Dragon Quest 5 has tremendous replay value, for much the same reasons Destiny of an Emperor has great replay value: players may recruit different party members from the monsters that you have knocked down. Turns out the main protagonist has a rare "ability" to fight monsters "with love", and monsters of the right types can see that and after getting thrashed (mortally wounded?), they get so enthralled with you that they get fully healed and then they want to travel with him forever.
Naw, this doesn't particularly make sense, but what can't be denied is how this particular element makes the game fun. It combines a cast of very nice PCs with monsters that you recruit, and in the DS version you can bring any four characters into battle at once (the SNES version only allowed three). In addition, you can travel with up to 8 humans and monsters combined, who earn experience equally. Allowing four characters makes for more party combinations, and thus makes the monster recruiting feature just that much more fun. What's more, the DS version of Dragon Quest 5 allows the player to recruit many more monsters than the SNES version!
Unfortunately, some of those monsters are not recruitable at a time in the game where the player would be inclined to use them. For instance, the Ghost, the Fat Rat, and the Wax Murderer are all fought early in Chapter 1, and are not exceptionally powerful when you recruit them... but you couldn't recruit them in Chapter 2; far too late in the game, in Chapter 3, you might get a chance to recruit them!
This "Monster Trainer mod" was created to emphasize the monster recruitment feature of Dragon Quest 5. It is understood that players will likely want to travel with the Monster Trainer, Wife, Hero, and Daughter late in the game, but even still players should be given the option of recruiting monsters that provide alternate strategies if the player desires.
For those that enjoy the monster training aspects of Dragon Quest 5, this mod offers greater potential for putting together your winning party. Secondarily, it makes monsters easier to recruit, reducing the frustration in grinding to recruit your favorite potential team members. It also aims to give different monsters equipment which is better suited to their abilities and personalities. There are some changes to the stats of some human characters, as well as some monsters, but this is one of ludmeister's more subtle gameplay mods, as Dragon Quest 5 was excellently paced and balanced already. Chapter 1 will not play much differently, but Chapters 2 and 3 should be much more fun and engaging.
A full changelog and more screenshots can be found at .
Dragon Quest 5: Hand of the Heavenly Bride for Nintendo DS
Ludmeister's Monster Trainer Mod v1.0
Released February 29th, 2012
http://jeffludwig.com/
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This patch kit will convert a stock version of Dragon Quest 5: Hand of the
Heavenly Bride to Dragon Quest 5 Ludmeister's Monster Trainer Mod v1.0.
Here's exactly what this will accomplish:
Dragon Quest 5 is fun for many of the same reasons that Destiny of an Emperor
was so engaging: you can recruit many different characters at will, and put
together your preferred attack force. As the vanilla game stands however, the
player's possiblities were hamstrung by the lateness of when certain recruitable
monsters were encountered. In particular, the Ghost, Wax Murderer, Fat Rat were
not encountered in Chapter 2, even though they were in Chapter 1!
For those that enjoy the monster training aspecs of Dragon Quest 5, this mod
offers greater potential for putting together your winning party. Secondarily,
it makes monsters easier to recruit, reducing the frustration in grinding to
recruit your favorite potential team members. It also aims to give different
monsters equipment which is better suited to their abilities and personalities.
Version 1.0 Changelog
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* Numerous recruitable monsters are able to be recruited much earlier in the
game, opening up many different party combinations. None of the recruitable
monsters (with the exception of Rebj?rn) require you to have beaten the game.
* In chapter 3, there is a "Monster Island" where very nasty monsters can be
encountered. This is a good place to level up, and a great place to recruit
new monsters!
* The odds of recruiting monsters are much better now. Less grinding is required
to recruit your party. In recruiting your first of any particular monster, the
chances to recruit it will be no greater than 1 in 16 (some were as rare as
1 in 256!)
* Changed the item drop rate for many monsters. In particular, Mini Medals will
be much easier to win in battles with Mimics/Canniboxes.
* Equipment used by most monster classes, as well as Bianca and a few other
characters is changed.
* Many characters and monsters have different level up progressions for stats.
Some are subtly tweaked, others more radically.
* The Pip and Conk monsters are much more able to use their learned spells and
abilities as they level up.
* Liquid Metal Slimes and Metal Slimes do not run quite as often, and their
Defense is reduced enough that extremely powerful characters stand a chance
of knocking them down with normal blows.
* Some of the weapons and armor have been edited, but nothing too major.
* Monsters drop gold at an accelerated rate, due to the greater financial
obligations you will have to outfit your new monster companions!
To convert your stock Dragon Quest 5: Hand of the Heavenly Bride ROM:
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The following applies this and all future releases of the Ludmeister's Monster
Trainer Mod.
0. First of all, you will need to obtain a clean DS ROM of Dragon Quest 5: Hand
of the Heavenly Bride. You will need the US version, ROM #3424. You are on
your own for this step, as it is illegal to provide ROMs of copyrighted
material. There are sites that do provide this ROM though, and you should be
able to obtain it.
1. When you get it, make a backup of it if you would want to play the stock version,
play another mod, or, in case I post an updated version of the mod here... I am not
going to make version 1.0 to "version whatever" patches for my mods, for instance.
2. Download Ludmeister's Monster Trainer Mod.
3. Download Nintenlord's "NUPS" UPS patcher or other similar UPS utility. You
will need it to apply the .ups patch found in the download. Download NUPS
at http://www.romhacking.net/utilities/606/
4. Apply the .ups patch to your Dragon Quest 5 US ROM using the UPS patching program
of your choice.
5. I hope you enjoy it!
3424 - Dragon Quest V - Hand of the Heavenly Bride (US)(M3)(XenoPhobia).nds
CRC32: 24FDAE7E
MD5: 748EF5FE4F178F28090D9788CC95630A
SHA-1: 14260A76ACDAB71B30BC34D04294088DBDB4A3B3
