Ahhhhh, the old issue of Square-Enix not marketing new releases at all....... They do that all the time and I don't know why. The World End s With You, Chrono Cross Remastered, Dragon Quest Builders, Dragon Quest Treasures, Dragon Quest Heroes, Chocobo's Dungeon, Tactics Ogre, Front Mission and I could keep this list going for a while and then drop those series because "sales were too low". Meanwhile they market FFVII Rebirth two years before it releases all the time even though the game barely needs marketing at this point
It's extra frustrating too because while the other two are pretty minor things, the mole hole is a ridiculously monumental time save if you want to fill out your collection. Being able to directly re-capture synthesized monsters slashes the amount of grinding you need to do like five times over later on in the game. One of the very few major complaints I have with the game. (More minor pet peeve: Seasoning is way, way too hard to get. It shoulda just been a thing you can buy in shops, with the post game infinite season switching being just a convenience thing instead of the only sane way to finish clearing maps.)
I've checked out a couple reviews of this game since I love the Dragon Quest series and recently played the first GBC Monsters game for the first time, and wondered if this was worth picking up. Everything I found seemed to be from perspectives of people who have played like, maybe one single mainline Dragon Quest game or possibly two? With rampant comparisons exclusively to Pokemon, clearly being the only monster collecting game they've ever played. Just wanted to say thanks GC, for sitting down and honestly relaying so many different points for or against the game and framing them in the context of the subseries' mechanical history from a place of exhaustive first-hand experience. A video like this is exactly what I've been looking for. Excellent as always!
I've played every single mainline DQ game X too and I never liked the monsters games. It's not for everybody. for me it's just too repetitive and the grind gets annoying.
Actaully the scouting mechanic can be affected by your actions. Monsters that were weakened up a good bit, both from taking damage, being debuffed, along with buffing your own monsters, increase the precentages, and if you can push it to 100% its an instant recruit.
Dragon quest: always has been series has always had marketing problems ever since enix's localisation studio shut down and square blatantly only advertise FF and not much else
Well Dragon Quest VIII got a huge boost for having a demo for Final Fantasy XII and Nintendo advertised the hell out of the 4 mainline DS games...the issue was that they ran ads for the whole Zenithian trilogy...but only when the remake of IV was out. So Dragon Quest VI was heavily advertised...3 years before release and barely at all after.
Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince is my personal GOTY. I agree with everything you said but what even makes this game so special is how unlikely it was to come out. The last DQ monsters game to officially come to the west is Dragon Quest Monster Joker 2 which came out in like 2011. We got fan translations of later games but in an already niche series (Dragon Quest), western fans generally had to accept that even if a monsters game came out tomorrow, western fans would have to wait for either an official release or a fan translation atleast 1 year later which also either requires emulation or console rooting. On top of all that, it was clear that DQ treasures was supposed to be a DQM game so I don't think anyone expected an actual DQ game to only come out a year later since the amount of work it takes is crazy. I'm still in shock from the announcement of this game in the Nintendo switch direct.
11 and smash really helped this series in the west. i got 11, 11 s, builders 1 and builders 2 all on steam thanks to smash. i want dqm3 to come to steam too. hell, i'd love for the entirety of the mainline dragon quest games to come out on steam and get the pixel remaster treatment final fantasy got.
@@supersmashbro596 The fact that we don't have more Dragon Quest games on Steam boggles my mind. We've got almost every Final Fantasy plus Chrono Trigger and Romancing Saga but not Dragon Quest? I can download IV, V, and VI on my phone but not on Steam? I can't for the life of me understand why.
I admittedly only ever played Dragon Quest 11 and only heard of Dragon Quest Monsters when they were on DS. I picked up the latest Monsters title while only just hearing about it. As a big Pokémon fan, I’m looking forward to playing this, but I must admit that it kinda flew under the radar.
dqm is way better than pokemon imo. in pokemon, you find gods in the wild in dqm, you create gods by fusing lesser monsters together, like a mad scientist. the thing about dqm is that you really need a guide to know the potential of dqms synthasis systems. but once you do, you can make your first x rank monster (mine was the dragovian lord) before you even get to the middle tier. though, the guides are mostly suggestions.... you might actually bumble into a combination the guide doesnt suggest. the game will tell you the result of a fusion. also some monsters require effectively 4 grandparents of specific monsters. which the game doesnt tell you about (basically 4 monsters have to fuse, first in pairs, then their children have to fuse) i'd reccommend getting the mole hole dlc. any monster you scouted, synthasized hatched, etc will show up in the mole hole, allowing you to get copies of the same monster provided rng smiles on you as the ranks do get a bit crowded down there.
I know it feels bad to buy on disk dlc, but the mole hole is a must have if you are a completionist or want to make the crasiest S rank and X rank monsters. Its $10 but is so fun to have. I wish it was in the base game. But you will be happy to have it. Trust me
one thing i dont like is as the ranks get filled, it becomes harder and harder to find the monster you're looking for in any given rank. RNG kinda becomes a factor with the mole hole, but it's not too bad. i feel like donnie shouldve made the mole hole floors bigger as it gets a bit crowded with all the potential gods in x/s rank.
Found this 2 days ago and bought it immediately been loving it... its nostalgia for me who loved the old gbc games like cobis adventure or whatever. Excellent game with plenty of synthesis depth. Love it
Dark Prince is unfortunately marred by the performance issues youve mentioned. But the team has been taking feedback and is already working in a performance and QoL patch. Could you imagine a monster taming game with awful graphics, non-existent performance and polish as well as a team that works on paid content over fixing the base game? Surely no company would ever be that shameless.
Thank you so much for this video! Was definitely on the fence about this game since I've struggled to get into the other monsters games, but I'm interested in giving this one a try!
