Hands down, two of the most popular franchises in the history of gaming are Pokemon and Dragon Warrior. Until now, they were content to stand alone as powerhouses with their respective audiences. Pokemon of course appeals to the younger gamer (or college students like myself who can't seem to break from their inner-child) while Dragon Warrior is nothing less than Mecca to RPG fans of all ages. Well, the boys over at Enix decided to do something incredible: COMBINE the franchises into a Super-Poke-RPG experience. The love child of this endeavor resulted in two games, this review covering Dragon Warrior Monsters 2: Tara's Adventure.

Control:  
I'm beginning to realize that this is going to be a relatively short review (well, other than the gameplay section, anyway). Just as with the graphics, the control aspect is nearly identical to every other RPG you've ever played, especially the Dragon Warrior franchise. The D-Pad moves your character, the A-Button opens up the menu screen and selects choices, and the B-Button cancels commands.

Gameplay:  
At first glance, DWM2: Tara's Adventure appears to be literally a simple mix of Dragon Warrior and Pokemon elements. While traveling through other worlds on quests (Dragon Warrior) you fight with captured monsters instead of handheld weaponry (Pokemon). Had the experience been left at that level of depth, the game would be boring. Luckily, Enix realized gamers wouldn't accept a simple clone. Massive complexity is built into this title, but you've got to work for it.

The major plot of the game revolves around Tara's assorted quests as she travels through different worlds from the GreatLog portal. Normally, I'd discuss the plot itself and the aspects of those adventures, but anyone with Dragon Warrior experience already knows what to expect. Besides, what's more important is how the addition of monsters affect the gameplay.

The stats of monsters in your party are readily available by using the info command. The usual characteristics such as attack and defense strength are recorded, as well as agility, intelligence, wildness, hit points, and magic points. Wildness plays a crucial role because the higher the number, the less likely your monster will obey you in battle (similar to not having enough badges in Pokemon). In addition, you can check up on your monster's personality, species, family, and lineage. The personality can affect battle behavior, while the lineage assists with breeding technique by showing the monster's parents. Several other minor functions are also present, but due to time constraints, we'll have to skip them.

Battling other monsters is simplistic at first glance. Your monster can fight, use an item, or flee. These are all pretty obvious, but "fighting" can become more interesting with the use of the "plan" function. Each monster can be assigned one of seven different battle plans that dictate how it attacks enemies. Monsters can be set to simply attack with direct assaults, take a defensive posture, attack certain targets, attack only those targets with certain skills, always heal your party instead of attack, etc. Using "plan" and taking into account the personalities of your monsters allows you to customize your team to be most effective.

Capturing more monsters is relatively easy. Randomly, the last monster defeated in a party will ask to join your team as a show of respect for your abilities. Obviously, more powerful monsters do this less often. To increase your odds of befriending monsters, your party can offer meat -- lots of meat -- to monsters you hope to become friendly with. Again, just make sure to defeat that monster last.

Although there was so little to explain in the graphics and control sections, the gameplay discussion could go on seemingly forever. Instead of continuing with detailed discussion, I'll just finish off with some major points you'll want to take note of:

• Monster breeding is highly important and can result in both customized and extremely powerful monsters. Breeding several generations of the same line of monsters will make them successively more powerful.
  
• Only three monsters can be taken on quests at a time. The rest stay at the family farm, where they'll slowly gain experience but at the same time become progressively wilder.
  
• Look out for Dragon Warrior references all over the place. Tiny Medals, anyone?
  

Sound:
With how similar the control and graphics are to previous Dragon Warrior titles, it should not be surprising that the sound follows this same pattern. As usual, the music fits the mood of whatever areas you're currently traveling through. Treacherous regions are filled with eerily haunting tones, while bustling cities contain bright and happy music. To Enix's further credit, the quality of the sound itself is quite good, even better than several Game Boy Advance titles I've had the misfortune of playing recently.

Multiplayer:
As I'm sure you expected, DWM2: Tara's Adventure fully supports multiplayer action using the Link Cable. You and your friend and partake in five activities: breeding (the monsters, not you and your friend unless that's your thing), key trade, VS mode, dream egg, and team mode.

Breeding works the same way as in the single-player mode, except since you and your friend each own one of the mosters, you each get a resulting egg from the breeding. That way, neither person has to give up a monster in the process. The battle modes (VS and Team) are obvious. Key trades simply involve trading appraised keys with friends. Dream eggs, however, are special. They contain extremely rare monsters, but will never hatch if just kept on the farm. They must be traded multiple times with many different people to have a chance at hatching.

OVERALL:
Ironically, when I first began playing Dragon Warrior Monsters 2: Tara's Adventure, I was dissapointed. The problem was that at the time I had spent very little time exploring the title. Therefore, I was only able to see the little Dragon Warrior and Pokemon references on the surface and had not yet experienced the hidden complexity that dwelved below. Now, I'm not saying that this title is a general blockbuster -- you do need to be a solid RPG fan to get any enjoyment. Even so, the game is good as far as RPGs are concerned, and so many new elements are introduced into the gameplay that a good score is definitely deserved.

 

The Lowdown on  Dragon Warrior Monsters 2: Tara's Adventure Aesthetics: Average Control: Average Gameplay: Above Average Multiplayer: Very Good Sound: Very Good Innovation: 5/6 Lasting Appeal: 4/6 Rating Explanation Overall: Above Average! "A Quality Game"