Back when Pokemon was a big fad, I was on the hunt for any 'mons games out there to hold me over in between playing Pokemon and because I genuinely loved how different series put their own spin on the monster training formula. So, because of that, Dragon Warrior Monsters' charming monster designs attracted me and wound up being my first exposure to the Dragon Quest franchise as a whole, before I wound up getting into the rest of the series... uh... several decades later.
It's not that Dragon Warrior Monsters left a bad impression, mind, it was more that if the party were human I didn't care that much, and by the time I grew out of that Dragon Quest had ended up a little more obscure in the circles I ran in. I had a great time with this game and its sequel, though I never actually finished the main storyline until now.
Part of that is that this game is a lot more challenging than Pokemon in ways I think are both good and bad. Dragon Warrior Monsters requires a lot of AI management, which makes it great to play while doing something else but is a bit overwhelming for a kid. This brings in a bit of an interesting strategic element, because under ideal circumstances it introduces the decision of whether to issue specific commands to your monsters or to set up an AI routine that will let you use items at your leisure.
Unfortunately, those circumstances are not always ideal, especially if you want to shuffle around the monsters you're training instead of sticking to a main team of three for the vast majority of the game. Putting your critters in reserve for any length of time causes them to become disloyal to you, which means that your attempts to command them will occasionally just waste their turn. You can manage this by bringing them on dungeon dives and feeding them meat, but it's still kind of frustrating if you want to mess around with different team combinations without resorting to breeding. You can also manage this by putting them in stasis, but then they won't passively gain EXP while you're not using them. Generally, if you stop using a monster, it feels more worthwhile to just kinda leave them there until you breed something.
Speaking of breeding, that's more or less the cornerstone of how you actually get monsters and one of the big draws of the game. Wild-caught monsters have worse stats and less skills than monsters you've bred, because monsters you've bred inherit the skills their parents have learned and have higher level caps based on their parents. Breeding works less like the Pokemon version and more like fusion systems in Shin Megami Tensei games, as the in-game explanation for what happens is that monsters you breed leave on an eternal honeymoon once they've gotten married and they leave you an egg. Something something deadbeat joke something something child support.
Anyway, there's a really complicated system of how breeding determines what monster you get, with the end goal being the ability to breed the final bosses of the mainline Dragon Quest games from 1 to 6. The games offers some hints on how to get certain monsters through breeding, but the initial hints are vague and the translation isn't super great so you're better off consulting a guide than trying to use in-game hints.
One other issue with that is once you get a certain species of monster, it becomes unnecessarily tedious to get another member of that species. To use Pokemon as a comparison, it's kind of like how if you caught a Magikarp with a Pokeball and you wanted a second one, you'd have to throw like four Ultra Balls. And, meanwhile, you can't tell your monsters not to attack the Magkarp while you're throwing those Ultra Balls at it. Combine that with the fact that you don't exactly get the best grinding spots until the postgame and it can become kind of a slog as the game goes on and it gets more difficult, especially since you're going through procedurally generated dungeons instead of memorable setpieces.
It also doesn't really help that the story isn't that compelling if you aren't familiar with, well, Dragon Quest. I wasn't as a kid, so all the references just kind of mystified me, but now that I've been playing through and have a better idea of what's going on with the game and the little references to other games are extremely charming. I feel like I'd be able to appreciate it even more if I'd played through 4, 5, and especially 6 by the time I revisited it, but eh, I wanted to inject that nostalgia right into my veins. Granted, its other Mons Games compatriots weren't that compelling either, but I remember appreciating the second game's more defined story structure and level design more.
As far as the other game things go, the graphics are charming enough. I think the sprites are pretty nice for the good old Game Boy (With Color Functionality). I can't say too much about the music because while revisiting it I mostly played it on mute while watching let's plays and the like because that was more engaging than playing it on its own. What I did listen to was pretty nice, though I imagine that a lot of it is music I'll hear when I get further in my Dragon Quest series journey anyway.