Scouting is better now than ever. Honestly your monsters may just not have been strong enough, because I find it's WAY easier than ever to scout. Also, magic-users are now viable scouters too. In J2, only physical attackers could recruit. The removal of the annoying psych up system is welcome too; instead of only having one or two viable scooters virtually everything can be built into one. Oomph + Ping + Sap = auto recruit. Also if you miss Psych Up a lot, use Seethe. It does the same thing, only requires one turn, and isn't absolutely required to scout something.
I'm glad to watch this video from you! Square has really been dropping the ball with advertising their games for the past 2- 3 years over here for the exception of opening trailers and I've been griping about them doing that for a while now. The way I'd have to tell people a Square enix game was coming out and they'd respond with some level of surprise. I appreciate learning more about the DQ Monsters series; I really barely know anything about it and played the demo for Dark Prince but wasn't sure I wanted to get it for myself yet.
Finding this video after the game came out on Steam. I've been a dragon quest monsters fan since the first Joker game came out, and I was incredibly surprised to have randomly stumbled upon a whole new game that had just been released... and then I was even more surprised to learn that the game's been out on switch for almost a year. Never heard about it at all. But I can say that this game is truly a gem if you're playing on a PC. Assuming you have better hardware in your PC than a Switch, the performance issues are gone. I can play this game on the highest graphics settings without issue. The Steam version also comes with the "DLC", which I would not have paid extra for, so I'm glad it's in the base game.
The original was my brother's favorite game as a kid, when he told me he had been looking for a new game to play I asked about this. He had no idea it existed. I always wondered why Dragon Quest did not take off in the west, but if a fan can accidentally miss major releases I suppose I can see why.
I had been so frustrated by the constant withholding of the Monsters subseries in the West, with the last one I'd played being Joker 2. So, needless to say, I was super happy to get my hands on The Dark Prince, and I've been loving it so far. I'll admit to getting the digital deluxe edition, because, to me, a new Dragon Quest Monsters game and everything I can get included with it is worth every penny, even if it's technically unnecessary (also, it was on sale). So, I'll shout it from the rooftops: buy this game! Whether or not the DLC is worth it, I'll leave that up to you. Also, it seems to me like The Dark Prince exchanged the Psyche Up mechanic from Dragon Quest 8 for the Pep mechanic from Dragon Quest 11.
There have been some patches post this video that have noticeably improved the framerate so that’s good also great video Dragon Quest is my favorite series so you got a sub 👍
i was aware this game came out but i ignored it and hoped i could pick it up for like $30 - $40 in a month like every other switch DQ game... well it's January and the game is kind of sold out everywhere and still $60 wtf, did they only print like 50 copies of the game??? i'm wondering if i should bite the bullet and get it at full price or keep waiting for a sale
I'm glad I can officially play a DQM that's not a transtaled rom. It's pretty sad that the game didn't had enough marketing in the west due to being a tradition for SE for some reason. I do hope for more DQM come to the west in the future. But, judging by Square's own incompetence, kinda doubt it at this point. Edit: The Dark Prince finally got a PC release via Steam! Still hope there'd be an expansion at some point.
My biggest gripe about the game is at the end of all of the breeding lines there is not a full team, being only estark, nocturnus, and zoma. It would be nice if there was one more line that way you could have a full team
@@kyleward3914 well each one has a specific echolon to get them from, for example Robbin ood is in circle of fortitude upper echolon, and hyperaeneon is in terestia
The egg system is bullshit. Way too many common monsters. There are like 300+ monsters that don't appear in the game, put those in eggs instead of literally the same monster I just killed 3 seconds ago
I'm just going to say it, the mole hole dlc is downright mandatory if you plan on taking synthesizing seriously. as awful a practice as it is, I'd rather just fork over the 6 bucks in order to save me literal days the farming would have required otherwise.
The performance occasionally ramps up and runs 60fps and it confuses me every time. Also Mole Hole is useful if you dont wanna remake certain monsters that are harder to get but yeah, the dungeon and treasure trunks feel like a waste of money lol
Not only did we get a Steam release - we also got a mobile release. It runs great on my iPhone 15+. Really enjoying this one even though I'm super late to the game.
May be an odd take to most, but Builders 2 is the game that put DQ on the map for me. I enjoyed the simplistic, campy vibes, and when my buddy let me have a copy of Joker 1… Oh, boy! I’ve been wanting to play a modern one of these so bad!
Dunno if its that odd its the same for me i love builders 2 its also the first DQ game i liked i had played builders 1 before but didn’t like it as much
Builders 2 is one of the most underappreciated hidden gems imo. I almost wish they didn’t call it a sequel as it must have hurt sales, but it’s an incredible game
@@DraftingandCrafting I was underwhelmed by Builders 1 too. The second really steps it up and adds more engaging systems, just with the same framework.
This games a thousand times better than infinity strash, i only found out about this last week and i was hooked immediately, absolutely love the monster synthesis system, im only going by the demo ive played but i can not wait to add this to my Dragons quest collection it'll be my first game ill get in 2024, my absolute fav dragons quest game is that DQ11 -S edition theres so much cool content in that game, but the big hook for me in DQ monster dark prince is def the synthesis system and wondering what creature ill get when i combine the creatures, gosh i wish i knew about this game sooner
I don't think it was a good idea to trim any fat from joker 3 professional this is just going along with the trend of games looking nicer but being more basic. You don't have to bash joker 3 to hold this game up
I was originally going to play all 6 other games in the series before this one, but because of life, I only beat the 1 one. But this game looks really fun, and it connects to Dragon Quest 4, so I'm going to start playing this one and after go back to the other games. Hopefully, they do fix some of the technical issues, though...
