An underrated jem of the GBC days
Dragon Warrior Monsters was a unique game in many ways. It was a monster raising RPG/breeding sim/dungion crawler all set in the colourful world of Dragon Quest. It spawned a cult following that, although not as big as Pokemon, was just as dedicated.
But this is not a game that should be compared to Pokemon because beyond the aspect of capturing an army of monsters to fight for you there is actually very little to do with pokemon. It actually has more to do with games like Monster Rancher.
You are Terry, a young boy who passes through a gateway into a stranage land where kingdoms are built into ,massive trees and the monsters that roam the world can be tamed to do battle for Monster Masters. After you Sister is captured and taken into this world you follow after. It seems there is a monster battle touniment taking place between you and a few neigboring kingdoms, the victor of which is granted a single wish. Seeing this as the opprotunity to save your sibling you start working right away taming beats to do battle in your stead by befriending them and training them for battle.
The battles work in a different fassion than both Pokemon and past Dragon Warrior games. It is turn based, as most RPG are, but you have a more hands-off influence in battle. You can carry three monster with you at a time. When you entr a battle all three of your monsters take part in combat all at once like a more standard RPG than most monster raising RPG which are usually one-on-one affairs. rather than commanding your monsters you give them each different battle starategies to follow depending on their skills and personality. You can also change your strategy at any time (come the beginging of your turn). You can choose to have them fight aggressively (use some powerful skills and more physical attacks) Defencivly (guard mostly and heal when needed) or a command called "Mixed" (which is casting a varity of different kinds of magic for the most part). Each Monster will also have a personality that will determined how they follow your tactics. You can also choose a manual mode which lets you give them all the commandes (ie: tell them to attack or tell them exactly which skills and spells to cast) so how you fight it totally up to you. another perk to the battle engine is if you use an item durring battle it won't take up any of your monsters turns since Terry will be the one using it.
The game is devided into a series of dungions between arena battles. You have to work your way up the arena to unlock more of the dungins to progress through the game. In the arena you can not use items or give direct commands, which is why it's a good idea to train your monsters under spasific tactics so they won't be totally helpless in the arena without your guidence. The dungions are a series of randomly generated mazes each containing randomy placed treasure amd full of random battles to fight. This is where you gain new monsters by taming them in battle (feeding the enemy meat) or pump up your own monsters levels through experiance in battle, like most RPGs.
But each monster has a rather low level cap if you only train wild monsters (sometimes as low as level 20 or so) and your monster farm can only hold so many. The best way to fix both broblems is breeding. After a certian point early in the game you can breed your monsters by taking a male and female, both level 10 or higher, to the shrine. After they breed you lose them both, in thier place you have their offspring whic can learn skills that both parents knew (granted their level cap is high enough). You can also get inceasingly high stats on offspring through breeding as the stronger the parents were the stronger the offspring will be. The offspring will always start at level 1 but a bred monster at level 1 can have much higher stats than a typicle level 1 wild monster. You also get a number added to the monster through breeding (ie: Silme+3) this is one of the factors that, amoung other things, inceases the monsters level cap for an ultimatly stronger monster. needless to say the game has a lot of depth, even comepared to modern portable RPGs.
Graphically it looks great for a GBC game. the battle sprites look nice although the backgrounds are rather plain and it has some nice spell effects. Ingame each and every monster has their own ingame sprite that follows you around the world as you travel and as a nice touch when one falls in battle they are replaced by a coffin that slides around behind you untill they are revived.
Sound wise it has some very catchy tunes that have stayed with me for the seven years since the games release. Although it may not have the most variety it still sounds great for a GBC game.
Overall; If you ever come across this game you must buy it, it's a hidden jem of the GBC days. It is one of the few games that I broke the 100 hour mark in one save file. It's a shame it never really caught on in the way games like Pokemon did but maybe it's best left to the Dragon Warrior die-hards and cultists.
Classic.