The most recent addition to Square Enix’s venerable Dragon Quest franchise, namely the Dragon Quest Monsters series, which hasn’t had a new game in a while, is Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince. A new cast, a new plot,
and more are introduced in Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince. Even though it does a good job of portraying some of this,
the whole experience is regrettably tarnished by a few unfavourable aspects.
The protagonist of Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince is Psaro, the son of a demon king who abandoned him and his mother. Psaro is half human and half demon.
When the people in his village learn one day that he is half-demon, Psaro and his sick mother flee the town in terror. Angry, Psaro chooses to go up against the demon king in an attempt to exact revenge, but he is doomed to never be able to hurt monsters again.
Fortunately, he meets Monty, a monster wrangler, who shows him the art of using monsters in combat. Psaro resolves to establish himself and gain strength in order to usurp his father using his newly acquired skills.
It’s important to note that Psaro appears frequently in the series, and this entry essentially tells the tale of his birth. It also includes several well-known characters from the past.
The plot of the game centres on the prince’s journey as he gathers monsters, engages in combat, travels through multiple realms, and makes new friends who aid him in his effort to vanquish his father. The narrative of the game, which tells the tale of the prince’s unusually revenge-driven hero’s journey, is comparatively inoffensive.
Although the game’s themes are extremely simple and lack a grand narrative, Dragon Quest fans will still find plenty to enjoy in the game’s story. It also introduces the characters, a few of whom, although a little one-dimensional and exhibiting standard JRPG character clichés, are quite charming in their own right.
Psaro’s elven friend Rose and Monty, for example, are essentially reduced to the roles of old mentor and token female character. However, this entry’s story is far more original than some of its competitors thanks to characters like Frizzy, the diminutive monster wrangler trainer who sounds like a parody of a New Yorker agent,
and Toilen, the kleptomaniac researcher-in-training, who is still somehow the most endearing character.
Monsters in Dragon Quest: The Dark Prince
The visual novel-style dialogue system in the game allows players to interact with the story, but it lacks many of the essential elements that fans of the JRPG genre have grown accustomed to from the series.
There isn’t a fast-forward text button, a log feature to track missed dialogue, or an auto-next button to switch the dialogue moving automatically in Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince.
It also lacks multiple save slots, which means that players are limited to one save, in contrast to many JRPGs. They must thus disable autosaves and keep overwriting the same file. If not, their saves will be continuously overwritten when they don’t want it to.
In addition, there is no in-game load feature in the game, which means that when a player needs to load a save, they will have to go to the main menu, which is very inconvenient and always frustrating.
Like earlier entries, The Dark Prince’s gameplay consists of players gathering monsters, levelling them up, assembling armies, winning tournaments, and honing their tactics to produce the best possible gameplay and battle victories.
Turn-based combat is used by players to fight against other players while employing standard features like magic and basic attacks, defence manoeuvres, various kinds of weapons and accessories, and more.
Sadly, despite being utterly entertaining, the combat is fairly simplistic and lacks any intricate systems other than the tactic choices that cause monsters to become either aggressive,
passive, or heal-focused. I thought it strange that there were no unique systems to exploit monster weaknesses, especially considering the genre.
The classic monster synthesis system, which lets players combine different kinds of monsters with different levels, is still present in The Dark Prince, though. Players can create more than 500 monsters with this version, including brand-new ones.
Notably, it also has an online platform where players can compete against other monster wrestlers from around the world using their formidable rosters.
Monsters in Dragon Quest The Shadowy Prince
The online system in Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince is surprisingly good, at least when I could find matches, which are surprisingly hard to come by.
The game’s limited combat depth means that players with higher-level and higher-ranking monsters will typically win unless the other player gets extremely fortunate. Despite this, battles are generally straightforward and simple.
The game’s character models are sadly lacking in detail, and the Switch’s low power is probably partially to blame for this. Its art direction and backgrounds, however,
are highly striking and colourful. Since many of the game’s monsters have imaginative designs, the character designs are equally flawless.
Except for slimes, who, for some reason, always have hundreds of variations, no two monsters have the same appearance.
Unfortunately, Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince’s performance falls short of its artistic quality. It frequently freezes during certain battles, constantly drops frame rates, and is rife with load screens.
Playing the game was occasionally difficult due to all of these performance issues, especially during the supposed immersive or engaging parts.
Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince is a somewhat uneventful role-playing game. Although the game’s story and gameplay are passable and occasionally enjoyable,
its performance problems and dearth of basic but crucial features severely hinder the whole experience. Because of this, it’s difficult to suggest the game to anyone who isn’t a die-hard Dragon Quest enthusiast who was eagerly awaiting its release.