Saw the trailer a few months ago and I was hyped. This is my childhood Series and I wanted to get that Game on release…I completely forgot about it until christmas and bought it now…asked myself how that happened but now I know
the multiplayer mode is only intersting for me cuz I wanna play with my friend, but it seems like they only have 1 stage which is a huge downer.. The game look great tho
Got it, mole Hole and Workout gym dlcs. Molehole is worth every penny, and the synthesis is vastly improved. I did have some trouble trying to work out chains, but Game8 has a wonderful encyclopedia. Overall: 8/10 Flaws: bit too easy. Once I got Krystal, bosses go down with ease. Storyline was meh. Dungeons were also meh. Prefer randomized dungeons. . Good stuff: Great battle system and monsters. Seasons really change things. Not dark and depressing like 80% of games. Hybrid scouting/meat systems work well together. Reverse Search is great.
GC Vazquez your opinion on a PC release didn't sound very encouraging lol but what do you think 4 months later? (Now) Do you think we'll get a PC release? I would LOVE this game on Steam.
The DLC is definitely worth it. It also came with my game on day one release, maybe I paid extra for it, like if there was a special edition. I always buy those
Also playing DQ monster Dark Prince after DQ11 -S edition made me REALLY miss Dragons Quest 8 gosh i hope they consider bringing it to modern consoles especially the switch maybe they can do an S edition of DQ8 too, theyve totally gone Radio silent on any DQ12 news so hope we hear some more info on that too, thankyou heaps for putting this video together, hope you have a great holiday, see ya in 2024! 😎
I have been waiting 11 years for the dark prince to come out. I basically 100% the game, but even though I had 100% on all the monsters, my game still said I was missing something and kept me at 99%
I actually enjoy the removal of the rank offset. The way I beat Joker 1 and the DQM 1 remake were to just mindlessly synth over and over..and over and over..and over. The frenzied state is actually sort of what drew me to the DQ series as a whole- The potential randomness during battles keeping me on my toes. I don't think turn based games can be fun at all, honestly, without some sort of dice working in the background.
I knew this was coming out, but I don't have a Switch anymore, and don't really plan on getting another. I just don't use it enough. I was hoping this would come to PC at some point but...man I don't know if I want it to anymore. It kind of seems like the whole thing is just a massive step back. As always sir, excellent work.
Nice video ! I bought the game for myself as a Christmas gift and I’m really in need of the dungeon that lets you catch the monsters you already catched and synchronized… I actually don’t want to pay for it but it will save hundreds of hours as a monster collecting fanatic :(
I bought it the day it was out on steam :) But didn't know about it's existence, it's steam that showed it on the main page. It's the best monster game, along with palworld :D
7 years more like 13 years since we've got one in the States. I literally asked my grandma to get it for me for Christmas. Since I got it for free, the DLC won't hit me as hard, but it's still kinda ridiculous
for the lack of advertising part i just want to say that i found out about this game from a nintendo direct so at least those who watch those found out about it.
- Overworld skills do not exist (invisibility, nose for treasure, etc.) - No sprint function; movement speed is too slow - No control over weather - Too many common monsters in eggs - Terrestria eggs require too many battles to reset - 2nd page of monster overview only visible in the "local monsters" and "monsterpedia" menus. It's missing from the "your monsters", "monster depot" and synth menus - "In current roster: yes/no" info is only visible in the synth menu but should also be visible in the Monsterpedia and "local monsters" menus - Lack of visual indicator in battle to let us know if a monster is currently in the depot or not - Can't see local monsters in maps from zoom menu - No matchmaking in online pvp battles
I feel like Sqenix is doing this on purpose. They just don't want to see their game succeed. They want to kill the series. I mean, look at something like BG3. It's a widely unpopular game style yet the media awareness killed it and brought TONs of players into the game. Dragon Quest just has absolutely horrible advertising. They only care that the name alone is enough to sell in Japan.
You mentioned that for some, Monsters is more important than the mainline series and well...that's me. The only mainline games I like are 3 and 9 (which I LOVE). Beyond that I prefer the spin-offs with Monsters being my favorite. Also, apparently this was Square Enix's best selling game of the year in Japan, beating out FF16. So at least Japan should be getting another Monsters entry. And also, yeah, from my understanding, Treasures was SUPPOSED to be a Monsters game but they accidentally made it into its own thing...and then probably had to call up TOSE to make something quick because the fans were very restless. The performance issues drive me NUTS because I love the Switch and I KNOW it can do better than this. I mean, they put DQXI on this, right? Switch is basically a 360/PS3, right? Runs Resident Evil 5 just fine at least. There really is an optimization crisis in gaming right now and I'm kinda glad that the PS5/XBoxSeries/PC finally got hit with it this year because it's really not just a Switch thing.
I am in awe how this wasn't promoted at all in the west. Best guess I can fathom is how it is a giant love letter to DQ4 and they probably thought this was too deep a cut for western fans. But that is odd since Builders did pretty well in the west and those are references to two games from the NES as is this game. It is just weird not to promote at all when you think about it.
I LOVE DW spinoffs. All of them are amazing. I personally just adore them. I love a lot of Square Enix games. And weirdly, the only SE marketing I ever see for aby series other than FF is on Instagram. For whatever reason their IG is always posting about these snaller games but half the time its got 0 comments. They dont send out review copies from what Ive seen. I dont understand. I know SE is established but they still could help themselves and their games eith even just a bit of marketing share for the smaller titles.
I just wish those lazy ass devs would had finally improve the gameplay animations.I mean they STILL have only like 2-3 animations for all attacks, no unique attacks or breathzanimation like on the main dq games... its sad cuy I always found the unique attacks from the enemies soo cool and now when we can play them, they only have copy and paste attacks.. And they always show an animationn the a cut, then they show the impact. Instead of showing all in 1 SCENE just like in dqxi.. I mean this game cost 60 euros, as much as a main title. But they tread it like a side titöe where they dont need to improve the animatio
On the note of scouting, there was a before and after to understanding/enjoying Monster collecting that came with the understanding that buffing and debuffing monsters greatly add to the catch %s. It really helped show me how much planning, item utilization, and keeping a variety of stat buff skills in my teams really helped smoothed over monster diversity for my fusions, feeding perfectly into the gameplay loop. That being said, thank you for fully capturing my feelings on a game that I had a dips and highs of enjoyment and love for!
