History VideoGame / DragonQuestMonsters

There was [[[[https://www.gematsu.com/2018/11/new-dragon-quest-monsters-game-in-development-for-console-starring-erik-and-mia a seventh game]] announced starring Erik and Mia from ''VideoGame/DragonQuestXI'' as kids, but [[https://www.gematsu.com/2020/01/dragon-quest-monsters-producer-comments-on-new-title-dragon-quest-builders-2-producer-teases-new-game-unalike-builders it ended stuck]] in DevelopmentHell for a while...until May 26, 2021, when it was announced as an entirely new game; ''Dragon Quest Treasure''!

A ''VideoGame/DragonQuest'' SpinOff series, where you control a youth who wanders the world, [[GottaCatchEmAll collecting]], [[{{Mon}} battling, and breeding monsters]] and eventually using them to save the world. ''Dragon Quest Monsters'' and both versions of ''Dragon Quest Monsters 2'' were released in America and Europe as [[MarketBasedTitle "Dragon Warrior Monsters"]].

* A seventh game featuring Erik and Mia from ''VideoGame/DragonQuestXI'' is [[https://www.gematsu.com/2018/11/new-dragon-quest-monsters-game-in-development-for-console-starring-erik-and-mia in development]], but seems to [[https://www.gematsu.com/2020/01/dragon-quest-monsters-producer-comments-on-new-title-dragon-quest-builders-2-producer-teases-new-game-unalike-builders be stuck]] in DevelopmentHell.

There are also multiple spin-offs of the Monsters series on mobile phones, such as ''Dragon Quest Monsters: Wanted!'' for Android. Unfortunately, ''Caravan Heart'', ''Joker 3'' and all of the rereleases and mobile games (including ''Joker 2 Professional'') are NoExportForYou. However, ''Caravan Heart'' was translated into English through two years of work by dedicated fans; [[http://www.romhacking.net/translations/1252/ available here]].

* EarlyGameHell: ''Caravan Heart'' gets hit pretty hard with this in the beginning compared to the other Dragon Quest games. You start out with only one monster, can't even befriend any more monsters since the monsters in Caravan Heart are named characters that join at set parts of the game, and you have to learn how to handle the caravan mechanic, where each step taken on the map consumes rations, which have to be refilled either with food items or gold. This means that not only are you fight with only one party member for the first hour or so of the game, but you're also incredibly strapped for gold since regular exploration on the map is consuming a finite resource. It's not uncommon for players to get hopelessly stuck before they reach the first Illusion.

* AffablyEvil: [[spoiler: Dr. Snap, who is seen as a hard-working and great man, not to mention a brilliant scientist and superb monster scout himself. He even helps TheHero in training his monsters.]]

** Played straight in Joker games, which have [[spoiler: Dr. Snap in the first one]], [[spoiler: Rigor Mortex in the second one, [[spoiler: Dr. Snap (Again) in the third game.]]

** Played straight in Joker games, which have [[spoiler: Dr. Snap in the first one]] and [[spoiler: Rigor Mortex in the second one.]]

* BigBad: Interestingly averted for the first two games, who don't have any sort of overarching villain. The closest there is are the kings of the rival kingdoms in Terry's Wonderland.

** [[spoiler: The Celestial Fiends in the Terry's Wonderland remake want to take the spirit stone from the humans so that they can save their own kingdom.]]

* WarmupBoss: In [=DQM2=], the first boss Beavern fulfills this role, being a simplistic boss with no threatening skills. He's only slightly stronger than the normal enemies you been fighting, and is there to give players experience against an enemy that could pose a threat to them if they're playing poorly. The second and final boss of the Oasis world, Curselamp, also qualifies; while its stats, particularly its durability, are a bit beefier than Beavern's, its attack power is mediocre and the only skill it knows is Upper. So with any team that's a bit levelled up, it poses low offensive threat, and by just ordering attack over and over with no strategy, you can easily beat it before it can raise its defense enough with Upper to be impervious to your attacks.

** DQM2 has this in its first world, Oasis. The Oasis world is a desert-themed world, with a simple story, incredibly basic and weak random encounters, and just two very simple bosses that can each just be beaten by taking any random minimally-levelled team of monsters and ordering attack over and over with no strategy at all.

