Dragon Warrior Monsters

Dragon Warrior Monsters
Also known as: Dragon Quest Monsters: Terry's Wonderland (JP), Dragon Quest Monsters (DE) Developer: TOSE Publishers: Enix (JP), Eidos Interactive (EU/US) Platforms: Game Boy, Super Game Boy, Game Boy Color Released in JP: September 25, 1998 Released in US: January 27, 2000 Released in EU: January 25, 1999 This game has unused text. This game has debugging material. This game has a hidden sound test. This game has regional differences. This game has a Data Crystal page

Dragon Warrior Monsters lets you collect a bunch of those Dragon Warrior monsters and hybridize them into horribly broken killing machines. Notably, this was the first title in the series to be released in Europe - finally!

Debug Mode

A Debug Mode can be activated in all versions by using the GameShark code 01078AC8 or Game Genie code 071-7EF-E6A.

Turning on the code actually opens the skill animation test submenu. To access the main Debug Mode menu properly, you must press B, turn off the code, and press A - this exits you out of the submenu without causing a freeze, and you'll now be in the GOTO PROGRAM menu. Do whatever you want in here, or press B again to exit to the main Debug Mode menu.

Overall, Debug Mode is a bit unstable and several options don't seem to work quite as intended.

Alternately, changing byte 017E in the rom from 00 to 07 will make the debug menu start on game boot. The game can still be played normally by selecting 'Return'. This mitigates most of the issues caused by using a gameshark.

1:GOTO PROGRAM

This glitchy-looking menu houses a few different options for testing various unrelated things, such as viewing battle animations, looking at monster walksprites, watching battle tutorials, and playing the staff roll. Some of the names of options aren't properly referenced in the English version, and take their text from the wrong strings. The Japanese and German versions don't have the character-scrambling issues with some of the submenus that the English version does.

TITLE ~1 just kicks you back to the title screen. GAME sticks you back in-game, but without any party members or monsters! BATTLE brings you into a randomized battle using your current party. EVTDEMO shows a cutscene of watching falling stars. ENEMY (meant to be STAFF) is the staff roll, which kicks you back to the intro of the game after it's completed, where Terry and Milayou are in their beds.

EFFECT brings up the glitchy-looking skill animation tester. If you can navigate the options properly, you can choose an enemy monster and watch what it looks like when various skills are used on it. The top option seems to be different sorts of slowly-animated screen effects, such as shaking and blackouts (navigate with Right / Left and press A to view.) The bottom options are skill animation (navigate ID numbers with Right / Left and press A to view), enemy view toggle (Right / Left to toggle), and enemy species (Right / Left to go through IDs).

MONSTR1 (meant to be RESULT) shows a You Win! screen and kicks you back to the main game menu. DEBUG ~2 goes to the main Debug Mode menu. The second MONSTR1 (meant to be OBJTEST) shows monster walksprites, on a glitchy background. You can choose one of two options, the top lets you turn the monster around with the D-Pad until you press B and the bottom lets you change the displayed monster species (000-214). Exiting out of the sprite viewer resets the game.

NO MORE. initiates a tutorial with a WhiteKing who introduces himself as "Grandpa Sakamoto" and explains what each menu option does in a battle, then resets the game. MONSTR2L shows another similar tutorial. These tutorials are apparently exclusive to the Debug Mode, and are never seen in-game.

Every option afterward appears to freeze or crash.

PRGNO1, PRGNO2, and PRGNO3 seem to be some sort of variables for each option, but their purpose is unknown.

2:MONSTER

Just lets you view the big monster sprites, along with their names.

3:GAME EDIT

This is sort of two menus in one. Depending on what you set as MAPTYPE, you can either teleport yourself to any regular map (NORMAL) or test a randomly-generated dungeon (ACREATE). With MAPTYPE set to NORMAL, the FLOOR option lets you choose between the available areas by name. When it's set to ACREATE, FLOOR chooses which scenario you're dumped into (e.g. the dungeon that ends in seeing a princess and Dragon, or the FaceTree forest, or the MadCat dungeon, etc.)

The next two options seem broken - ALLY is probably supposed to let you set the number of party members you have, from 00-03, but it seems to default to zero if you aren't using the DEBUG option as well. MONSTR1-3 is probably supposed to let you choose the monster types that will appear in a dungeon but it doesn't seem to work, and sometimes instead fills the dungeon with Watabou and/or Slimes. DUMMY's function is unknown.

Setting DEBUG to anything besides 00 has an interesting effect - your party and farm will be filled with randomized monsters (species / level / nickname / wildness / parents are all random for each), your name will be changed, your inventory will consist of nine random items, and you'll be given 87040 gold.

Pressing Start will save the selections you made here and put you back into the main game with your choices applied.

4:SOUND TEST

Exactly as labeled. Lets you listen to any music or sound effect in the game.

5:BATTLE EDIT

Lets you set up a test battle. ENEMY lets you set 000-002 enemies (1-3). The way monster selection here works is pretty awkward. The first of each MONSTER pairs determines the enemy's species. The second of each pair sort of determines what your party members' species are? Maybe? This part is really hard to understand. Either way, your party is very random and the debug effects used in the GAME EDIT menu seem to apply here (given a bunch of items, money, etc.) DUMMY seems to not do anything. If you lose the battle, you show up in front of the king of GreatTree, if you win, you just appear wherever you were in-game prior to battle testing.