As a sidequel to dq4 I think they made some bad choices storywise for people who aren't already familiar with 4s story. My chief problems with it were making Pizarro a silent protagonist and giving dialog choices that transparently have no impact on the story. I agree with the janky platforming criticism as well as the dlc that should have been part of the base experience.
@GCVazquez Thankfully, I'm a mechanics over story person, so those issues didn't ruin my enjoyment of the game since as you said in your review, the mechanics of the game are solid.
As much as i think its cool for new people to possibly get into the monsters series, im not a new player. Ive seen the basics. I want something that is the core of what i love in the series, but more. I want an adding to, not a pruning back. I enjoyed the dark prince, but i enjoyed joker 3 professional far more. Dark prince made me feel far less powerful than i did in J3P which i feel is very unfitting for playing as the power hungry antagonist of DQ4. Also i find it odd that what could be seen as dragon quest monsters first entry on a home console(yes i know switch is also a handheld) the scale of the game is lesser than past entries. Heck, even the remakes of dqm 1 and 2 felt more grand than dark prince.
I think this game's scale is a result of the production issues that resulted in dragon quest treasures having a similar problem. Tose was split between both projects, and they both suffered for it
@@GCVazquez yeah. While playing dark prince I had suspicions that there was some time crunch and/or budget related issues during production. It feels like a game that was lacking resources during development.
as of the 19th of January, the game surpassed 1 million units shipped and downloaded worldwide which is quite impressive. I like DQ and monster raising games and really enjoyed the DQM games I played before, but the demo for Dark Prince left a bad taste in my mouth due to the performance issues. While I hope the game will get a release on PC and / or PS5 so that we can have a smooth experience, I doubt this will happen since the Monsters series has mainly been a nintendo exclusive, with a few exceptions. Still your video made me want to buy it and give it a fair try
I find it hilarious that I found out about this game 2 months after release, and I absolutely love dragon quest and would have bought it day one
Ahhhhh, the old issue of Square-Enix not marketing new releases at all.......
They do that all the time and I don't know why. The World End s With You, Chrono Cross Remastered, Dragon Quest Builders, Dragon Quest Treasures, Dragon Quest Heroes, Chocobo's Dungeon, Tactics Ogre, Front Mission and I could keep this list going for a while and then drop those series because "sales were too low".
Meanwhile they market FFVII Rebirth two years before it releases all the time even though the game barely needs marketing at this point
I can't stand the way they advertise it's so annoying
On-disc DLC is one thing but holy moly that price tag. You're not buying the Collector's Edition you're buying the Luxury Version.
It's WAY too much
It's extra frustrating too because while the other two are pretty minor things, the mole hole is a ridiculously monumental time save if you want to fill out your collection. Being able to directly re-capture synthesized monsters slashes the amount of grinding you need to do like five times over later on in the game. One of the very few major complaints I have with the game. (More minor pet peeve: Seasoning is way, way too hard to get. It shoulda just been a thing you can buy in shops, with the post game infinite season switching being just a convenience thing instead of the only sane way to finish clearing maps.)
Luckily you can completely ignore the DLC as it doesn't really change anything
You can fully enjoy the whole game without it
@@SlimeBlueMS Mole Hole makes complex synthesis far easier.
For about 9 more days you can order it from the Switch store for $40 and all the DLC bundled for only $17 more
I've checked out a couple reviews of this game since I love the Dragon Quest series and recently played the first GBC Monsters game for the first time, and wondered if this was worth picking up. Everything I found seemed to be from perspectives of people who have played like, maybe one single mainline Dragon Quest game or possibly two? With rampant comparisons exclusively to Pokemon, clearly being the only monster collecting game they've ever played. Just wanted to say thanks GC, for sitting down and honestly relaying so many different points for or against the game and framing them in the context of the subseries' mechanical history from a place of exhaustive first-hand experience. A video like this is exactly what I've been looking for. Excellent as always!
Thank you so much!
I've played just about every DQ title that has released in the US. I can't put this one down...get it!
I've played every single mainline DQ game X too and I never liked the monsters games.
It's not for everybody. for me it's just too repetitive and the grind gets annoying.
Actaully the scouting mechanic can be affected by your actions. Monsters that were weakened up a good bit, both from taking damage, being debuffed, along with buffing your own monsters, increase the precentages, and if you can push it to 100% its an instant recruit.
I know that! I just miss the psyche up mechanic being readily available to help with scouting.
I was watching a streamer last night who wanted to play this game when it came out. He was surprised when I told him it came out two weeks ago.
We got a PC release. Time to play it on the Steamdeck!
DQM not getting any advertisement in the west....
Neo The World Ends With You: first time?
Dragon quest: always has been
series has always had marketing problems ever since enix's localisation studio shut down and square blatantly only advertise FF and not much else
Well Dragon Quest VIII got a huge boost for having a demo for Final Fantasy XII and Nintendo advertised the hell out of the 4 mainline DS games...the issue was that they ran ads for the whole Zenithian trilogy...but only when the remake of IV was out. So Dragon Quest VI was heavily advertised...3 years before release and barely at all after.
Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince is my personal GOTY. I agree with everything you said but what even makes this game so special is how unlikely it was to come out.
The last DQ monsters game to officially come to the west is Dragon Quest Monster Joker 2 which came out in like 2011. We got fan translations of later games but in an already niche series (Dragon Quest), western fans generally had to accept that even if a monsters game came out tomorrow, western fans would have to wait for either an official release or a fan translation atleast 1 year later which also either requires emulation or console rooting.