* PeninsulaOfPowerLeveling: DQM2's second main world, the Pirate World, has this. In the Pirate world, you immediately have access to water to surf on, where the water possesses random encounters much stronger than what you'll find on land in Pirate World until the very end of it. While the water's random encounters may be too strong for a player first entering Pirate, they naturally provide much more experience than the random encounters the player will encounter for a while through natural progression, so a player could grind on the water monsters to get some quick levels in and make most of Pirate a breeze. It's also possible to recruit these monsters upon immediately entering the world, so a player could get a relatively strong monster on their team very early on Pirate, especially if they're playing Tara's version and it's an Octoreach (which not only has the highest base stats of any random encounter in Pirate, but also has incredibly high growth rates for an early game monster, potentially being a DiscOneNuke for the player).
** DQM2's third main world, the Ice World, prevents the player from accessing the rest of the world before resolving a plot point within the world, with the mountain pass cut off by guards and ice preventing the player from surfing on the world's water. However, next to the port town that is immediately accessible, there's a four square stretch of water before water-blocking ice that can be surfed on, where water-based random encounters can be fought. Like in Pirate, these water monsters are stronger than what you'll find early on in the world and give more experience. Unlike Pirate though, the water monsters here aren't that much stronger than the early inland monsters while being weaker than the later inland monsters, so they're not as helpful for providing quicker levelling and have no potential as a DiscOneNuke.

** In DQM2, Limbo has its own unique overworld music, but unless you spend a lot of time grinding with Limbo's random encounters before fighting the final boss, you'll get to barely hear it, as the world is extremely short and devoid of content, and once you beat the world, its overworld music reverts to the generic overworld theme that plays in the rest of the main worlds, which then makes the Limbo overworld theme gone on that file. The theme that plays inside the final boss' castle, a remix of the Limbo overworld theme, also qualifies, as unless you grind against the random encounters there, you'll also only hear it for a couple minutes before fighting the final boss, and once you beat him, his castle disappears permanently, making it inaccessible for the rest of that file (you can still enter the entrance area before the castle after beating him and hear the castle's theme, but the bridge to the castle is gone and there's absolutely nothing to do there).

** In the second game, the king of the Oasis world actually goes out to address the concerns of his people instead of just sitting on his throne like almost every other member of royalty in the series.

* SequelDifficultyDrop: The second game is significantly easier than the first in the main story, as in the first game, the random encounters are relatively stronger and possess more powerful/dangerous skills, the bosses are significantly harder, it requires you to complete every Arena rank while there's more Arena ranks with much more difficult teams to beat, you gain a lot less experience from battles, stronger monster species are a lot rarer to find as random encounters, and being wiped out makes you lose your items in addition to half your money. The first game also lacks several of the stronger monsters in the second game, limiting strong breeding options, and its worlds functioning as roguelike dungeons ups the difficulty as well.

* CutTheKnot: [[spoiler: How the King of Great Tree solves the problem with the spirit stone, rather literally too. Instead of keeping it for humans or giving it to the monsters he ''breaks it in half'' and gives each broken half to a side, ensuring life for all and that they will always need one another.]]

** In Joker, when you have to deal with quadrilinear synthesis, you'll have to do a ton of grinding to raise and synthesise the ridiculous requirements, many of which require high end metallic slimes (which in turn require you to get a lot of the very difficult and annoying to get lower end metal slimes).

* GreenHillZone: DQM2 has this in its first world, Oasis. The Oasis world is a desert-themed world, with a simple story, incredibly basic and weak random encounters, and just two very simple bosses that can each just be beaten by taking any random minimally-levelled team of monsters and ordering attack over and over with no strategy at all.

** In original series (1 / 2), the bosses made somewhat logical sense -- breeding a Dragonlord required monsters from Dragonlord's Castle in ''VideoGame/DragonQuest'', Breeding his second form used Dragonlord as one of the parents. Most boss monsters were similar references to their original games. One notable exception to this is Hargon (''VideoGame/DragonQuestII''), who isn't used to breed Sidoh, but instead is used to bread Baramos (''VideoGame/DragonQuestVI''). Likewise, Baramos, who is NOT used for Zoma, but instead used for Mudou (''VideoGame/DragonQuestV'') (Murdaw in modern translations). Mudou himself isn't used for Deathmoore (Mortamor), but rather is the only way to get Poseidon, an original monster for Monsters 2.[[note]]Although Mudou or Poseidon are needed to make Deathmoore3 later on[[/note]] What do all these bosses have in common? They're all famous DiscOneFinalBoss -- each of them were played up as the main antagonist of their respective games, quite famously in DQ3's case, only to be revealed as only a middling flunky at best.

* MarshmallowHell: [[spoiler: In the ending of 3DS remake, Terry receives this from a bunny girl as congratulations for winning the Starry Night Tournament. This is notably one of the only times in the whole series it isn't a fake-out.]]

