Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince – One reason I was anxious to play Chapter 6 of Dragon Quest IV is that this game kind of follows up on it, with the same writer being involved. Here, you play as Psaro, the main villain from DQ4, who is revealed to be the son of Randolpho the Tyrant, ruler of the monsters of Nadiria, and a human woman named Miriam. Since part of the plot of both games is that he wants to destroy humanity, it’s an example of the trope of a bad guy hating those who represent what he hates about himself, even though his mother is the parent who actually loves him.

His initial goal is to kill his father, but he fails miserably, and is cursed so that he cannot directly hurt any monsters. He grows up in Rosehill, a town known as a haven for non-humans, mostly dwarves, but also elves and monsters. I thought the consensus was that Psaro WAS an elf, like his paramour Rose, but I haven’t seen any mention of that in this game so far, despite his ears. But maybe Randolpho is part elf himself. Anyway, Psaro becomes a monster wrangler, and recruits monsters to fight other monsters, both enemies and competitors in tournaments. I’ve played the first DQM game, and it’s pretty similar, but has more of a plot.

Psaro, accompanied by Rose and a magic collector named Toilen Trubble, visit the various levels of Nadiria, each one of which has a goal you have to achieve to advance the plot and visit other areas, usually beating a boss.

The levels are associated with various vices, along the lines of Dante’s version of Hell. Each has its own environment, and seasons will change as you proceed.

How many roads must a monster walk down?
The Circle of Indulgence is based on gluttony, and everything there is made of junk food.

It’s interesting that Zenithia and Nadiria are based on Heaven and Hell, respectively, but neither seems to contain any dead people. It’s established that this world has an afterlife, but details are scarce.

There are many connections to 4, including origin stories for some pretty minor characters, like Psaro’s Pawn and the Winky from Ragnar’s chapter, here named Duffer and Eileen.

Rosehill still has the building with four different shop counters, all staffed by Monty, Psaro’s trainer.

The Zenith Dragon is there to try to convince Psaro to live as a human and help the Chosen Ones, Sparkie is his messenger, and Aamon has already started manipulating the future Master of Monsterkind.

After getting through the lower levels of Nadiria, Psaro takes over Diabolic Hall from a guy named Zangiel, who wants him as his successor in trying to overthrow Randolpho. So far, it’s been presented as a prequel to DQ4, and the flashback in Chapter 6 to Psaro and Rose’s first meeting is incorporated and expanded upon. I’ve read that it later intersects with the game’s story, and presumably contradicts it in some ways. I’ll have to see what happens with that. A lot of the music is the same as in DQ4, and monster tournaments are held in the city of Endor.

As far as monster wrangling goes, I’m not sure I’m doing it the best way. For the most part, I try to recruit monsters that I find interesting. You can keep a whole bunch of them in a paddock, but only eight can journey with you at a time, a main party of four and four others in reserve. They’ll all gain experience, but the ones in the paddock won’t. Monsters can learn new skills by applying talent points, like in several of the later main series games, but it’s kind of frustrating that you don’t get them with every level increase. Any two monsters at Level 10 or above can be synthesized into a new one, which can inherit some, but not necessarily all, of their parent’s skills. So all monsters can reproduce, it’s always asexual, and the parents never survive? I guess Randolpho having children, including one with a human, means synthesis isn’t their only means of reproduction. It’s probably some sort of magic. The game will let you know if a particular pairing will result in a rare monster. It’s pretty fun to experiment with it, although I haven’t done much in the way of careful planning. Most of the battles so far haven’t been that difficult, but the one against General Chayne at Diabolic Hall was brutal. Most of his attacks will hit your entire team, and he hits hard. I finally managed to beat him on my third try, with only one monster alive at the end.