On top of all that, it was clear that DQ treasures was supposed to be a DQM game so I don't think anyone expected an actual DQ game to only come out a year later since the amount of work it takes is crazy.
I'm still in shock from the announcement of this game in the Nintendo switch direct.
11 and smash really helped this series in the west. i got 11, 11 s, builders 1 and builders 2 all on steam thanks to smash.
i want dqm3 to come to steam too.
hell, i'd love for the entirety of the mainline dragon quest games to come out on steam and get the pixel remaster treatment final fantasy got.
@@supersmashbro596 The fact that we don't have more Dragon Quest games on Steam boggles my mind. We've got almost every Final Fantasy plus Chrono Trigger and Romancing Saga but not Dragon Quest? I can download IV, V, and VI on my phone but not on Steam? I can't for the life of me understand why.
I admittedly only ever played Dragon Quest 11 and only heard of Dragon Quest Monsters when they were on DS. I picked up the latest Monsters title while only just hearing about it. As a big Pokémon fan, I’m looking forward to playing this, but I must admit that it kinda flew under the radar.
dqm is way better than pokemon imo.
in pokemon, you find gods in the wild
in dqm, you create gods by fusing lesser monsters together, like a mad scientist.
the thing about dqm is that you really need a guide to know the potential of dqms synthasis systems. but once you do, you can make your first x rank monster (mine was the dragovian lord) before you even get to the middle tier. though, the guides are mostly suggestions.... you might actually bumble into a combination the guide doesnt suggest. the game will tell you the result of a fusion.
also some monsters require effectively 4 grandparents of specific monsters. which the game doesnt tell you about (basically 4 monsters have to fuse, first in pairs, then their children have to fuse)
i'd reccommend getting the mole hole dlc. any monster you scouted, synthasized hatched, etc will show up in the mole hole, allowing you to get copies of the same monster provided rng smiles on you as the ranks do get a bit crowded down there.
I know it feels bad to buy on disk dlc, but the mole hole is a must have if you are a completionist or want to make the crasiest S rank and X rank monsters. Its $10 but is so fun to have. I wish it was in the base game. But you will be happy to have it. Trust me
one thing i dont like is as the ranks get filled, it becomes harder and harder to find the monster you're looking for in any given rank. RNG kinda becomes a factor with the mole hole, but it's not too bad.
i feel like donnie shouldve made the mole hole floors bigger as it gets a bit crowded with all the potential gods in x/s rank.
I bought it on the pc. It was my childhood. When it came out i was excited. I still love it
Thanks for making even the description entertaining to read :’)
No problem 😊
Found this 2 days ago and bought it immediately been loving it... its nostalgia for me who loved the old gbc games like cobis adventure or whatever. Excellent game with plenty of synthesis depth. Love it
24:38 It was announced the other day DQM Dark Prince will be releasing on PC (and mobile, apparently??) on September 11th, 2024! who'd have thunk it
@@misterchapstick to reply after it released, it had the price cut in half, has all the DLC for free, and runs better than switch!
I didn't know it was released until i saw it on the shelf at work.
RIGHT?!
@@GCVazquez i didnt even know it existed untill i saw it
Dark Prince is unfortunately marred by the performance issues youve mentioned. But the team has been taking feedback and is already working in a performance and QoL patch. Could you imagine a monster taming game with awful graphics, non-existent performance and polish as well as a team that works on paid content over fixing the base game?
Surely no company would ever be that shameless.
Any "Game" company would be a "Freak" to do so.
I DID NOT KNOW THIS GAME WAS OUT! THANK YOU FOR THIS VIDEO GONNA GO DL IT RIGHT NOW~!!!!
The don mole dlc is so useful that it frustrates me that it cost me 10 dollars to get. Such a dick move
Thanks for making this review it's probably the most comprehensive one I've seen and it's very helpful
Glad you enjoyed it!
Thank you so much for this video! Was definitely on the fence about this game since I've struggled to get into the other monsters games, but I'm interested in giving this one a try!
Glad I could help!
If you've enjoyed any previous DQ titles, and also like monster taming games, this is a must buy.
Despite the lack of advertising I heard it did really well
Do you have a source for that? I'd love to look at some US sales numbers!
Scouting is better now than ever. Honestly your monsters may just not have been strong enough, because I find it's WAY easier than ever to scout.
Also, magic-users are now viable scouters too. In J2, only physical attackers could recruit. The removal of the annoying psych up system is welcome too; instead of only having one or two viable scooters virtually everything can be built into one. Oomph + Ping + Sap = auto recruit.
Also if you miss Psych Up a lot, use Seethe. It does the same thing, only requires one turn, and isn't absolutely required to scout something.
Also *anything* can learn Seethe, rather than only a small handful who could learn Psyche Up
and with the mole hole dlc synthesis is way easier now provided RNG smiles on you as it does tend to get crowded down there.
I'm glad to watch this video from you! Square has really been dropping the ball with advertising their games for the past 2- 3 years over here for the exception of opening trailers and I've been griping about them doing that for a while now. The way I'd have to tell people a Square enix game was coming out and they'd respond with some level of surprise.
I appreciate learning more about the DQ Monsters series; I really barely know anything about it and played the demo for Dark Prince but wasn't sure I wanted to get it for myself yet.
I recommend it if your resilience to performance issues is high! They're also working on a patch to address those issues apparently?
Reasons Square Enix is incompetent #31: Not marketing Dragon Quest in the west. How do their farming gamrs get more marketing than *Dragon Quest?*
you weren't kidding about the marketing, I literally didn't know this game existed!
