Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince Version 1.0.3 Out Now, Here Are The Full Patch Notes

Cool. Nice to see the patch notes for this update. Got to know at least.

Ironically late, being as I just beat the game in the wee hours of this morning. Just my luck.

@BodkinDQ How was it? I am awaiting a sale but am cautious based on glitchyness putting me off in demo.

It needed some polishing up so this is good. Gameplay is good.

This patch was a long time ago and I was looking for patch notes for a while before finding them somewhere online. Nice to find it here now as well, but way too late.

And why the hell is the diffiulty indicator missing now from the teleport screen in the rose hill tower (the small red demon heads)? I liked that to indicate where I can grind my monster levels the best way. Also this change is mentioned nowhere.

So no improvments to FPS, stuttering and general performance? sigh I guess I will continue to wait until this is addressed, or they decide to release it on Steam.

this game is an absolute gem even if it's clearly a 3DS game that costs 86 bucks

Huh. Online shop to buy certain upgrades, and refreshes every so often. Whack!

@Patendo It was honestly really good. Once you figure out how to manipulate the AI of the monsters, the game was hard for me to put down. I didn't experience any game crashes or any of the glitches that's been mentioned. Gameplay loop is pure joy with battling, catching monsters, synthesizing, etc. The story while admittedly rushed, is pretty good. Definitely like a what if situation for DQ IV.

@BodkinDQ
I love the gameplay as well, but I'm curious how you "manipulated" the AI? I set tactics, which work quite good. But my monsters seem to ignore my spell preferences. They always use the same ones and don't seem to prioritize. Some spells are never used by them no matter what tactics and spell preference I set.

@Drachma It's all about what "set tactics" you've specifically set up, as that will put emphasis on monster fighting style and "set instructions".

In set instructions moves to be used as priority are indicated by the up arrow. Moves to be used less are indicated by the down arrow. Moves that aren't to be used at all you can put an X over.

Now, back to set tactics. If you're fighting in No Mercy, monsters will always choose the moves that deal the most damage or can kill more enemies at once, unless otherwise noted in set instructions differently or enemy resistance weakness factor. Keep in mind this is a damage fighting style, so moves that inflict status ailment even with set priority in set instructions will almost never be used unless the move itself deals damage. Focus on healing, the trick is to have high priority on healing moves and whatever few attacking moves you want it to use. It will attack until HP hits a certain threshold for a teammate, then it'll heal. If you having healing set as priority in any other fighting style other than focus on healing, don't count on it coming in clutch. Weaken the enemy focuses AI moreso in status inflicting, so attacking and healing are going to be less focus. Setting tactics is the biggest step in making AI do what you want it to do. Then it's a matter of the moves that compliment that play style and setting instructions based on that. Powerful moves that miss frequently are great to turn off in set instructions. Moves that don't heal as much as others or heal randomly are great to either be lessened in priority or turned off in favor of bigger healing moves, preferably AoE healing moves.

It's a matter of knowing what each fighting style does and how to manipulate it's priority of moves that go in tandem with said style. Kinda hard to explain, but once I understood it I steamrolled the game.

Since your issue was certain spells being used, No Mercy is again based on damage inflicting and killing priority. They will tend to use spells that do extra effective damage over neutral damage or over an element the enemy is resistant to.

@BodkinDQ
Okay thanks for sharing your experience. I frequently use tactics as they seem to have the greatest impact and it's allright regarding debuffing enemies and healing. I have no problem with this, so most of your stated points are clear for me and regarding tactics also working quite well.

I guess I have to experiment more with tactics and spell combination. My main problem is, that for example toxic spells are used hardly at all whether I put to ruthless or debuffing enemies, but I'll see how it plays out in the end.

@Drachma For those to be used choose Focus on, "Weaken the enemy". That sets status ailments moves as priority. Then I'd make sure to have ailment moves(s) put to down arrow(use less) and put your attacking move(s) as up arrow, (use more) otherwise they'll just spam ailment moves and won't attack much.

Also, turn off all moves you don't want your monsters to use. It's kinda convoluted, but I hope this helps. Once you get it, man it's easy to snowball the game.

@BodkinDQ
Thanks! I guess you're right. Disabling unnecessary spells should help a lot. I find the difficulty alright in general. Normal monsters are a joke, but Bosses are quite tough sometimes.

Everyone who loves DQM series should buy this so we can convince them to finally bring West the Terry's Wonderland and Marvellous Mysterious Key remakes (DQM 1 & 2) that were only on 3DS for Japan but also enhanced and released for Japanese smartphones a few years later. There's no reason they couldn't bring the smartphone adaptation of them to Switch!!!