Along the years, many games have tried to mimic the simple game play of the Pokemon series. While Most downright sucked DQM has always stood strong against the juggernaut. As you start the game you find out you need to battle in a tournament & are given a choice of 3 monsters to carry out tasks on islands while getting a crew of stronger monsters to join you. This is as close to Pokemon as it gets folks. You start breeding/synthesizing monsters, because unlike the giant these monsters do not evolve. The game graphically is one of the best on the DS, Only second to Dementium: The Ward. The problem here is sound quality... It kinda sucks. The sound effects are kinda blah and the music is catchy but a tad generic. The story is great but short. most of your time will be spent gathering new monsters to destroy the competition and synthing new monsters to get the most out of your time.Another con is the game is on the expensive side. It should have only cost 30-35 dollars but SEI thought they could get 40 out of it which is I guess the norm for SE games. But when your game is short dont try to steal my money k SEI? All & all it is a new Monsters game, and if you are reading this you most likely know what you are in for and will love it. Just dont go in to it expecting it to be as long as Pokemon & we'll be ok. 8/10.… Expand

Most RPGs have a high cost of entry. By this, I mean that you are forced to wade through an amount of expository content that I (and other ADD folks like myself) find annoying to the point of losing our interest completely (I'm looking at YOU, Kingdom Hearts 2). The introductory material in DQM:J was minimal, and within minutes you're out in the world doing catching monsters. It's been a joy to play thus far, and I look forward to what lies ahead.… Expand

While i do argee that the controls and your first playthrough aren't very friendly, its easily overshadowed by the rather unique features of the game such as scounting and synthesising. However, like most games, this needs alot more of storyline as well.

This is the best RPG on the DS to date, everything from the original with stunnign graphics.

It's deffinetely much better than Pokemon. This game is original, gives a lot of new features to the monster trainer genre. And Pokemon? Nearly nothing new, just the same catch-them-all-win-the-duels-and-the-league. And Monsters has full 3D graphics, more interesting story, better solution of receiving stronger monsters.

DQM:J was a great game! The graphics are nice, and if you think that they are a Dragon Ball Z rip-off, it may surprise you to learn that the same guy who drew DBZ also drew this game. The sound is alright, considering there have only been a handful of games (all of them final fantasy) that I consider to have good sound (IE, Final Fantasy VI Advance has some pretty awesome music. You rock Nobuo Uematsu!) The story is short but sweet, and enjoyable. The battle system is one of the best non-Final Fantasy battle systems I have experienced. The fact that you can attack AND use items in the same turn is very nice, compared to some OTHER games. The out of battle movement system is very awkward, and there is a lot of moving around (Seed of Skill hunting...). There is a huge amount of level grinding required, and the only game that REQUIRES you to level grind more than this game is Final Fantasy X (And I have the US version. I pity the guys who have the International version. Dark Aeons.) The wi-fi feature is nice, but beware: you will probably end up fighting all level 99 monsters. The most annoying part of level grinding is that in order to get 2.5 minutes in the metel menagarie, which contains the highest exp monsters available is that you have to do the Madame Rummy Challenge each time; kill (from 15-24, it increases each time you attempt the challenge) slimes in 5 minutes. Really frustrating, that is. Synthesizing is about the worst thing you can do to a game. Honestly, it's okay to change synthesizing to breeding, and make it teen rating, it's only a three year difference in audience... Anyway, some monsters are + rating, some are - rating, and some are ± rating (o.O). You can synthesize a + with a -, a + with a ±, and a - with a ±. When you synthesize, you lose the two original monsters. the amount of skill points both monsters have in one skill category are averaged and the new monster has the averaged amount. if a monster has the skill slimer with 90 points in it, and the other monster doesn't have the skill slimer, then new monster will/might have slimer with 45 points in it. after the monsters synthesize, the new monster can have up to three skill sets. it can choose from any that the parents have, any from that monster species usually has, and any upgraded skills. upgraded skill rock. Attack Boost III is awesome. Monsters also have some "odd" (that's the polite way of saying it) ranking system which ranges from F,E,D,C,B,A,S, and X. There are 15 X monsters.… Expand

This is a game that keeps you excited to pick it up and is impossible to put down. You control the characters, their traits and their success. This is the first Dragon Quest game that I have ever played, I just completed it, and my next game will def be a DQ one.

Because I’m a devout fan of Dragon Quest video games, I got Dragon Quest Monsters to add to my collection. Monster collecting games like Pokemon do not appeal to me, because they involve tons of level-grinding. This game is no different. In the game, there are 7 different islands. Each island has different monsters, ranked according to their power from “F” being lowest to “A” or “S” being highest. Going from one island to the next involve a dramatic increase in the challenge in this game—hence, the need to level-grind to increase the levels of the monsters in my party. Fusing monsters is a key element to this game. However, doing so is a bit tricky. Fused monsters start off with stats that are half those of their parents. So, it’s best to level-up the monsters so that they won’t be too weak when starting out. Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker is the third entry in the Dragon Quest Monsters series to reach America. This game features many modifications. The player can now store up to 100 monsters in inventory from the beginning. The monsters no longer have the WLD feature that makes them unruly or run away. When monsters in inventory level-up, they gain skill points, which the player can allocate at leisure. The player assigns skill points to certain skill sets for their monsters to learn. Each monster can learn up to three skill sets when fusing them together. When both monsters know much of a skill set, but haven’t mastered it, their child can learn a more powerful version of that skill set. Another major change to this game is that the player no longer uses meat treats to tame monsters. Instead, the player tames monsters by using a scout feature, in which monsters attempt to impress a new monster by displaying their attack power. It works fine at taming multiple weak monsters at the beginning, however, the more of a type of monster a player has, the harder it is to impress. This game makes minimal use of the touch feature. Touching the bottom screen moves the map and makes selections in inventory. The top screen shows the action in the game. I, however, tend to play the game without touching the bottom screen at all. It’s an optional feature that people can use, if they want to. The most appealing aspect of Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker is the graphics. The game is full 3-D, just like Dragon Quest VIII. Pokemanics craving monster collecting in 3-D can look here to get their desires met. This game uses a wi-fi feature that ranks the player against other players according to performance. The wins prizes for connecting to the network each day. The player can also battle copies of another player’s team, and can get a prize for winning, too. I have yet to try that, but I keep starting this game over from the beginning. The further I go into the game, the more level-grinding I have to do, and I *hate* level-grinding. However, folks that love level-grinding would probably enjoy Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker.… Expand