Finding this video after the game came out on Steam. I've been a dragon quest monsters fan since the first Joker game came out, and I was incredibly surprised to have randomly stumbled upon a whole new game that had just been released... and then I was even more surprised to learn that the game's been out on switch for almost a year. Never heard about it at all. But I can say that this game is truly a gem if you're playing on a PC. Assuming you have better hardware in your PC than a Switch, the performance issues are gone. I can play this game on the highest graphics settings without issue. The Steam version also comes with the "DLC", which I would not have paid extra for, so I'm glad it's in the base game.
The original was my brother's favorite game as a kid, when he told me he had been looking for a new game to play I asked about this. He had no idea it existed.
I always wondered why Dragon Quest did not take off in the west, but if a fan can accidentally miss major releases I suppose I can see why.
the official twitter announced they are working on an update with bug fixes and more QoL so thats gonna be great
23:00 works like a charm on the Steam Deck 8 months later !
I love this video review. Hope you’re getting to enjoy the game all over again on Steam and mobile this week!
I am! Been playing it on my PC whenever I have time. It's a significantly improved experience!
I had been so frustrated by the constant withholding of the Monsters subseries in the West, with the last one I'd played being Joker 2. So, needless to say, I was super happy to get my hands on The Dark Prince, and I've been loving it so far. I'll admit to getting the digital deluxe edition, because, to me, a new Dragon Quest Monsters game and everything I can get included with it is worth every penny, even if it's technically unnecessary (also, it was on sale). So, I'll shout it from the rooftops: buy this game! Whether or not the DLC is worth it, I'll leave that up to you.
Also, it seems to me like The Dark Prince exchanged the Psyche Up mechanic from Dragon Quest 8 for the Pep mechanic from Dragon Quest 11.
There have been some patches post this video that have noticeably improved the framerate so that’s good also great video Dragon Quest is my favorite series so you got a sub 👍
Good to hear!
I remember learning about this entry VERY last moment. I learned about it on TikTok...
This is my first monsters and I'm loving it, just got to the post game and honestly its probably my favorite Monster Raising game ive ever played.
Glad you're having fun!
i was aware this game came out but i ignored it and hoped i could pick it up for like $30 - $40 in a month like every other switch DQ game...
well it's January and the game is kind of sold out everywhere and still $60
wtf, did they only print like 50 copies of the game???
i'm wondering if i should bite the bullet and get it at full price or keep waiting for a sale
I'm glad I can officially play a DQM that's not a transtaled rom.
It's pretty sad that the game didn't had enough marketing in the west due to being a tradition for SE for some reason.
I do hope for more DQM come to the west in the future. But, judging by Square's own incompetence, kinda doubt it at this point.
Edit: The Dark Prince finally got a PC release via Steam!
Still hope there'd be an expansion at some point.
They make take their time to do it, but I can see this coming to Steam eventually, even if it doesn't come to other consoles too like DQ Treasures.
Good call. I almost bought this on Switch but was hopeful of a Steam release so held off.
My biggest gripe about the game is at the end of all of the breeding lines there is not a full team, being only estark, nocturnus, and zoma. It would be nice if there was one more line that way you could have a full team
My biggest gripe is that to make any of those, you have to find egg-exclusive monsters that are, unless I'm mistaken, mostly random.
@@kyleward3914 well each one has a specific echolon to get them from, for example Robbin ood is in circle of fortitude upper echolon, and hyperaeneon is in terestia
The egg system is bullshit. Way too many common monsters. There are like 300+ monsters that don't appear in the game, put those in eggs instead of literally the same monster I just killed 3 seconds ago
I'm just going to say it, the mole hole dlc is downright mandatory if you plan on taking synthesizing seriously. as awful a practice as it is, I'd rather just fork over the 6 bucks in order to save me literal days the farming would have required otherwise.
Ohhh yes! I've been looking forward to this one. Always love hearing you talk about dragon quest
Enjoy!
I am so glad that I can play this game on my iphone! It runs better on my phone than the switch version! lol
The performance occasionally ramps up and runs 60fps and it confuses me every time. Also Mole Hole is useful if you dont wanna remake certain monsters that are harder to get but yeah, the dungeon and treasure trunks feel like a waste of money lol
Not only did we get a Steam release - we also got a mobile release. It runs great on my iPhone 15+. Really enjoying this one even though I'm super late to the game.
Playing on PC rn. Performance is 100% and I learned about the game through Instagram lmao.
On-disc dlc show have been made a much bigger deal
Havent heard about it since PS3 days
Atlus does it, a lot.
May be an odd take to most, but Builders 2 is the game that put DQ on the map for me. I enjoyed the simplistic, campy vibes, and when my buddy let me have a copy of Joker 1… Oh, boy! I’ve been wanting to play a modern one of these so bad!
Builders 2 is so excellent. I'm playing through it right now in my off time. I really hope we get a third one someday, however unlikely that may be.
Dunno if its that odd its the same for me i love builders 2 its also the first DQ game i liked i had played builders 1 before but didn’t like it as much
Builders 2 is one of the most underappreciated hidden gems imo. I almost wish they didn’t call it a sequel as it must have hurt sales, but it’s an incredible game
@@Evanz111 This is news to me, I played Builders 1 for a bit but didn't find it sufficiently engaging to get the "sequel". Perhaps I was wrong.
@@DraftingandCrafting I was underwhelmed by Builders 1 too. The second really steps it up and adds more engaging systems, just with the same framework.
This games a thousand times better than infinity strash, i only found out about this last week and i was hooked immediately, absolutely love the monster synthesis system, im only going by the demo ive played but i can not wait to add this to my Dragons quest collection it'll be my first game ill get in 2024, my absolute fav dragons quest game is that DQ11 -S edition theres so much cool content in that game, but the big hook for me in DQ monster dark prince is def the synthesis system and wondering what creature ill get when i combine the creatures, gosh i wish i knew about this game sooner
I don't think it was a good idea to trim any fat from joker 3 professional this is just going along with the trend of games looking nicer but being more basic. You don't have to bash joker 3 to hold this game up
I was originally going to play all 6 other games in the series before this one, but because of life, I only beat the 1 one. But this game looks really fun, and it connects to Dragon Quest 4, so I'm going to start playing this one and after go back to the other games. Hopefully, they do fix some of the technical issues, though...
