Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker 2

Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker 2
North American cover art
Developer(s)	Tose
Publisher(s)	Square Enix (Japan) Nintendo
Designer(s)	Yuji Horii
Artist(s)	Akira Toriyama
Composer(s)	Koichi Sugiyama
Series	Dragon Quest Monsters
Platform(s)	Nintendo DS
Release date(s)	JP April 28, 2010 JP March 31, 2011 (Professional version) NA September 19, 2011 EU October 7, 2011[1] [2]
Genre(s)	Role-playing
Mode(s)	Single-player, multiplayer

Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker 2 (ドラゴンクエストモンスターズ ジョーカー2, Doragon Kuesuto Monsutāzu Jōkā Tsu)' is a Nintendo DS role-playing video game published by Square Enix. It is the sequel to Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker and is the fifth game in the Dragon Quest Monsters series. It was released in Japan on April 28, 2010 and a US release on September 19, 2011 with the European release following on October 7, 2011.^[3] An expanded version of the game, titled Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker 2 Professional, was released on March 31, 2011. It features new monsters and abilities, with the same story.

Gameplay

Joker 2's gameplay follows closely to its predecessor. Players explore areas and tame wild monsters into their party. Monsters fight in turn-based combat and grow stronger. The battle system itself is very similar to previous Dragon Quest Monsters games. The player controls up to three monsters that make up the party, and can issue them direct orders or set them to one of 4 AI settings. This game features two new monster sizes: large monsters, which use up two spaces on one of the player's two benches, and gargantuan monsters, who take up an entire bench on their own. The main character, who is henceforth referred to as the Hero, does not directly participate in battles except for when the player uses items. He can, however, use any item in his possession and not just the ones 'in hand'. 311 monsters from the Dragon Quest games appear in Joker 2, with a few new species, many from the original "Dragon Warrior Monsters" games^[3] This is the second game in the series to feature Wi-Fi support, after the first Joker game, and the first to support direct battling between players.

Square Enix released Joker 2 Professional, an expanded version of the game, on March 31, 2011. Professional features over 100 new monsters, as well as new regions and abilities, but the same story. Players are able to import their old monsters from the original game.^[4]

Online

Joker 2 has Wi-Fi support and Square Enix has announced that up to eight players can connect to each other.^[5] The players can then battle their monster teams against each other in real time.^[6] The game will also keep track of the best players through leaderboards.

Plot

Most of the game's background, such as monster scouts, is carried over from its predecessor. The story begins close to the day of the Monster Scout Challenge. The new champion is Solitaire, a character from the previous game. She has decided to cancel her flight on her original airship and ask her mother to charter her on a luxury airship. The Hero, an ambitious scout with immense potential but not enough money to pay for a flight to the challenge, decides to stow away in the cargo carried by the Albatross, one of the airships traveling to the challenge, set in the Green Bays archipelago. However, he is discovered by one of the monsters on board: a teeny sanguini known only as the Countess. Upon this, the captain, Rex Mayday, decides to put the Hero to work as a deckhand so he can pay them off. During the trip, a sudden storm besets the ship, and it crashes on an unexplored island. The Hero comes to near the stricken Albatross, and decides to look inside the ship for survivors: unfortunately, with the exception of a random monster, no one is there. Going outside, he meets up with Rory Bellows, the Albatross' chief engineer, who asks him to take the lone monster in the Albatross' monster pen so he can help him search the island for the other passengers. He also teaches the Hero about scouting monsters into his party.

The Hero's first destination is a rainforest area known as Treepidation. Here, he discovers a monster of seemingly unprecedented size and power: a wormonger. He also learns that gargantuan monsters such as the wormonger tend to frighten other monsters away when they draw near. Going deeper into the rainforest, he finds Archie Logg, a young scholar dedicated to researching monsters and one of the Albatross passengers. Unfortunately, the wormonger appears and strikes while Archie is distracted, forcing Rory to allow the creature to swallow him so Archie and the Hero would be spared. The Hero ventures deeper into Treepidation with Archie when night falls, and eventually enters the wormonger to rescue Rory. He also discovers a strange medal inside the wormonger's body: one with the face of a lion on it. The trio then escape the jungle and return to the Albatross.

