Infopost: Dragon Quest Monsters
This is a mirror of a Reddit post I made
Hi, I'm Lucky and I really enjoy retro games and I like playing each series of a game in order of release. Recently I decided to add the entirety of Dragon Quest Monsters to my backlog and I wanted to share what I learned as I decided what games and platforms I would play on my journey through the series.
Please offer clarifications, corrections and comments as I have limited knowledge of the series.
First thing to know there are 14 games listed as released but only 7 of them are their own game. The other half is remakes or cell phone exclusive games that aren't playable in an official capacity. Of the 7 games 2 of them require a fan translation as they were never officially released in the USA.
Here's a chart of the games in order of release with some notes for why I chose some titles over the others:
| Skip or Play? | Title | Platform | Year Released | Notes |
| Play | Dragon Warrior Monsters | Gameboy Color | 1998 | Original version is the best version. There are MANY remakes but none that surpass this version. |
| Play | Dragon Warrior Monsters 2 | Gameboy Color | 2001 | Original is the best yet again for the same reasons as the first. |
| Skip | Dragon Quest Monsters 1+2 | Playstation 1 | 2002 | Might take "best version" if a fan translation ever drops but this is Japanese only. If you can read Japanese this might be good for you! |
| Play* | Dragon Quest Monsters: Caravan Heart | Gameboy Advance | 2003 | *requires fan translation |
| Play | Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker | Nintendo DS | 2006 | |
| Play | Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker 2 | Nintendo DS | 2010 | |
| Skip | Dragon Quest: Monsters Wanted! | Cell phone | 2010 | Game is discontinued but I tend to steer clear of cell games. |
| Skip | Dragon Quest Monsters: Terry's Wonderland 3D | Nintendo 3DS | 2012 | This is a remake of DQM1 was only released in Japan with "Joker" mechanics. Seems good but undermines the progression of the series. "No" because it's either or for this list but both is an option as long as you have a way to get the fan translation (hshop!) |
| Skip | Dragon Quest Monsters: Iru and Luca's Marvelous Mysterious Key | Nintendo 3DS | 2013 | Same as above but for DQM2. |
| Skip | Dragon Quest Monsters: Super Light | Cell phone | 2014 | same as "Monsters Wanted!" for phone games |
| Play* | Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker 3 | Nintendo 3DS | 2016 | *requires fan translation (hshop!) |
| Skip | Dragon Quest Monsters: Terry's Wonderland SP | Cell Phone | 2018 | Enhanced version of Terry's Wonderland 3D but is another phone (DQM1 again!) |
| Skip | Dragon Quest Monsters: Terry's Wonderland Retro | Nintendo Switch | 2019 | A direct port of the original DQM1 on Gameboy Color. Has a few enhancements that make it a bit better than the original but Japan only. Without a fan translation patch it's out of my range. |
| Play | Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince | Nintendo Switch | 2023 | Buy this game so they don't skip localizing these for another 13 years!?? |
Obviously this is my personal list so there are a few choices you'll have to make on your own journey through the series. There are a few discussions that are easy to find for which is the ideal order and all that but like I said I like to play in order of release. Playing the original GBC games for me is important to feel and appreciate how the games evolve as time goes.
Update 8/17/2024: There have been a number of small changes made to the Reddit post that I have not updated here as of this update.