Dragon Quest Monsters: Caravan Heart
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Dragon Quest Monsters: Caravan Heart is a role-playing game in the Dragon Quest series, in the Dragon Quest Monsters sub-series, developed for Game Boy Advance. It is the third installment in the Monsters sub-series.
The game was never released outside of Japan, though a fan-translation patch has been made.
Story
The game puts you in the shoes of a young Kiefer from Dragon Quest VII in the same way the first Monsters game had its main character as a young Terry from Dragon Quest VI.
Up to his usual mischief, Kiefer upsets his father, the King of Gran Estard, more than ever before and flees to his room in hopes of escaping his punishment. Hiding inside his dresser, Kiefer hears a voice call out to him and wanders out to an odd silence and the presence of a Travelers' Gate in his room. Once stepping in, Kiefer finds himself in the world of Dragon Quest II and must no sooner assume the role of a caravan leader in order to help a boy named Luin find a cure for his sick parents.
Features
Wagons
A staple of the Zenithian Trilogy, the wagon, makes a return in Caravan Heart as a central part of forming a team. The player will start out with one wagon in their caravan and can obtain two more as the game progresses, each wagon having to be assigned a guard monster and up to four humans depending on the individual weight of monster and person alike and the weight capacity of the wagon in question. The monster will be able to act each turn while the caravan members in the wagon will act according to the order they were placed in, with the fifth turn of a fight (and any preceding turns that caravan members couldn't act) being used by the wagon to get organized before the caravan members will repeat their actions where repetition is applicable. If a guard monster for a particular wagon gets KOed, or if the wagon has no guard monster, the caravan members will be unable to act in battle.
Food
Battles
Unlike the other games in the Monsters sub-series, Caravan Heart uses a battle system akin to that of the traditional games where enemies can appear in individual groups well-exceeding the normal 3-on-3 battles, though the player is still restricted to as many as three acting monsters on their side. With this system in place many moves have been given their traditional traits such as Firebal (Sizz) being able to hit groups and Icebolt (Crack) being able to only hit one monster but significantly more as it advances. Additionally, monsters can only have six moves each as opposed to the previous 8, likely due to balance out with acting caravan members that have techniques that mimic many attacks. With the odds in numbers often being against the player and strategizing more strict, Caravan Heart can prove to be a more challenging game when compared to others in the sub-series.
Monster Hearts
Instead of holding a large stock of available monsters the player will only have a few monsters to choose from throughout the entire course of the game and will be able to collect monster hearts instead of the monsters themselves. These hearts are central to the game's spin on the old breeding system and are thus one of the most important aspects of the game.
Reform / Tenshin System
Caravan Heart replaces the breeding system from the previous games with the reform system (tenshin system when taken directly from the Japanese version). Instead of two monsters being used to create a new one, a single monster has two monster hearts applied to it which are then used to reform it. While using three ingredients may be more complicated than using two, the system itself has more benefits as the reformed monster will not forget any of the moves it learned, retaining them even in their advanced states, and the stat loss isn't nearly as severe as it could be with breeding.
Caravan Members
Random Encounters
As the player travels the world of Dragon Quest II they will not only run into monster fights but an assortment of events as well. The player can be given the opportunity to obtain items, refill their rations, and even earn monster hearts by helping out vulnerable monsters (assuming they have a caravan member capable of helping the monster), though bad events can also occur, such as being ambushed by monsters out for food or thieves out for gold.
Saving
Yet another tradition brought back is the necessity to save at churches instead of the ability to save anywhere in the previous two Monsters games (provided one was in a safe spot or had a bookmark).
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