The Hero then travels to a plains area known as the Doubtback. Here, there is another gargantuan monster roaming the area at night, known as a missing lynx. As his monsters are not yet strong enough to face the beast, the Hero is forced to avoid it and venture underground. While traveling underground, he finds who he believes is the ghost of Rex Mayday, the ship's captain. He tells the Hero that he must emerge triumphant in the monster scout challenge, though what he means by this is unclear at first. The Hero continues to explore the Doubtback, and finds a cave that is home to many moles. Here, some moles mistake him for a troublemaker and attack him, but are dissuaded by their leader, Don Mole. Don Mole spots the medallion carried by the Hero and decrees that he is to enter the monster scout challenge which he is hosting. However, he must make preparations, so the Hero returns to the Albatross with a lump wizard named Dr. Lump, who can synthesize monsters for him, and Eugene Poole, another Albatross passenger, and the eldest of them.

The Hero later returns to the moles' arena and wins the first rank of the challenge. This prompts Don Mole to direct him to a glacier area called Iceolation. Here, the Hero meets another passenger, Lily Gilder, a scout who had planned to enter the challenge with the Countess, whom she is currently searching for. As the Hero is still a deckhand, Lily demands that he help her find the Countess. Unfortunately, they are waylaid at several points by another gargantuan monster, called Baby Bjorn. After much searching and several hellhound encounters, the duo find the Countess, and the Hero vanquishes Baby Bjorn.

The Albatross crew seem unwilling to believe the things they have encountered so far on the island. Upon hearing this, Don Mole tells the Hero to win a higher rank on the challenge. When he succeeds in this task, he is given directions to the next area: the alpine area of Cragravation. Partway up the cliff, he finds Captain Mayday and the final passenger: an assistant named Melonie. They are running away from Jamirus, a gryphon seen in the area. Further up the cliffs, the Hero catches up to them, but so does Jamirus, prompting the Hero to battle him. After the battle, Jamirus' father Gemon appears and chastises the Hero for bullying his son, and then he kidnaps Melonie and takes her to the summit. The Hero and Captain Mayday give chase, and they succeed in rescuing Melonie. Unfortunately, Captain Mayday is severely injured. Fortunately, the Hero and Melonie encounter Empyrea, the gargantuan monster for Cragravation. However she cannot help them leave the island at present: she only tells the Hero to trust in the forces of fate.

On the Albatross, Mayday tells the Hero that he had swum ashore, so the sea may be the only way to escape the island. To this end, he reveals the location of the next area, Unshore. In this area, the Hero encounters the Countess, who has wandered away from Lily once again. He also encounters the gargantuan monster for this area: Khalamari, who does not seem happy about being woken up by having his tentacles struck down. Things then take a very strange turn: a ghost who looks like Rory appears after the battle, but Rory himself is still alive aboard the Albatross. This could imply that there were people on the island at one stage in time, but they were driven away. A slime in the arena can confirm this.

Next, Don Mole instructs the Hero to seek out the Medal of Merit, which he will need to take on the final rank of the monster scout challenge. It is located in an area called the Bemusoleum, an area of ruins that has been largely untouched for a long time. The Hero encounters a ghost in Lily's likeness here, along with a painting that shows a lion-like creature. He then ventures deeper into the ruins, discovering yet another gargantuan monster which his monsters cannot hurt at first: Sagittar. After conquering Sagittar, the Hero finally finds the Medal of Merit, and with it in hand, he returns to the challenge arena.

It is here that he encounters Mynos the Elder: a ghost who looks strikingly like Eugene. Mynos then explains some of the island's mysteries: that the moles have been charged with a sacred duty which they have upheld for centuries, of finding the one who could resurrect the Divine Battler, Leonyx. Centuries ago, there were indeed humans on the isle, but some became greedy and sought to conquer the island. These people created a mysterious magical weapon which infected Leonyx, and he somehow transformed into the malevolynx, a creature of purest darkness. A battle then raged through the island for survival, but the malevolynx was too powerful: he had taken an inordinate number of human and monster lives alike, bringing great sorrow and despair to both races. Therefore the island's humans used powerful magic to seal him in the deepest part of the Necropolis, located in the Bemusoleum, and fled from their ancestral home. The ghosts the Hero had encountered were the spirits of the ancient people of the island who had died during those days. They are now filled with regret over what had become of Leonyx, and over what their own greed had cost them.

