Introduction

So, Enix (now part of gaming giant Square Enix) had a little series called Dragon Quest (or Dragon Warrior, depending on which part of the world you're from). These games were quite highly regarded in Japan, but not as much so other places. In the late 90's, there were a series of Pokemon-like spinoffs called Dragon Quest Monsters which combined the familiar monsters of the main series with monster capturing action.

One of the later games was released for the Game Boy Advance, but was never released outside of Japan. We'll be playing that one.

So Let's Play Dragon Quest Monsters: Caravan Hearts!

Oregon Trail? Really?

Kind of. The main character, Kiefer, doesn't do any actual fighting. He basically directs others from a wagon, around which the bulk of the game is centered. No dysentery, no fording, but we can still run out of rations and die of starvation!

Kiefer? That sounds fairly familiar...

Kiefer was also in another Dragon Quest game - Dragon Warrior 7. You might recognize him from there. There are a few more cameos scattered throughout, since this is a Dragon Quest game.

What will you be showing off?
As much of the game as I can! Tidbits of monster lore, the core plot, the few sidequests, even some post-plot content. If we can figure out how it works. To be frank, I never completed the post-plot stuff in my previous run-throughs. But we'll give it the ol' college try!


So, we'll be capturing monsters and whatnot just like Pokemon, eh? Sweet! Name one 'Dongs'!

Sadly, the monster mechanic isn't capturing them in this game, unlike the rest of the series. It's actually the much more metal ripping out their heart and soul, then giving them to your own monsters for power , which we won't be able to do for a bit. And it'll also be some time before we can start renaming things (dammit), but when we can, we will.

So what can we vote on?

Eventually, we'll be able to start votes on party makeup - what kind of monsters and auxilliary personnel (you'll see more details on both as the LP goes on) we want to bring along.

Table of Contents

• Chapter 00: Old Characters in a New Game
• Chapter 01: The World Around Us
• Chapter 02: The Mystery of the Northeast Cave
• Chapter 03: A new town, and the first real quest!
• Chapter 04: The Legendary Recipe!
• Chapter 05: The First Orb!
• Chapter 06: Not Actually The Second Orb
• Chapter 07: Going where we're told not to, and learning why we weren't supposed to go there.
• Chapter 08: Dungeoneering and boss-fighting!
• Chapter 09: Entirely New Map Areas! No Repeats Here!
• Chapter 10: Going the wrong way for neither fun nor profit.
• Chapter 11: The Less Than Grand Renaming with a second tower experience!
• Chapter 12: Another goddamn tower. And full of words, no less.
• Chapter 13: Two towers, then actual travel.
• Chapter 14: Raising Money
• Chapter 15: Approaching the end!
• Chapter 16: The Road to Rhone, but not really.
• Chapter 17: Exploring the new final area!
• Chapter 18: The Final Showdown with the Master of the Illusions!
• Chapter 19: Dragon Quest Monsters: Caravan Hearts: The Same Generation, But Later
• Chapter 20: The Rescue of the Illusions!
• Chapter 21: Really. Everything. It's all done, now.