They're working on a patch, apparently. So here's hoping!
Saw the trailer a few months ago and I was hyped. This is my childhood Series and I wanted to get that Game on release…I completely forgot about it until christmas and bought it now…asked myself how that happened but now I know
It's because is the worst DQM game, imo.
@@hannariel I liked it but yeah It’s the worst title I played
24:44 Hey, we’re getting a PC release of The Dark Prince! ❤
…and a mobile port too. No other consoles, sadly…
the multiplayer mode is only intersting for me cuz I wanna play with my friend, but it seems like they only have 1 stage which is a huge downer.. The game look great tho
Got it, mole Hole and Workout gym dlcs. Molehole is worth every penny, and the synthesis is vastly improved. I did have some trouble trying to work out chains, but Game8 has a wonderful encyclopedia.
Overall: 8/10
Flaws: bit too easy.
Once I got Krystal, bosses go down with ease.
Storyline was meh.
Dungeons were also meh. Prefer randomized dungeons.
.
Good stuff:
Great battle system and monsters.
Seasons really change things.
Not dark and depressing like 80% of games.
Hybrid scouting/meat systems work well together.
Reverse Search is great.
Iduno why I would actually want to buy Easy Mode... seems like a waste of money
@@SlimeBlueMS I didn’t know Mole Hill was so powerful when I got it. Figured it would be handy, not a gamebreaker.
I wouldn’t really say the games are “dark and depressing” they are games that just happen to have dark or depressing moments.
OH WAIT NVM. You mean video games in general, not DQ specifically.
the ranked mode is fun at first but the more u get into it, the more u see how insanely flawed it is
GC Vazquez your opinion on a PC release didn't sound very encouraging lol but what do you think 4 months later? (Now) Do you think we'll get a PC release? I would LOVE this game on Steam.
The DLC is definitely worth it. It also came with my game on day one release, maybe I paid extra for it, like if there was a special edition. I always buy those
Why does joker 3 look better than DQM3 it’s a little sad but I’m enjoying the heck out of it
Also playing DQ monster Dark Prince after DQ11 -S edition made me REALLY miss Dragons Quest 8 gosh i hope they consider bringing it to modern consoles especially the switch maybe they can do an S edition of DQ8 too, theyve totally gone Radio silent on any DQ12 news so hope we hear some more info on that too, thankyou heaps for putting this video together, hope you have a great holiday, see ya in 2024! 😎
I have been waiting 11 years for the dark prince to come out. I basically 100% the game, but even though I had 100% on all the monsters, my game still said I was missing something and kept me at 99%
About damn time!! F*** yes!
Oh my god, someone actually talking about DQM3
I actually enjoy the removal of the rank offset.
The way I beat Joker 1 and the DQM 1 remake were to just mindlessly synth over and over..and over and over..and over.
The frenzied state is actually sort of what drew me to the DQ series as a whole- The potential randomness during battles keeping me on my toes. I don't think turn based games can be fun at all, honestly, without some sort of dice working in the background.
this reeeally makes me want a sequel/remake of dragon quest 4 that ties into dqm3.
I got it once it enter on sale and as my first DQ Monster game I enjoyed a lot. Beat it last week and now I am taking my time with the extra stuff
Have fun!
“Koichi Sugiyama is burning in hell, but…” 😂
I knew this was coming out, but I don't have a Switch anymore, and don't really plan on getting another. I just don't use it enough. I was hoping this would come to PC at some point but...man I don't know if I want it to anymore. It kind of seems like the whole thing is just a massive step back. As always sir, excellent work.
Hopefully the PC port will be like, a Professional version with some QoL and stuff!
You should post the word count for "dragon quest"
Nice video ! I bought the game for myself as a Christmas gift and I’m really in need of the dungeon that lets you catch the monsters you already catched and synchronized… I actually don’t want to pay for it but it will save hundreds of hours as a monster collecting fanatic :(
Yeah this is so true it saves so much. I can see him complain about the price tag...but to say it isn't worth? it is SO WORTH!
I think you can buy it separately? So it won't be a full on $25
I honestly found out about this because of an ad for its Apple Store port lol.
I bought it the day it was out on steam :) But didn't know about it's existence, it's steam that showed it on the main page. It's the best monster game, along with palworld :D
Really great video!
Thank you!
I do have hope for a PC port of Monsters because there's precedent for it with Treasures! If it gets on Steam, that's a day one buy for me!
I'm from the future, ladies and gentlemen we got the pc release, and it runs amazing.
7 years more like 13 years since we've got one in the States. I literally asked my grandma to get it for me for Christmas. Since I got it for free, the DLC won't hit me as hard, but it's still kinda ridiculous
With all the Pokemon controversy DQM had a massive opportunity
I got every single monster in about 230 hours to play
i didn't realise the game is showing you enemy weaknesses and i'm halfway through the game lol
for the lack of advertising part i just want to say that i found out about this game from a nintendo direct so at least those who watch those found out about it.
- Overworld skills do not exist (invisibility, nose for treasure, etc.)
- No sprint function; movement speed is too slow
- No control over weather
- Too many common monsters in eggs
- Terrestria eggs require too many battles to reset
- 2nd page of monster overview only visible in the "local monsters" and "monsterpedia" menus. It's missing from the "your monsters", "monster depot" and synth menus
- "In current roster: yes/no" info is only visible in the synth menu but should also be visible in the Monsterpedia and "local monsters" menus
- Lack of visual indicator in battle to let us know if a monster is currently in the depot or not
- Can't see local monsters in maps from zoom menu
- No matchmaking in online pvp battles
Major major update coming soon
Im a DQ Fan and i never heard about this game o.o there wasnt ANY marketing for it right?
