Tails is gone. Tails is back. He's gone. he's dead.
Tails only contribution to this game is to be a burden. He contributes nothing. He breathes my bubbles. He crumbles my platforms. He does nothing to deserve being at my side. He's the worst partner I could have ever asked for.

I couldn't imagine playing without him.

This game is less hell than Sonic 1. The final boss however is Moloch.

A game with three nights, i finished in three days! ^^
I am quite proud about me finishing this on stream. It was the first game from my streaming journey, and dare I say I was having a lot of fun, it was definetly a journey filled with a lot of tilt and love at the same time :).
The first time I played I couldn't finish it because of the katana guy boss, but now that I played it, while being more eco about my heals and film, I did it on my first try!! : )
Check me out on YouTube or Twitch if you want to see my journey through fatal frame - Maeossum

Main Story: April 22nd.
100%: April 30th (176 hour play time).

This is one of my absolute favorite games of all time and that's mainly due to the fact that DQ4 is in my top 5 games and I'm a huge monster tamer fan. Getting a combination of both with my favorite mainline character Psaro as the protagonist is just the perfect game to market towards me. I enjoy every moment of 100%ing this game over a nearly half a year period. I truly took my time with this game like none other.

Story & Characters:
Let's start with the flaws. Despite having dark plotlines this game was noticably always in an uplifting mood. That's not necessarily bad, heck most of my favorite games are like that, but I do wish this game put greater emphasis on emotional value of characters. That's a quality that made me fall in love with DQ4. This game is a nice add on to DQ4's narrative though. It's wonderful to see events transpire from a different point of view, getting to explore Nadiria further, and the new lore fleshes out the world's backstory nicely. I do wish the Chosen showed up more potentially in boss battles against the player. Dragon Quest isn't used to anti heroes or antagonists in the protagonist role and it does kind of show. I definitely prefer Psaro and Rose in DQ4 than this game in all honesty but that's not to say I dislike them here. There's just something a little off about them to me compared to how I interpreted them in the original game. The new characters like Ludo, Dolph, Randolfo, and Azabel are all super cool and interesting though. Ludo is my favorite amongst them. The family dynamic between some of the cast was awkward in a good realistic way despite the fact they're a crazy demon lord family that mostly hate each other. It was also neat to see Toilen from DQ5 in this game but much younger and with an entirely unique design this time around. Healie also got a human form redesign and he's honestly cute. I actually wish he was a party member that accompanied Psaro more often because of how great his design is.

Exploration & Season Changing:
This game is split up into regions that you can fast travel between. Early game typically has smaller areas and you unlock larger areas as you progress. Every area has its own distinct climate and season cycle. The human world now known as Terrestria has a typical Earth season cycle but the Circles of Nadiria are all so unique and interesting. One moment you're in a green poison swamp with acid rain and the next thing you know the season changes with a blood moon overhead. New parts of the map open up in some seasons like being able to ride large flowers through the air in spring, climbing vines in summer, or walking across water/honey in winter. Honey? Well yes one of the underworlds is food themed which is honestly really cool. The Circle of Indulgance is probably my favorite setting in game because of all the tasty looking food everywhere. The Circle of Caprice is hard competition though because I love the waterfalls coming from magic in the sky and the constellations in the night sky with shooting stars. Some areas in the game simply look nothing short of beautiful but there are some kind of ugly areas too TBH. One such area is the Circle of Temper especially during winter. I don't know why but winger tends to be the ugliest season in terms of textures in game. Spring almost always look beautiful everywhere though thankfully. I don't really care about graphics that much and I do think the good areas outweigh the bad but still it is a flaw worth mentioning.

Monsters, Taming, Fusing, & DLC:
Having over 520 monsters to collect even with some being recolors is very impressive. The fusion system that is akin to Shin Megami Tensei is quite fun to mess around with but it can make obtaining every monster the game has to offer a big time sink. The Mole Hole DLC helps save hours for sure but unfortunately it is a paid DLC mode. I do think it could've been free in base game along with multiple day one DLC. Regardless, I do think I got my money's worth out of all three DLC packs. I also managed to get a hold of a code for the McChallenge event which was fun and got me some very rare monsters that not many players have. Those monsters are rather low ranked though so after I beat the main story I dropped them in favor of more powerful monsters. This game has most mainline final bosses and some side villains but it's definitely easy to tell they didn't go as crazy as the Joker games which were full of other spin-off representation and some unique monster ideas. I would've loved to use the Rocket Slime tanks, the Realm of the Mighty, Gomechan, and other crazy monsters those games had again. That is one way in which I think Joker 3 is better than The Dark Prince. Still, most mainline games including 11 now are represented well. Only DQ10 felt a little lacking in The Dark Prince to me since it only has 3 bosses that are all from Version 1 but I'm not that upset by it since I know not many western fans have actually played 10. The Dark Prince's roster size took me 175ish hours to get em all so there's definitely not a lack of content. It's honestly kind of crazy that DQM2 remake on 3DS has even more monsters (600).

Joker 3 VS The Dark Prince:
Joker 3 has so many crazy monsters, new variation concepts, let you actually ride all the monsters, had a much cooler setting, and more too. A part of me wants to say Joker 3 is objectively a better Dragon Quest Monsters game but something about The Dark Prince does make me like it more. Besides the fact it's connected to DQ4 with Psaro as the protag (absolutely massive pro), I think being able to play it on my TV instead of only on a handheld system is a huge plus. No other DQM has that advantage. Handheld gaming is fantastic, don't get me wrong, but sometimes I like to just lay on my bed with my TV nearby and chill that way. The seasons changing every few minutes to change what parts of the map you can explore and what monsters spawn is also a pretty big pro, especially when the changing is in real time and has a noticable impact on the map. At the end of the day exploring space with sci-fi elements and exploring the underworld with delicious treats are both fun. I love both games a lot, they're equally amongst my favorite monster tamers of all time, heck within my top 25 favorite games of all time too.

Conclusion:
The Dark Prince is a fantastic game that was well worth the decade long wait. It has flaws but so does every game really. In my eyes this game was a blast and a 10/10 experience which I don't say often. I would highly recommend it to fans of DQ4, monster tamers in general, and those simply looking for a calm turn based RPG that can help relieve stress. I love you DQM3 and I hope many more people try this game and enjoy it the way I have.

This is definitely the best game in the series compared to the games that came before it. It has the most story (and a pretty good one too) and best general gameplay. The party changes throughout the game, which is cool. You can recruit monsters eventually, which helps pad out the lack of proper party members during some parts of the game, but it never feels overbearing or all that difficult to get decent Monsters to use. If you want specific ones it might take a while, but some of the best ones are very easy to get. This is the first in the series I played pretty much entirely without using a walkthrough, and it was nice being able to either know where to go or be able to figure it out reasonably quickly. The soundtrack was good, combat feels similar to DQ4, and the world is pretty fun to explore. Party chat was really cool in some spots. The story itself was surprisingly unique compared to most other rpgs I've played, which was nice to see. It was still somewhat simple in nature, but there are multiple memorable scenes that will stick with me for a while. Probably one of the least grind-heavy games I've played so far in the series. Sometimes the game could feel a bit too easy, but it was generally just an enjoyable experience throughout. I could easily recommend this to anyone who has yet to play it.