Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince flew under the radar last December when it launched as a Nintendo Switch exclusive, which is unfortunate since fans have been waiting since 2011 for a DQM game to release outside of Japan. Prior to The Dark Prince, the only two games in the series to receive official English localizations were Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker and Joker 2 for Nintendo DS.

The Dark Prince is a fun role-playing game with a ton of depth that deserves more attention.

You play as the antagonist from Dragon Quest IV, Psaro, prior to the events of that game. Cursed and unable to harm anything with monster blood, Psaro quickly discovers a loophole that allows monsters under his control to unleash some violence on his behalf. From there, Psaro embarks on a quest to capture more powerful creatures and combine them into new forms using his synthesis powers.

There are over 500 monsters to scout, battle, and assist you on your journey, and when they're not powerful enough, you can create unique fusions to help you survive the dangerous environments of Nadiria. The mainline can take anywhere from 40-50 hours, but there's easily 100-plus hours worth of content here if you want to see and collect everything.

The Dark Prince is no longer a Switch exclusive, as it was ported to PC and Android in September. Dragon Quest Monsters is quite different from the mainline series, but if you like Pokemon games, The Dark Prince is for sure worth trying, especially for only 30 bucks.