INCREASE YOUR CAPTURE ODDS! | Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince Scouting Explained! (2024)

Gonna be honest, the fact you are actually HAMPERED on catching monsters before you `build a rep` in a realm, kind of rubbed me the wrong way, once i learned about this after playing the demo about a month or so ago and always wondered why it was so insanely difficult to `recruit` monsters in the 2nd region compared to the first in the demo.
It would of honestly been better if it had a slew of sidequests (Unless they decided to leave that out till VERY later into the game and ONLY in the full game and not the demo) you use to build up a Rep meter and it unlock various QoLs for those maps, such as increased move speed, monsters are less inclined to charge at you, increasing the success rate thru THAT WAY. Instead of it being some invisible switch you trip after winning in tournaments instead. Very least it would feel more solid to spreading your `infamy` via deeds done for the public then a tournament that apparently everyone in that specific realm are aware of, including the `wild` beasties.
Very least that would create an incentive to chase down sidequests, BEFORE the major milestone tournaments(Like how most monster catchign games i recall normally FUNCTION), plus maybe throw in extra bonuses like unlock special areas where only special monsters exclusive to that zone would appear in or shops with very useful items like maybe a `Honey glazed set of meats` that would be especially effective in the `human realm` of monster recruits and you could unlock buying poisoned meats which would be effective in the 1st monster realm, which its first zone is based around a poisonous swamp.
Cause when i think of an RPG i normally think of actually having more then just a `linear path` of things todo and actually getting rewarded with ACTUALLY useful goods for going off the beaten path, then simply getting more of the same stuff i could buy in the shop. Even the first region`s only major boon i could think of is a high level Gigantes enemy that would wipe the floor with you, but if you likely could get strong enough, then you could `maybe` get the opp to recruit it or use it as a good source of leveling early in the game. Though if we had a `actual` use for consume`ables then them feeling so non-necessary, besides maybe restoring MP to let one of our units cover healing then having to split buy stock between herbs & MP restoring items instead, Which any game that has a limited inventory just is a major finger flip when they trivalize the need for most consume`ables in the first place, so why stock up on status healing items if the stuff heals after a battle and the same if you could just hoarde a bunch of MP recovery items and have 5 to 10 uses of `healing` per consume`able your `healer slime` could perform then needing to use 3 or more `herbs` to fully heal up your party instead to take up limited inventory space, as earlier dragon quest games tended to go with.
P.S. Just to add more to it:
The fact you have to pay attention to things like how high the stats of your mons are to up the odds of catching on top of that, just incentivizes power leveling your monsters, THEN go catching the monsters means you have to spend a ridiculous amount more time, only to then BREED your monsters back to lower stats, chase them back up to high level again to have those `good odds again`, While things like Frenzy, reducing stats, lowering thar hp without killing them by `accident`, feels more of a hassle to catching.
Which by then you be better off just spamming auto battle to ZERG everything till they randomly decide to join you like how it went for the original dragon quest monster games, literally just taking the Gameboy Approach instead, then wasting money on meats, spend time playing a 12~25% or something odds of recruiting a monster, only for it to fail twice and lose the chance permanently and gotta enter an entirely new battle todo it again.
Hell, i remember a few other certain games, such as Moonstone Island i believe being a recent one who use a similar catching system with `foods` and kept things simple by just filling up the dang heart todo the job instead, then having to have half a dozen extra confusing mechanics on top of it. Which is why i keep saying Dark prince should NOT of been a 60 dollar game, because its needlessly convoluted and not even bother to have any polished mechanics to have a more effective means to recruitment then simply punching stuff till they become a masoch*st for you.