Tara is a daughter of a family who've just opened up a monster ranch on the island of Great Log. Tara, along with her brother Cobi seem rather excited about the new capital venture until Prince Kameha and his associate-in-crime -Warubou go and accidentally destroy the Great Log's Navel Plug. Obvious, this Navel Plug is the very essence of Great Log, and now that it is destroyed, the island begins to slowly sink into the ocean. So now it is up to Tara to journey across uncharted territory in search for a new, replacement plug.

Dragon Warrior Monsters 2 is actually separated into two games. During the first half of the game, you will search across the land for the replacement to the Navel Plug. In typical RPG fashion, you'll travel to different lands, fight monsters, explore dungeons, and finally come across the main man with the plug replacement. During your journey you'll only be allowed to take three monsters at a time as well, so it's best to choose a well-balanced team that can not only dish out the pain, but also support each other in battle. The quest part of the game is actually very well done, considering the target group it's aiming at (the kids). The dungeon designs won't overwhelm you, but they aren't exactly pushovers as well, and surprisingly, the number of random encounters (the bane of any standard RPG) is really low.

Another noteworthy point that I found interesting was that for the most part, the enemies you'll encounter in battle are rather weak. Especially when you start chugging in more than 5 hours in the game. You're really in no immediate danger in most battles except when you're engaged with a boss character, but I suppose that's a good thing when you consider younger gamers are playing this game. However, the game does a really good job of implementing the fact that your monsters will be less likely to obey your orders if you don't treat them right. One thing that irked me about the Pokémon games were that once you had captured a Pokémon, they'd obey all of your orders no matter what. It's nice to see that Enix really one-upped Nintendo when it comes to the management of your party of monsters.

While the whole quest is just fine and dandy, it's merely a secondary function to what this game is really about: collecting and breeding monsters. This happens once you have finished the quest portion of the game, and it absolutely dwarfs it in size and complexity. The main goal in this portion of the game is to find the special magic keys that are scattered throughout the land that have the ability to unlock even more areas to explore, as well as new and challenging monsters to capture. This is definitely where the fun begins. Much like other monster breeding games, you can take two different types of monsters (one male, one female) and have them mate in order to create a new breed of monster… hopefully. There are over 300 types of monsters to catch in the game, and it'll definitely take some time to "catch 'em all!".

But that should be just swell with any gamer, because this game is definitely what dreams are made of. While it's not exactly the most challenging game, it's a boatload of fun, and it has that certain Enix charm that you really can't pinpoint, but you know exists. Additionally, you can even link up with a friend to battle your new creations, or even swap monsters or other items that you have. You can even breed your monsters during your link-up.

With some solid graphics, addictive gameplay with essentially two games in one, and a huge world to explore to boot, Dragon Warrior Monsters 2 is a great alternative to those who are getting bored of the Pokémon series. In fact, in some aspects DWM2 actually eclipses Nintendo's moneymaking machine in many areas of gameplay, and there can't be any higher praise than that. If you're hunting for a new, exciting Gameboy Color RPG, be sure to pick up a link cable and give this game a whirl!

· · · Reno