Therefore, the Hero's mission is clear: face the malevolynx and restore him to normal so the ancient people may finally be laid to rest. To be sure he is prepared for the ordeal ahead of him, Don Mole and Mynos the Elder challenge him to a battle. The Hero emerges victorious, prompting Mynos the Elder to leave for the Bemusoleum. The Hero follows, and Mynos opens the way into the Necropolis. Powerful monsters had awaited in the Necropolis, but the Hero managed to fight his way into the Necropolis' inner sanctum, where the malevolynx awaited him. There, the malevolynx announces his intentions to destroy the world. Mynos and the Countess appear to try and calm him down, but their efforts are fruitless, since the darkness has seemingly not abated over many centuries. This leads the Hero himself to engage the malevolynx in a terrible battle, in which the former is victorious. Then, unexpectedly, the Countess floats up to the malevolynx's head, and the two synthesize. The resulting being is the complete Leonyx, who is grateful to the Hero for coming to his aid when he did. Leonyx explains that he transformed into the malevolynx by casting out the light in his soul: this light became the Countess, though she has likely changed names, forms and scouts over the years. When the Albatross sailed over the island, the Countess sensed the malevolynx's presence and the two called out to each other, resulting in the storm that downed the ship.

With Leonyx resurrected, the Hero's work on the island is finished. Leonyx sends Empyrea to take the Albatross to the Green Bays archipelago. This is due to the fact that the Albatross has not been fully repaired yet. The Hero can finally pursue his dream of becoming the top monster scout in the world. He sails through the qualifying rounds of the challenge, due to the battles being a simple matter compared to what he faced on the island, then faces Solitaire herself in the final. The Hero emerges victorious, and is crowned the new monster scout champion. After the announcements are made, he decides to return to the island with his friends so he may further his training.

POST GAME

In the post game the hero and his friends return to the island, along with Solitaire who ironically stowed away on board in similar fashion to the hero in the beginning of the game. Don Mole is getting the true monster scout challenge ready and tells the Hero that Leonyx wants to see him. Leonyx upgrades the heroes scout ring which allows to scout the giant monsters of the island and offers to fight him in his full power when he is ready.

The hero can do many new sidequests at this point. Including scouting the giant monsters, recruiting Captain Crow and Estark. Partaking in the True Monster Scout challenge and facing his own companions and shipmates in battle before taking on Solitaire in the championship (who uses the final boss monsters from the previous game). Then the hero can face Eugene Poole, who is revealed to be Mynos the elder's descendent and has now inherited his skills. Searching the island allows the hero to meet and fight the Incarnus (a focal point of the previous game) and get the creature's child to raise.

After defeating Leonyx, he believes the hero is ready. He reveals that although he is restored the evil that had possessed him, Rigor Mortex, is still alive. It has now created a new zone of the island called the Dark World and is preparing to attack the island again. Leonyx opens a portal to the dark world and sends the hero to finish the monster off.

In the dark world, the hero meets the three form borrowing ghosts again. They reveal that they were part of a group that wanted to control the island and opposed Mynos who led a group that wanted to live in harmony with it. To that end their leader Zahlem created Rigor Mortex, a bizarre combination of machinery and magic, to take control of the island. But Rigor Mortex absorbed Zahlems greed and dark desires and decided to destroy the island itself. It killed and absorbed Zahlem, as well as many other people and attempted to absorb Leonyx. This was only partially successful due to Leonyx separating his true heart in time. Now the monster intends to absorb the hero and destroy the island for good.

After travelling the dimension shifting dark world and destroying the barrier crystals protecting the final door, the hero meets the monster. It attempts to kill and absorb the hero, but the hero defeats it and it is destroyed for good. The three ghosts, seeing the results of their sins fully undone, thank the hero before peacefully passing into the after. Leonyx declares the Hero the savior of the island, and he now has access to the world of light; a special zone populated by metal king slimes.

Reception

The game sold 1.2 million copies by July 2010.^[7] It was the top-selling game for Square Enix for the April to September period of 2010,^[8] the highest-selling game in Japan for the month of May,^[9] and the sixth-highest selling game in Japan for all of 2010.^[10] The game received a 37 out of 40 from Famitsu, with one reviewer giving it a 10 and the other three awarding it a 9.^[11]

References

External links

• Official North American website
• Official website (Japanese)