So, overall, I think this game is definitely flawed, but I did enjoy it. Not enough to finish the whole postgame because a lot of the breeding setup I had on the table was kind of making me stare into the distance and want to do literally anything else, but it was a fun game to revisit and I'm glad I did so with more context. I'm definitely excited to get to the sequel and maybe the remake eventually someday.
It's not that Dragon Warrior Monsters left a bad impression, mind, it was more that if the party were human I didn't care that much, and by the time I grew out of that Dragon Quest had ended up a little more obscure in the circles I ran in. I had a great time with this game and its sequel, though I never actually finished the main storyline until now.
Part of that is that this game is a lot more challenging than Pokemon in ways I think are both good and bad. Dragon Warrior Monsters requires a lot of AI management, which makes it great to play while doing something else but is a bit overwhelming for a kid. This brings in a bit of an interesting strategic element, because under ideal circumstances it introduces the decision of whether to issue specific commands to your monsters or to set up an AI routine that will let you use items at your leisure.
Unfortunately, those circumstances are not always ideal, especially if you want to shuffle around the monsters you're training instead of sticking to a main team of three for the vast majority of the game. Putting your critters in reserve for any length of time causes them to become disloyal to you, which means that your attempts to command them will occasionally just waste their turn. You can manage this by bringing them on dungeon dives and feeding them meat, but it's still kind of frustrating if you want to mess around with different team combinations without resorting to breeding. You can also manage this by putting them in stasis, but then they won't passively gain EXP while you're not using them. Generally, if you stop using a monster, it feels more worthwhile to just kinda leave them there until you breed something.
Speaking of breeding, that's more or less the cornerstone of how you actually get monsters and one of the big draws of the game. Wild-caught monsters have worse stats and less skills than monsters you've bred, because monsters you've bred inherit the skills their parents have learned and have higher level caps based on their parents. Breeding works less like the Pokemon version and more like fusion systems in Shin Megami Tensei games, as the in-game explanation for what happens is that monsters you breed leave on an eternal honeymoon once they've gotten married and they leave you an egg. Something something deadbeat joke something something child support.
Anyway, there's a really complicated system of how breeding determines what monster you get, with the end goal being the ability to breed the final bosses of the mainline Dragon Quest games from 1 to 6. The games offers some hints on how to get certain monsters through breeding, but the initial hints are vague and the translation isn't super great so you're better off consulting a guide than trying to use in-game hints.
One other issue with that is once you get a certain species of monster, it becomes unnecessarily tedious to get another member of that species. To use Pokemon as a comparison, it's kind of like how if you caught a Magikarp with a Pokeball and you wanted a second one, you'd have to throw like four Ultra Balls. And, meanwhile, you can't tell your monsters not to attack the Magkarp while you're throwing those Ultra Balls at it. Combine that with the fact that you don't exactly get the best grinding spots until the postgame and it can become kind of a slog as the game goes on and it gets more difficult, especially since you're going through procedurally generated dungeons instead of memorable setpieces.
It also doesn't really help that the story isn't that compelling if you aren't familiar with, well, Dragon Quest. I wasn't as a kid, so all the references just kind of mystified me, but now that I've been playing through and have a better idea of what's going on with the game and the little references to other games are extremely charming. I feel like I'd be able to appreciate it even more if I'd played through 4, 5, and especially 6 by the time I revisited it, but eh, I wanted to inject that nostalgia right into my veins. Granted, its other Mons Games compatriots weren't that compelling either, but I remember appreciating the second game's more defined story structure and level design more.
As far as the other game things go, the graphics are charming enough. I think the sprites are pretty nice for the good old Game Boy (With Color Functionality). I can't say too much about the music because while revisiting it I mostly played it on mute while watching let's plays and the like because that was more engaging than playing it on its own. What I did listen to was pretty nice, though I imagine that a lot of it is music I'll hear when I get further in my Dragon Quest series journey anyway.
So, overall, I think this game is definitely flawed, but I did enjoy it. Not enough to finish the whole postgame because a lot of the breeding setup I had on the table was kind of making me stare into the distance and want to do literally anything else, but it was a fun game to revisit and I'm glad I did so with more context. I'm definitely excited to get to the sequel and maybe the remake eventually someday.