- RETURN -

Restarts the game.

(Source: GameShark code from 完熟未完)

Message Debug

The message debugger can be opened from any other debug menu by pressing Select, and closed by pressing Start.

NOTE: The message debugger is only available in non-Japanese versions of the game.

There are a total of 10 pages, each with 4 options. Select the message you'd like to see with the d-pad, and view it with B. Go to the next page with Select

The message types are as follows:

TESTMES

Displays some of the debug menu text, but is very buggy. Parts of the menu graphics get overwritten as messages are displayed.

DEBUGNAME

Text for the Game Edit menu noted above.

SYSMES

As the name suggests, contains system messages such as those about the Journal, picking up items, naming monsters, etc... If it seems like the game is talking to you, it's here.

MNAMEMES

Lists the names that autofill the monster naming screen if you end with it blank.

KEITOUMES

Displays monster type icons.

SYUZOKUMES

Displays the species names of each monster.

TOKUGINAME

Tokugi means 'Special Skill' and that's exactly what this shows. Specifically the names of each skill.

SYUNAME

Displays the two letter abbreviations for each monster name, used for the monster naming screen as the default name.

ITEMNAME

The names of each item, in order of index number.

ITEMMES

Descriptions of each item, again, in order of index number.

SEIKAKUMES

Displays the monster personality types.

BTLWINMES

As well as the messages shown after winning a battle, this one contains the in-battle menu text, and a few corrupted lines of text as well.

BATTLEMES

Contains two copies of the error handler text, Watabou appears out of nowhere! Watabou disappears!

ITEMMES2

Displays the messages shown after using an item.

TOKUGUMES2

Displays the messages shown after using a skill.

KAIWAMES00-09

All of the in-game text like that from NPCs, cutscenes, and examining objects.

BTLMES-BTLMES3

Four sequential banks of battle related text. If you can see it in battle, it's here!

BTLCMD

Seems to be broken. Repeats "OOOOOOOO takes out the BeastTail!" on every 'valid' value.

BTLMES4

Displays the last 4 battle messages. The first is the same as BTLCMD's message, while the others are about whether you have or haven't been pals with a monster yet.

STAFFMES0

Job titles from the end credits.

STAFFMES1

Staff names from end credits.

ENDINGMES

"...TOBECONTINUED"

MONHAIMES

Displays valid breeding pairs.

MONINFMES

Displays information about each species of monster.

TOKUGIMES

Displays skill descriptions.

DEMOMES00

Displays battle tutorial messages.

DEMONAME00

Displays either the name "Slio" or the sentence "Grandpa Sakamoto is here!" and that is it.

BOOKMES00

Seems to be a duplicate of the tutorial messages.

OBJTMES00

Only one valid option. Displays "Direction No."

(Source: Mallos31)

Unused Gate Encounters

Two gates were apparently intended to be larger and then cut down, and thus have unused encounter data for floors below the final floor in the gate.

Wisdom Gate

Tonguella	Pteranod	MadPlant	Armorpede
Pteranod	MadPlant	MedusaEye	Armorpede

Medal Man Gate

Orc

Reaper

Gismo

RogueNite

(Source: AJackson's FAQ/strategy guide)

Unused Gate

This needs some investigation. Discuss ideas and findings on the talk page. Specifically: Is there a better way to access this Gate? Is there really no boss, or is this caused by the method of access?

There is data in the ROM for a thirtysecond Gate. It has 99 floors, but upon reaching the bottom there is no boss. The only known way to access it is to enter a Gate, activate the GameShark code 011F35C9 and enter the hole to the next floor.

Floor	Monsters
1-5	Skeletor	Trumpeter	MetalDrak	MadDragon
6-10	MetalDrak	MadDragon	Snapper	GoatHorn
11-20	Snapper	GoatHorn	DeadNoble	Roboster
21-40	DeadNoble	Roboster	BombCrag	Andreal
41-60	BombCrag	Andreal	Unicorn	GreatDrak
61-80	Unicorn	GreatDrak	ZapBird	WhipBird
81-98	ZapBird	WhipBird	Metaly	Metabble

(Source: AJackson's FAQ/strategy guide)

Unused Text

The Medal Man collects otherwise useless TinyMedal items, and gives you monster eggs once you reach certain thresholds. In the final game there are four rewards: a ZapBird, a Trumpeter, a Spikerous and a Metabble. However, unused data suggests that at some point in development a ChopClown egg was included in between the Trumpeter and Spikerous.

Regional Differences

The Japanese, German, and English versions of the game all have different intro and title screens. The Japanese version starts off showing the Dragon Quest series' logo in red, then replaces it with a fancy blue Dragon Quest Monsters logo overlaid in katakana. The German version keeps the Dragon Quest name and logo, but swaps the intro/title colors and just adds "MONSTERS" as a subtitle along with the copyright info. The English version keeps the color changes but replaces the Dragon Quest logo with a Dragon Warrior one, also replacing the ™ with a ®.

Japanese	German	English