* OhCrap: [[The people of Great Log finally realize their island is sinking when almost all of it is submerged and react accordingly.]]

* BigBad: Interestingly, the first two games don't have any sort of overarching villain. The closest there is are the kings of the rival kingdoms in Terry's Wonderland.

* EvilCounterpart: Your rival in the second game. There was also the mysterious swordsman in the original game, which [[MythologyGag series vets]] [[FutureMeScaresMe recognized]].

* {{Foil}}: The Kings of Great Tree and Great Log. The former is a goofy but kindly ReasonableAuthorityFigure who wants Terry to be the champion of Great Tree but never at any point forces him, the latter is an arrogant and rude aristocrat [[spoiler: who forces Milly to fight for Great Log.]]

** Prince Kameha from Cobi and Tara's adventure ''tries'' to be this, but he is too inept and inexperienced to be one.

** In the second game, the king of the Oasis world actually goes out to address the concerns of his people instead of just sitting on his throne like every other member of royalty in the series.

** The first two games were pretty much cap-free, with 999 being the only stat limit, and all monsters had it. This changed in ''Joker'' -- individual monsters now have distinct caps. Oddly enough, the monster with the highest total caps? The humble ''Lump Wizard''[[note]]This is a reference to the ''Dragon Quest'' manga, ''Manga/DaiNoDaibouken'', where Dai's adoptive grandfather was a Lump Wizard who was really, really powerful due to his age/training/being too stubborn to be weak/''etc''[[/note]]. (The second-highest was the [[IncrediblyLamePun See Butterfly.]])

* DickDastardlyStopsToCheat - A rather interesting case of this being ''meta'': The early online tournaments for ''Joker'' were, of course, teaming with cheaters. Naturally, this means that the tournament scene would be littered with nothing but Gold/Darkonium/King Metal Slimes, (thus making the whole ordeal incredibly painful) right? Nope, you run into teams with three different forms of Incarnus, which absolutely ''sucks'' compared to the metal slimes. In the original Japanese release, Incarnus was marked as "guest", meaning he wasn't usable in the online tournament ''at all'' -- and the Japanese tournament servers had better sanity checking code to prevent things like using 3 versions of him at once.

* TheRival: In the original, Terry is constantly compared to a "Mystery Trainer" from the kingdom of Great Log, who is allegedly not only ''really good,'' but one of the scariest damn people you'll ever met. [[UnknownRival You don't actually get to meet this rival of yours until the final tournament, though.]] That's because [[spoiler:your sister that you were supposed to be "rescuing" is the "Mystery Trainer."]]

* RoyalsWhoActuallyDoSomething :In the second game, the king of the Oasis world actually goes out to address the concerns of his people instead of just sitting on his throne like every other member of royalty in the series.

* TookALevelInKindness: The King of Great Log is a lot nicer in subsequent appearances.

* WorldTree: Lots of kingdoms in the [=DQM=] world live inside of enormous trees. ([=GreatTree=], [=DeadTree=], [=GreatLog=]...)

** In Dragon Quest Monsters 2, during the Pirate World you'll typically progress by beating the Hood Squid to get it to join you, where you then take it to the bard in a nearby town to get its dancing to summon a mermaid, which talking to the mermaid queen is required to get the ghost ship to appear. However it's not the Hood Squid's dancing specifically that attracts the mermaid, just any monster on your team with a dancing skill will do, so for example you could go get an Octoreach with Odd Dance instead and skip fighting the Hood Squid altogether.

* SkippableBoss: In Dragon Quest Monsters 2, during the Pirate World you'll typically progress by beating the Hood Squid to get it to join you, where you then take it to the bard in a nearby town to get its dancing to summon a mermaid, which talking to the mermaid queen is required to get the ghost ship to appear. However it's not the Hood Squid's dancing specifically that attracts the mermaid, just any monster on your team with a dancing skill will do, so for example you could go get an Octoreach with Odd Dance instead and skip fighting the Hood Squid altogether.
** In the same game's Sky World, at the end when you go to see the king with all three Heaven equipment, you'll have to fight some Evil Armors blocking various points in the castle, which serve as some mini-bosses. Using the Change Staff to transform yourself into an Evil Armor to make them think you're one of them doesn't work, as they'll question your rank and who you are, and then attack you when you can't answer. However if instead you use the Change Staff to transform yourself into one of the Demonites around the castle, they'll think you're one of the cooks and will let you through, disppearing permanently in the process and allowing you to skip fighting them.