Play Dragon Quest Monsters - Joker 2 Online

Game Overview

Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker 2 is basically Pokémon but with that classic Dragon Quest charm—chunky, colorful monsters and turn-based battles that feel satisfyingly old-school. You start as this kid who sneaks onto an airship to compete in a monster tournament, but of course, things go sideways when you crash-land on a mysterious island. Now you're stuck recruiting weird little creatures to fight your way out.

The monster-scouting mechanic is addictive—you weaken them in battle, then roll the dice to see if they'll join your team. I spent way too long trying to catch this one smug-looking slime that kept refusing. Once you've got a crew, you can fuse monsters together to make stronger ones, which is where things get really interesting. My first fusion gave me this ridiculous bird-lizard thing that carried me through half the game.

There's online battles too, if you're into that, though good luck finding matches these days. The local tag mode was fun back when people actually carried their DS around—you could swap monsters with random players or even folks with Dragon Quest IX. It's a solid RPG with that classic "just one more battle" hook.