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Dragon Quest IV
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Dragon Quest VI
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Dragon Quest IX

Mystery Dungeon Series
Torneko 1
Torneko 2
Torneko 3
Shonen Yangus

Slime MoriMori Series
Slime MoriMori
Rocket Slime

Monsters Series
Monsters 1
Monsters 2
Caravan Heart
Joker

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Dragon Quest Monsters

During the late 1990s, monster breeding games started to become increasingly popular. Nintendo was leading the way with its Pokemon series, and before long we had the likes of Monster Rancher, Jade Cocoon, and a slew of others. Eventually, Enix even threw their hat into the arena when they introduced the Monsters series.

The first game in the series was made for the Gameboy Color, and starred Mireyu and Terry from Dragon Quest VI, but was set in the past when they were children. In the opening, Mireyu is kidnapped by a monster, so Terry sets out to save her. In order to accomplish this, he must win the Monster Trainer's Starry Night Tournament. Doing so will grant him one wish from the King of GreatTree, in this case getting his sister back.

Above: There was quite a big difference between Monsters' box art in Japan and the US.

Terry coaxes monsters to join him by placing meat in battle. After combat is over sometimes this will entice one of the monsters to come join him. Players can collect a number of different beasts, and store them at a farm. Here 19 can be awake, and another 19 asleep at any time. While asleep they cannot gain levels however, and are mostly just in storage. Another neat feature was the ability to cross breed pets. Having one male and one female breed together could yield some interesting results when their offspring came along. It was even possible to get bosses to join Terry from time to time, sometimes with meat, and sometimes by proving his worth. Some bosses, though, wouldn't join no matter what. In the end, there were over 100 monsters to befriend.

Dragon Quest Monsters did quite well for itself in Japan, selling well over two million copies, but it didn't fair so well in North America, where it didn't even crack one hundred thousand units. The game sold so well in Japan that it was eventually remade for the PlayStation.