I feel like Sqenix is doing this on purpose. They just don't want to see their game succeed. They want to kill the series.
I mean, look at something like BG3. It's a widely unpopular game style yet the media awareness killed it and brought TONs of players into the game.
Dragon Quest just has absolutely horrible advertising. They only care that the name alone is enough to sell in Japan.
You mentioned that for some, Monsters is more important than the mainline series and well...that's me. The only mainline games I like are 3 and 9 (which I LOVE). Beyond that I prefer the spin-offs with Monsters being my favorite.
Also, apparently this was Square Enix's best selling game of the year in Japan, beating out FF16. So at least Japan should be getting another Monsters entry.
And also, yeah, from my understanding, Treasures was SUPPOSED to be a Monsters game but they accidentally made it into its own thing...and then probably had to call up TOSE to make something quick because the fans were very restless. The performance issues drive me NUTS because I love the Switch and I KNOW it can do better than this. I mean, they put DQXI on this, right? Switch is basically a 360/PS3, right? Runs Resident Evil 5 just fine at least. There really is an optimization crisis in gaming right now and I'm kinda glad that the PS5/XBoxSeries/PC finally got hit with it this year because it's really not just a Switch thing.
Cant believe i wasnt subbed sooner
I am in awe how this wasn't promoted at all in the west. Best guess I can fathom is how it is a giant love letter to DQ4 and they probably thought this was too deep a cut for western fans. But that is odd since Builders did pretty well in the west and those are references to two games from the NES as is this game. It is just weird not to promote at all when you think about it.
I hope dark prince gets on PC. I NEED it on PC.
I literally didn’t know this game even existed until this video… and I enjoy Dragon Quest. SE completely failed with marketing, like COMPLETELY.
Glad I could help!
OH Shit here it is!
The game's story barely makes any sense if you haven't played Dragon Quest IV.
I LOVE DW spinoffs. All of them are amazing. I personally just adore them. I love a lot of Square Enix games. And weirdly, the only SE marketing I ever see for aby series other than FF is on Instagram. For whatever reason their IG is always posting about these snaller games but half the time its got 0 comments. They dont send out review copies from what Ive seen. I dont understand. I know SE is established but they still could help themselves and their games eith even just a bit of marketing share for the smaller titles.
I just wish those lazy ass devs would had finally improve the gameplay animations.I mean they STILL have only like 2-3 animations for all attacks, no unique attacks or breathzanimation like on the main dq games... its sad cuy I always found the unique attacks from the enemies soo cool and now when we can play them, they only have copy and paste attacks.. And they always show an animationn the a cut, then they show the impact. Instead of showing all in 1 SCENE just like in dqxi.. I mean this game cost 60 euros, as much as a main title. But they tread it like a side titöe where they dont need to improve the animatio
It's too bad menus are tied to music, for example ending jingle cannot be skipped after battle, and even freezes the game on PC
Great review!
Thanks!
aye don't forget the 2020 Dai anime, praise the dragon god!! 🤓
On the note of scouting, there was a before and after to understanding/enjoying Monster collecting that came with the understanding that buffing and debuffing monsters greatly add to the catch %s. It really helped show me how much planning, item utilization, and keeping a variety of stat buff skills in my teams really helped smoothed over monster diversity for my fusions, feeding perfectly into the gameplay loop.
That being said, thank you for fully capturing my feelings on a game that I had a dips and highs of enjoyment and love for!
Thank you for watching!
Bring it to PS5!!! 🙏🏾🙏🏾🙏🏾. One of the games I’d love to play on the PSPortal
As a sidequel to dq4 I think they made some bad choices storywise for people who aren't already familiar with 4s story. My chief problems with it were making Pizarro a silent protagonist and giving dialog choices that transparently have no impact on the story. I agree with the janky platforming criticism as well as the dlc that should have been part of the base experience.
I'll definitely agree that some of the dq4 elements are a bit shoehorned in. Could've used more of them tbh
@GCVazquez Thankfully, I'm a mechanics over story person, so those issues didn't ruin my enjoyment of the game since as you said in your review, the mechanics of the game are solid.
The amount of times you say the dark price is ridiculous. I would be dead if I had to take a shot each time you said that.
As much as i think its cool for new people to possibly get into the monsters series, im not a new player. Ive seen the basics. I want something that is the core of what i love in the series, but more. I want an adding to, not a pruning back.
I enjoyed the dark prince, but i enjoyed joker 3 professional far more. Dark prince made me feel far less powerful than i did in J3P which i feel is very unfitting for playing as the power hungry antagonist of DQ4.
Also i find it odd that what could be seen as dragon quest monsters first entry on a home console(yes i know switch is also a handheld) the scale of the game is lesser than past entries. Heck, even the remakes of dqm 1 and 2 felt more grand than dark prince.
I think this game's scale is a result of the production issues that resulted in dragon quest treasures having a similar problem. Tose was split between both projects, and they both suffered for it
@@GCVazquez yeah. While playing dark prince I had suspicions that there was some time crunch and/or budget related issues during production. It feels like a game that was lacking resources during development.
as of the 19th of January, the game surpassed 1 million units shipped and downloaded worldwide which is quite impressive.
I like DQ and monster raising games and really enjoyed the DQM games I played before, but the demo for Dark Prince left a bad taste in my mouth due to the performance issues. While I hope the game will get a release on PC and / or PS5 so that we can have a smooth experience, I doubt this will happen since the Monsters series has mainly been a nintendo exclusive, with a few exceptions.
Still your video made me want to buy it and give it a fair try