Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince (1st December 2023)

[Ike]

Seems I misremembered and it wasn’t that big a jump according to that screenshot. My Angel Slime did gain 16 levels though, but maybe because it was quite low still.

[darksnowman]

Just watched some scenes after being funnelled back to Rosehill and I feel directly implicated in the events of DQ IV now. Surreal.

[Ike]

Update is out, seems they fixed the performance issues. They also added the Alter of Amalgamation as a Zoom location which addresses my main complaint.

Edit: hm, performance not completely fixed, seemed fine in the areas I was in, still get issues in other areas.

[Ike]

Stopped procrastinating and just synthesising monsters and finished up the main story. Think I've finished all the post game stuff so now I think I'm done unless I get the urge to synthesise some more monsters.

Got my favourite Watabou (or Fluffy according to the new localisation) from the first Monsters game so pretty satisfied for now.

Some of the other monsters require some complicated work to get so going to leave them for now.

[darksnowman]

On 31/12/2023 at 9:21 PM, Ike said:

Stopped procrastinating and just synthesising monsters and finished up the main story. Think I've finished all the post game stuff so now I think I'm done unless I get the urge to synthesise some more monsters.

Is it worth doing the Whispwoods? Do you get anything for it?

I made heavy going of it in the middle echelons until I did some synthesising. Thought I could press through to the uppers before rejigging the party but no matter how much grinding I did, those low rank monsters couldn't do it—there was a boss that would wipe them all out in one turn when it decided to. Once I stopped being loyal to those monsters, it was plain sailing and I ended up with a group of B and C ranks by the "end".

[Ike]

30 minutes ago, darksnowman said:

Is it worth doing the Whispwoods? Do you get anything for it?

Metal Slime monsters appearance rates increase a lot and makes it super easy to farm Metal Kings which makes grinding much easier.

You also unlock some extra boss fights to get better skill scrolls, but those are mostly useful if you want to be competitively.

Story wise it wraps up a couple of things.

The Whispwoods area is actually quite short, but the bosses are really strong, you'll probably need at least 1 or 2 higher rank monsters.

[darksnowman]

On 10/04/2024 at 9:47 AM, Ike said:

Story wise it wraps up a couple of things.

The Whispwoods area is actually quite short, but the bosses are really strong, you'll probably need at least 1 or 2 higher rank monsters.

Had a go at it and was swiftly defeated by the first boss encounter. Got sent packing when I tried one of the S-rank colosseum tournaments as well (pre-credits, there was no peril clearing them up to A rank). I was able to make one A rank monster but since I don't remember seeing a Slime Hill anywhere and there's nowhere left to explore, I can't think of a good path for getting new monsters up to speed other than just grinding the Whispwoods entryway which doesn't seem too inviting. I'm sure it wouldn't take long at all to get a newbie up to level 20, but to get them in shape for a boss would take a while I feel.

So I might leave it there. Very good game. Got 40+ mini medals. I enjoyed the announcers in the colosseums and when the story intersected with DQ IV it was pretty cool to be part of. The bit where the boy—never warmed to him—used the sands of time to bring things back was cool too although I was up for pursuing the story the way it was headed before it pulled you back.