also known as Dragon Quest Monsters 2 - Maruta no Fushigi na Kagi - Iru no Bouken
Game Boy Color
🇬🇧
Reviewed in 2002
78
✪ Reviewed on July 10, 2024
72
An ambitious sequel led by heroine Iru, hopping between islands linked by magical keys. The catch and fuse system goes deeper still, environments stay varied and the lifespan is monstrous. Delightful in portable doses.
Your verdict
Category
RPG1 player7+
Description
Young Iru explores magical islands connected by the Maruta keys and collects monsters in this Dragon Quest Monsters entry. Published by Enix, released in Japan in March 2001. Wild monster collection, fusion to create more powerful creatures, interconnected islands with varied environments. Japanese Iru edition.
Dragon Warrior Monsters 2 - Cobi's Journey review
4/5
Art direction
★★★★★
"Striking"
MAX
Music
★★★★★
"Legendary"
2/5
Story
★★★★★
"Classic"
The journey is organised around keys, each opening a world with its own dominant hue, ochre desert, blue ice field, green jungle, so the palette announces the climate before the first step. The boy protagonist is drawn in short proportions, and the whole bestiary inherits Toriyama's round line, adapted here to sprites a few dozen pixels tall.
Still fed by Koichi Sugiyama's themes, the sequel unfurls warm melodies across the islands linked by the Maruta keys. Rousing refrains and dynamic battle themes pace the gathering of creatures. This melodic generosity, joyful and polished, wonderfully extends the pleasure of the first game.
Gameplay
"Excellent"
Fun
"From the very first minutes"
Addictiveness
"Obsessive"
Raising your monsters, scouring generated worlds and fusing two beasts to reveal a stronger one endlessly extends the quest for the perfect team. Each exploration yields new companions and each crossbreeding holds its surprise, enough to relaunch an expedition the moment the last one ends. The dungeons look alike, but the breeding obsession keeps a stubborn hold.
Difficulty
"Balanced"
Lifespan
"Massive"
Exploring magical islands linked by the keys of Maruta draws you into a long hunt for monsters to tame and crossbreed. Synthesising rare creatures and building the ideal team demands patient investment over many hours. That wealth of collecting and combination, true to the series, offers a lifespan dear to Dragon Quest Monsters fans.
Dragon Warrior Monsters 2 - Cobi's Journey, an Enix RPG on Game Boy Color in which young Iru explores magical islands linked by keys, one of the two twin versions. A monster-collecting spin-off of the Dragon Quest saga, this title encourages trading with its counterpart to complete the bestiary. Its desirability lies in the franchise's aura, the pairing system and the demand of retro monster-RPG fans.
A questionable morality
Here you don't fight the monsters, you recruit them: you coax them mid-dungeon, breed them together for finer specimens and send them to brawl in your stead. Sold as tender domestication, the breeding really amounts to engineering a stable of creatures bred for combat, which raises a smile the moment you stop to think about it.
