Step aside Pokemon, once again you have been ousted
The basic concept of Dragon Quest Monsters is much like Pokemon, you can capture monsters and level them up while progressing through the games main story, however Joker has a solid story, something Pokemon games have always lacked. Another feature of DQM is the breeding system, now known as synthesizing as the gender system has been removed. The removal of the egg system is a big plus, but unfortunately causes for players problems when wanting to get a monster that is either a + or - which are essentially genders now. To obtain monsters in DQM, you must now scout or breed them, in the previous games you could capture monsters by using various types of meat to please them and once you knocked them out, they joined you. However when you scout a monster, your scout guage will appear and each of the 3 monsters in your party have certain success rates depending on the enemies level, you can also only scout one monster during each encounter and the battle ends as soon as you capture a monster.
Joker is a full 3D game running on the same engine as Dragon Quest 8 for the PS2, which is also being used for the upcoming DQ9 for the DS. The downside to the 3D feature is there are less monsters, somewhere around 120 now as opposed to 200 in DQ2: Cobi's Journey/Tara's Adventure for the Gameboy Colour. The gameplay is lengthy and the addition of online battles as well as local battles and breeding gives you extended game time and always makes for an interesting time. The art direction is obviously in the same vein as past the past two Dragon Quest games for the PS2 (7&8), done by Akira Toriyama who's claim to fame also include the Dragon Ball Z series which can be clearly seen in DQM: Joker based on the character designs.
As with most Dragon Quest games, the combat system is obviously turnbased, however it has been enhanced over previous iterations of the DQM series. You can now openly control your monsters to use specific skills, items can also be used but you are limited to one per turn which also adds to the strategy of building a party. You want monsters who can use a variety of skills including stat increasing, healing, offensive magic and physical attacks, mastering so will bring you great success.
The game is set on an ocean with several main islands as well as a number of random hidden ones which have many strong creatures on them. You will encounter a few monsters on each island that only appear once and a while, like on the first island you will meet a Gigantes and King Slime, both of which you will not be able to scout until you have much stronger monsters since they are much higher in levels, Gigantes will pretty much obliterate anything you have under level 12 in one hit. On the desert island I managed to find a Skullgon, but was not successful in scouting it due to my weaker monsters at the time. You meet a creature at the top of the first mountain who will later on become a member of your party when you rescue him from an Orc, he is also the first Lord monster in the game.
There are several monster types in the game as well as a variety of skills to learn, each monster has specific skills to themselves. You will encounter slimes, zombies, plants, demons, dragons, materials, beast and the Lord (aka Incarni in Joker or ??? in previous games). You will find yourself back tracking a lot to level up any monsters you happen to breed, and breeding various monsters can create the same monsters at times, so you must watch how you use your monsters for breeding.
Overall Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker is a great game, with a rather tough difficulty over previous games but is still none the less. If you love Pokemon and want something new with a twist, this game is definately worth picking up.