Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker 3 notes #6

Notes continued:

Main Menu:
Generally, when you press the X button, the main menu will open up. Some of the icons here activate as you go through the tutorials, but they'll all be activated by the end of chapter 1 or 2. They are, more-or-less in the order of left to right, top-down:

Item Inventory:
This icon looks like a bag. It will have pretty much everything you find in the field, separated by type. Types are HP recovery, MP recovery, status recovery (antidotes, anti-confusion potions, etc.), and resurrections. Buffs and Debuffs. Stat boosts (+2-3 points to Atk, Def, Spd, Mnd, HP or MP, etc.) Skill books. Accessory items. Scouting meats.

HP and MP recovery can be used freely outside of battles, or one at a time per round during a battle. Stat ailments disappear after the battle ends, so status recovery can only be performed once per round during battles. Buffs and Debuffs can affect one monster or the entire party, for a fixed number of battle rounds. "Permanent" stat Boosts only affect one monster, and are not inherited by any offspring you breed from that monster.

Accessory items are used for making accessories at the Accessory shop in Central. They can be found items from the field, or monster drops.

Scouting meats can be found items, or purchased from the meat shop in Central. To use them during a battle, when you are setting up your actions for the round, select the desired meat, then press the Scout icon from the battle menu. Follow this by selecting the monster you want to scout. The scout meter will advance a little, depending on the type of meat used. You can use scouting meats in several successive rounds, until the monsters become full and stop eating.

Skill Books can be obtained several different ways. Every monster has at least one skill when you scout it, or breed it. If you fill that skill up with skill points, then breed that monster, if you choose to not attach that skill to the offspring monster, you will receive a skill book for that skill at the end of the breeding process. This book goes automatically into inventory. Or, you can buy certain skill books from the skills shop in Central. If you find "skill title part 1" or "part 2" in a stealth box in the field, bring it back to Central and give it to the Skills shop. The shopkeeper will turn it into a skill book you can buy for inventory. From the inventory menu, select the skill book you want to teach one of the monsters in your primary or secondary parties, then select the monster to learn it. If the monster already has a full complement of skills (three for a normal monster, four for a mega monster, and five for a giga monster), you will be asked to pick a skill to unlearn. Unlearning a skill means you lose that skill book and all the skill points assigned to it. It's better to breed the monster first, don't assign a skill to a given slot, receive unused skills as skill books, then assign the desired skill book from inventory to the open slot for that monster.

Note, two of the items are Ko Genki-dama and Genki-dama. These items will double the exp. and gold you receive at the end of a battle. You can use them anytime prior to a battle and they will remain dormant until you engage an enemy monster. Ko (small) only works for one battle, while Genki-dama remains in effect for 10 battles. You can find Genki-dama in chests on the field, or receive them by defeating the scout master in the Time and Space Eyes. You get Ko Genki-damas as consolation prizes from the disk system when doing quests with the disks you create. Ko Genki-dama and Genki-dama work best in the Metal and Golden areas in the disk system for leveling up fast.

Save:
Open Book icon. You can only save your current game to one slot. You can only load your saved game from the start menu when you turn on the 3DS.

Battle Strategies:
Slime with arrows icon. This icon lets you assign battle strategies to your party monsters, including "Battle Full Out," "Heal If You Can," "Conserve MP," etc. Strategies can also be assigned from the Battle Menu, but they only apply until you breed the monster. The default is "Battle Full Out."

Party Selection:
You can freely move your monsters between the primary and secondary parties from the main menu. Otherwise, select Party Selection. The first menu option is Move Monsters Around. Use this to move monsters from inventory to one of the two parties. The second menu option discards the selected monster, and the third allows you to assign skill points for any monster in inventory to whatever skills they have.

Assign Skill Points:
Sideways Trident icon. Allows you to assign skill points for any monster in your secondary or primary parties to whatever skills they have.

Accessories:
Ring icon. Allows you to assign accessories in your inventory to one of the monsters in your primary or secondary parties. If the accessory is already assigned, you will be asked if you want to reassign it.

Library:
Books icon. Lets you look at the stats for any skills, monsters or items you have found or bred.

Remote:
Antenna icon. Lets you battle your friends, or access the Nintendo website through a wireless connection.

Hint:
Hint icon. This is a list of instructions you've received throughout the game. You can review the hints if you forget how to do something, like scout monsters or use the Ruler.

Magic:
Staff icon. Lets you use healing magic outside of battle, for any monster in the primary or secondary parties that has healing skills assigned.

Ruler:
White feather icon. Initially, Ruler just lets you teleport to any ruler marker you've activated on the field maps. Later, you start getting other functions for it as well.
Mantan: Restore your monsters' HP to Max. Has a fixed number of uses at any one time.
Ranaru-ta: Change day for night. Obtained from Point Zero.
Ranarion: Change weather. Obtained from Point Zero.
Image Change: Let's you recustomize your character's design. Obtained from Point Zero.

Ride Monster:
Red figure riding a slime. Every time you succeed at going up in scouting rank by completing the monolith fights, you get the ability to ride new types of monsters (ground, swimming, flight and World Map). You need to assign the monster through the Ride Monster system first. Either pick something from one of your parties, or from inventory, and drag the icon to one of the four buttons on the cross controller. Only giga monsters can be assigned to the down button (putting them on the other buttons just means that it will be pinned in place when you're in the field). Normal and Mega monsters can be assigned to either of the left, right or up buttons. To switch between monsters in the field, just press the desired cross controller button, or the down button to dismount.

Medallions and stars:
If you look at the top screen in the main menu, you should see medallions of some kind, a bronze, silver and gold star followed by a number. These represent the accomplishments you have unlocked, such as collecting 10% of all zombie-type monsters, exploring most of the field map, beating a boss monster, or saving a certain amount of money in the bank in Central. They also represent the number of Code Words you can choose from in the B1 Disk System when creating new disks.

Gold:
How much gold you have in inventory, not in the bank. Note that if you fall off the field map for some reason, you don't lose gold or exp. But, if all your monsters die in battle and you are resurrected in Central, you lose half the gold (and I think half your exp., but I've never confirmed this; I just reboot the game if that happens) you have in inventory, which is why it's a good idea to save your money in the bank if you're not planning on spending it right away.

Party Rank:
You get a number of stars based on how many of your monsters are maxed up for exp. level and Rank+number. If all of the monsters are maxed, you get Professional. As far as I can tell, party rank is just a "feel-good" ranking, and doesn't affect anything that happens in the game.

Pressing the L and R buttons will scroll the top screen display from party stats, primary party monsters, secondary party monsters and ride monsters.

Continued...