When I was in college and first starting to write game reviews for The Dallas Morning News, I went to my first E3 in 1997.  At this show, Nintendo was gearing up to bring Pokémon to the West, and I saw how they were going to market it and I knew it would be a big hit.  I immediately called my editor and requested that I cover everything Pokémon related.  He was like, “Yeah sure, whatever.”  But he at least stayed true to his word and for a few years I was the resident Pokémon expert at the newspaper and writing articles and covering events left and right.  I like to say that Pokémon helped pay my way through college.  But it wasn’t just Pokémon I was covering.  Any of the imitators that came out I was game for, too, which included Digimon, Monster Rancher, Dragon Warrior Monsters, etc.  And that’s what Doki Monsters: Quest reminds me of, one of those imitators.  It plays so much like a classic Game Boy Color Pokémon game that I’m surprised Nintendo didn’t sue.  You know how they’ve been lately.  Anyway, this game is available on Switch and PC, but reviewed on Switch here.

The only main big difference between “Dokimon” and Pokémon is the story, which is a little darker here.  You’re not trying to be the best monster trainer in the world.  A comet crashed and destroyed more than half the population, and also brought all sorts of new monsters to the world.  Your job is to look for your missing friend, but you’ll do so in the same way you do in Pokémon.  Instead of Poke Balls, you capture nearly 150 monsters with cards.  You still travel a similar styled overworld and battle other monsters and trainers in one on one turn based battles with elemental weaknesses.  Instead of Gym Leaders, you’ll battle Guardians to progress.  And you’ll thwart an evil organization similar to Team Rocket called the “X’ers.”

If you’ve ever played a Pokémon game before, you’ll be able to jump right into this one.  If I had any problems with this game, it’s that as a Game Boy Color imitator, it’s a bit clunkier than more modern games, and slightly less polished than those old titles, too.  But only just a little bit. The difficulty curve is slightly higher, too.  So if you are itching to play a classic styled Pokémon game but don’t want to shell out big bucks for one, you might want to check this out.

Kid Factor:

Doki Monsters: Quest is rated E for Everyone with an ESRB descriptor of Mild Fantasy Violence.  You battle monsters with animated attacks and they just fall down when defeated.  Reading skill is a must, and if your kid is familiar with Pokémon, they’ll be just fine here.

Tags: Game Reviews