense growth. Otherwise, had the lowest Attack so this spot was more about keeping the team alive then dishing out the pain. Later on gained Multiheal for team healing which was crucial as usual.

Areas and Bosses

Treepidation – The game starts of strong with its opening area. Treepidation is a jungle area with a variety of monsters. It’s got a wooded area, caverns, a swamp, and then a hilly final area. It also introduces giant monsters as you’ll have to avoid the giant worm, Wormonger. Even the other monsters run from it. The opening area is surprisingly long though the game helps you survive with some full-heal spots and the spells Zoom and Zip which can be used to go back and heal and then return without having to backtrack the whole area. Later on you can revisit when it’s raining to find tougher monsters.

Cragravation – A mountainous region. The bottom area is a mountain-base area with scorpions, mecha-mynahs (mechanical birds), dancing devils, and more. One impressive thing about the DQMJ2 areas is how varied they end up being. You start in a brown and orange rocky area, move into the snowy mountain trails, head into caverns, and then go to the peak. The upper areas have fossils on the cliff faces and at night big skeleton-dragon skelegons can emerge from them.

Necropolis

The area with the final boss, basically the final dungeon. You’ve got glowy, foreboding temple areas, teleporters in a spiral area over a pit, a volcanic area, and then the final shrine area with the boss. And as you’d expect it’s a big endurance test. Pretty much all the enemies are durable and tough. There are some full-heal spots like all the other areas but there’s generally a lot of space between them. Some enemy encounters are easy to avoid but aerial enemies and ground enemies can surprise and/or trap you.

Arena Rank S

Canzar is such a happy, armored being of destruction

Rank S starts with a fight against Don Mole, a big, funky mole. He uses his groovy moves to deal lots of physical damage and confuse your team. Dealing with confusion is difficult as usual. After him is Canzar, pictured above. Look how happy he is! As you would expect from his size, his physical attack does a lot of damage and it also hits the whole party. He has a few other attacks that hit the whole party and that’s really what this fight is: whole party attacks meant to overwhelm you. Kabuff helps with the physical but I had no defense for the others. Fortunately, right before this fight I finally acquired Multiheal without which I could not have won.

Final Boss: Malevolynx

A challenging fight befitting a final boss. His primary attack is a physical with a giant stomp that hits the whole team. It’s not devastating but it’ll add up. Kabuff was amazing for reducing the damage from this. He follows the DQ final boss tradition of using Disruptive Wave to clear buffs. Humorously, he uses Bounce (reflect magic) on himself but I’d ditched attack magic a long time ago so this was a free turn for me. I didn’t even have debuff spells.

The biggest trouble is Lightning Storm. 150 damage to the whole team when my team has 225-250 max HP and I had no defense against it. That’s why using Kabuff to reduce damage from his physical is so important. I had to bust out some items I’d been hoarding for this. Yggdrasil Dews to heal the party and other items to put on buffs because my team just didn’t have enough actions to keep up. With that bit of help I could keep Oomph on my team and keep the pain going long enough to outlast Malevolynx.

Conclusion

Another fun entry in the DQM series. Admittedly, I’m still partial to the older, pre-Joker games. That could be nostalgia but I think it’s a combination of liking how they handled skills better as well as this game felt like it had a smaller selection of monsters. There were many recolors which would be fine if there were enough unique other types but it didn’t feel like there was. That said, I absolutely loved the setting of Joker 2. It’d be nice if Square-Enix would bring more of these games to the west. I know there’s a Joker 3 and, more interesting for me, remakes of the pre-Joker games that haven’t made it here.

***** PLOT SECTION *****

As mentioned above, the ship the hero was riding on gets stranded on an uncharted, monster-filled island. The first mate tasks the hero with finding the other passengers and the captain. In his first few adventures he sees some of the true danger the island has to offer in the form of gigantic monsters that scare away even the other monsters. Dodging the giant monsters, he finds and saves several of the passengers. Eerily, he begins seeing a ghost of the captain, whom he has not yet found.

Soon he finds a cave filled with friendly moles led by Don Mole. Don Mole runs a monster scout challenge he claims is even greater than the humans’. He states the only way off the island is to win Rank S. However, there are many ranks and some require the hero to perform other tasks to even attempt. The hero also finds a strange medallion. Also, one of the other passengers’ small monster, the Countess, behaves erratically the whole time.

One the frozen peaks of Cragravation some progress is made. The captain and the last passenger are found. They also run into Empyrea, the same monster type as the godbird from DQ8, but Empyrea won’t fly them off the island as she serves only one master. The captain then gets wounded defending the passenger and it’s now a race to escape the island before he dies. After this point the hero still sees ghosts but of all the passengers.

As the hero progresses the truth comes out. The island is ruled by a great monster called Leonyx. However, Leonyx was corrupted and had to be sealed away. The ghosts are actually spirits in Leonyx’s service and they take the form of people that the hero knows to better communicate. The moles were put up to holding the monster scout challenge to find a worthy scout to save Leonyx. After passing Rank S the hero is allowed to the area where Leonyx is sealed.

As the hero confronts Leonyx the Countess appears. It turns out the Countess is Leonyx’s heart that was separated from him when he was corrupted. The heart and body called out to each other and that’s why the airship was struck. The hero defeats Malevolynx, Leonyx corrupted, and returned Leonyx to normal. Leonyx then orders Empyrea to fly the airship away as thanks.

The hero is then able to join the human-run monster scout challenge he was originally trying to go to. With the skill and monsters he gained from the island he wipes the floor with most of the challengers and then beats Solitaire, the champion and a character from DQMJ1. After that, the hero and all the crew and passengers return to the island as they realize that it offers greater challenges than the human-run monster scout scene.

On another note, during the credits they list all the monsters you found and divide it by the DQ game they originally appeared in. I absolutely loved this detail.