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It certainly can’t be said that Square Enix is afraid of trying new things with established I.P.s. I mean, take a look at how many different spin-offs Dragon Quest alone has! From Dragon Quest Builders to Infinity Strash: Dragon Quest The Adventure of Dai to Dragon Quest Heroes…they’ve managed to successfully transplant the series into multiple genres with decent success! Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince is the latest effort from a loooooooooong line of experimental trials.
That alone should fill you with some hope. I thoroughly enjoyed my time with Dragon Quest Heroes and Dragon Quest Builders! Hell, I’m hoping for a sequel to either series in fact! But I digress, we’re talking about Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince now.
Does it deserve to be spoken in the same breath as those games?
What is Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince?
Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince is a single player third person turn-based JRPG. Developed and published by Square Enix. It was previously released on the Nintendo Switch in 2023, and now ported to the PC, iOS and Android platforms.
Our review copy was provided by Square Enix! Thanks so much for giving us the game!
As with all the spin-offs, Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince has some ties to the main series. For this one, it’s tied to Dragon Quest IV. Psaro, the main character of this game, is actually the main bad guy for that game. This game’s a prequel to the main entry and shows how Psaro turned out the way he did and expands on his motivations.
To be honest, I’ve never had the chance to play Dragon Quest IV. My first Dragon Quest was Dragon Warrior VII (back then the series went by Dragon Warrior when it was translated to English) on the OG Playstation. I’ve never went back to replay the earlier games despite wanting to.
In that regard, I don’t have any reference for Psaro. I’m a blank slate. From playing Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince though, it’s clear the dude has gotten a bum rap. Chased away from his village, hunted by monsters yet not being able to hurt them…it’s more than enough to turn anybody evil.
I’m not saying he was right to be a villain (though I’m leaning that way), but it’s certainly understandable why he did.
In Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince, you gain control of Psaro just as he’s learning to be a monster wrangler. Since Psaro is unable to fight monsters personally, he recruits his own band of monsters to do the smashing for him.
Like the new Pokemon games, Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince takes place in a huge semi-open world. You can easily see the monsters roaming about and coming into contact with them triggers a battle. The open world itself is rather cool. There’s an immense sense of scale going on that’s rather impressive.
The game also makes use of seasonal changes, which each season impacting gameplay. Monsters will change with the seasons, new routes might open up (ice from a river might be frozen in winter, revealing a new cave that was inaccessible before) and even new items can be discovered. It’s a cool mechanic to be honest, and really makes you thoroughly explore the maps multiple times.
It’s really a lot like Pokemon or Digimon, though much more simplified.
Monsters don’t need a Pokeball or similar gadget to get them to join. You can ‘Scout’ them (where your monsters’ combined strength basically coerce them into joining you) or whack them senseless in battle.
If they recover from the beating afterwards, they’ll join you.
I’ve found the using the scouting method works much better. More often than not, beating a monster to death pretty much ensures their…well, death.
Once you’ve progressed a bit, the game also introduces monster breeding, or ‘synthesis’ as it’s dubbed in the game. Like Monster Rancher and the Shin Megami Tensei series, you pick two monsters to merge and get a new one (selectable from a handful for each pairing) in return. The new one inherits the parents’ traits and skills (which you can also pick).
It’s certainly a fun diversion but the synthesis isn’t as deep as that found in the Shin Megami Tensei or Persona games. That doesn’t really matter thankfully since Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince isn’t a particularly deep JRPG.
It just have enough depth to keep you engaged without you needing to plan out every synthesis.
I do love that you get a few different options when you pick two monsters to merge, which means you don’t have to keep hunting for a specific monster just to get a creature you want to join you in your battles.
In Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince, the fights are all turn-based with you giving commands after every turn.
This is where the game stumbles a bit.
You can’t dictate what moves or which target to focus on, just give preset directions on how you want the AI to act.
Unfortunately, the AI isn’t the best if left to their own devices and will make super boneheaded decisions.
They won’t focus their attacks on a singular target and even make dubious move choices. That might sound minor, but it’s a major hassle in boss fights. You’re forced to depend on luck more than skill unless you really grind and overpower your opponents through sheer strength.
You can mitigate that somewhat by dictating what their battle tactics via the Tactics menu, but the available selection of tactics could definitely use more additions. There’s really no way to fine tune their targeting tendencies, which is the main issue that needs addressing.
Thankfully, the grinding isn’t so bad.
You can fast forward (2x speed) in battles and also auto-battle so you can just sit back and watch your team fight. This makes the otherwise lengthy fights much more bearable, especially when you’re grinding for levels.
Yup, like old school RPGs, the game’s a quite stingy with the XP it doles out.
I do appreciate being able to pick what spells my monsters use and the frequency of their usage though. That’s a godsend when you’re in an area with spell resistant enemies or have a particular spell the monsters in that area are weak to.
Weirdly, the game removes nearby monsters as soon as you finish a battle, so if you mess up and get dragged into a battle near the monster you were gunning for, you’ll find that it’s gone when you’re back in the overworld.
That really, really, REALLY sucks if you’re hunting for rare monsters. There’s no fix other than to move a distance away and return (hoping for the monsters to respawn) and try again.
Like other modern Dragon Quest games, the voices and text all have English accented English. You know with slang like wot, manky and the like. English English yeah? That honestly is one of the best things for me for the series and I always leave the voices in English to get the most out of it.
There’s a certainly charm to it that I can’t describe exactly.
Maybe it’s because pretty much every other game out there uses American English, so it’s like a breath of fresh air to have something else. Besides, hearing monsters speaking in cockney and other English accents is more than worth it!
On the flip side of the audio is the music.
It’s a bit on the weak side for me personally.
The Dragon Quest spin-offs tend to reuse most of the main series’ themes. That means if you’ve played Dragon Quest Builders or Treasures or even Heroes, you’ll be hearing the same tracks again.
Now, Square Enix does do this with Final Fantasy games (the main theme fanfare and the battle victory themes mostly) but I feel that Dragon Quest reuses the same old songs much, much more. They’re nice and recognizable, but when you play a new game, you want to hear new music, you know?
Not the same ones you’ve heard from other games.
To be fair, there are some new music but most of the important ones are recycled. The battle theme is definitely reused, so is the world map theme. How would you feel if every Final Fantasy game used the same music for those spots too? Disappointed right?
That’s how I feel.
Owing to this being originally developed for the Nintendo Switch, the visuals are also quite underwhelming.
Even on the highest settings, the character models (while nice looking) are super basic. It fits the Dragon Quest cartoon art style (Akira Toriyma was the main artist as usual) so it’s not really bit deal. I do wish the environments sported more details though. Ground textures in particular look much too flat and boring.
They’re huge, but mostly empty apart from the monsters and incidental foliage. The draw distance on the highest setting is pretty good and it really allows you to scope out the landscape. It’s great for spotting a new monster and making a beeline for it.
Due to the weak graphics, there’s not a real need for powerful hardware to run the game maxed out. I had zero issues on 4K with my NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080Ti desktop or my 4080 notebook at 1080p. Even the ROG Ally played well at 1080p, with a stable framerate.
I strongly recommend that you enable V-sync enabled because there is massive screen tearing even with an unlocked framerate. It happened on my desktop, on my laptop and even on my ROG Ally X.
Save yourself the hassle and enable V-sync from the start.
The Bottom Line.
Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince won’t dethrone Pokemon or even Digimon, but it’s still a decent JRPG. The monsters are cute, the seasonal changes are cool, the visuals are serviceable and the game loop entertaining enough to keep driving you forward.
Unfortunately the AI is dumb and not being able to direct them to focus their efforts on a target will severely hamper your enjoyment during major fights. Luck pulls you through these more than skill and that’s not a thing you want to be hearing about a game.
The game’s reuse of old Dragon Quests songs is also a sore point. I know Square Enix wants to tie the spin-offs to the main series, but all it does is make you roll your eyes at hearing the same damn music you heard in a game previously. It gets grating to be honest.
Despite those issues, Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince is still worth a play, especially if you’re a fan of Dragon Quest IV. It’s not perfect and will annoy you sometimes, but the gameplay is solid and fun enough to keep you entertained.
TLDR:
Fun gameplay spoiled by the stupid AI in battles.
The Good:
- Speedy regular battles.
- Lots of monsters to recruit and synthesize.
- Seasonal changes gives a fresh spin to things.
- Wide open maps.
The Bad:
- Simplistic visuals.
- AI is dumb.
- Tactics too limited.
- Recycled music.
Salehuddin Husin, EIC
Sal's been in the industry since the early 2000s. He's written for a ton of gaming and tech publications including Playworks, Hardwarezone, HWM and GameAxis. Recently, Sal served as a juror for the Indie Game Awards at Taipei Game Show 2020. A geek and hardcore gamer, Sal will play everything, on any platform.
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