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5 Synthesis Tips to Become a Better Monster Wrangler - Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince

These tips will help your team of monsters be the best in the world(s)

Lucas White

December 14, 2023 9:30 PM

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I’m on the road to beating the slimy heck out of Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince. We’ve got our review up on the site, so you can see how much I love this game. After over 80 hours raising monsters in Nadiria, I think I’m still learning stuff. So if you aren’t as into that level of deep-diving but still want to do well, let’s chat. I’ve developed a list of synthesis tips that I believe are the best things to keep in mind throughout your adventure.

Focus in on Talents

As you’ll see, when your monsters level up they earn points you can dump into Talents. Monsters can have up to three Talents, which give you all kinds of skills and stat bonuses. It may be tempting early on to spread your points out, but the reality is that focusing on one at a time helps you get to the “long run” faster.

That’s mostly because many Talents, when maxed out, will evolve into stronger versions upon that monster’s next synthesis. There are obvious ones like Attack Booster that have numbers in the title, but other skill-oriented ones will evolve as well. If you check out the Monsterpedia, you can filter by Talents and browse all the first and second-stage versions you’ve unlocked. The faster you get these Talents on your monsters, the better.

Turn off autosave

For the love of goodness (emphasis on “goo”, natch), turn off autosave. This is the most unexpected advice I think I ran into, because why wouldn’t autosave be good? The problem is Dark Prince seems to autosave a little too generously. For example, right after you perform monster synthesis! Did you make a mistake? Too bad, dummy! Trying to figure out those 4-monster synthesis chains and accidentally fuse the wrong two monsters together? Oh well brother, back to square one.

Turn that ish off, and hard save often. Jettison the risk entirely.

Consider the Mole Hole

If turning off autosave is unexpected advice, this one is reluctant advice. Because the Mole Hole, for some (goo)dforsaken reason, is paid DLC. Ten whole United States Biden Bucks are required for this. And what you get is something akin to the Demon Compendium system in Shin Megami Tensei games, which are just… part of the game. But! But… it makes your life so much easier if you’re wanting to go far enough down the Monster Wrangler rabbit hole to get the strongest, biggest, and baddest homies.

The Mole Hole opens up little mini-dungeons, separated by monster rank. These dungeons will populate with monsters you’ve scouted before, and they seem to have better scouting rates than monsters in the wild. I can’t verify that, but it feels that way. If the monster you want doesn’t spawn or you fail to scout it, you can simply leave and hop back in for another chance. This is a game-changer, especially for critters like Metal Slimes. The EXP you get from defeating them is scaled way back (this is not a level grinding DLC), but they don’t run away so you can recruit extras with ease.

I’d rather bang my head against a brick wall than try to gather Metal Kings the hard way.

Synth at 10, then 20

This one’s fundamental. To synthesize a monster it needs to be at least level 10. Now, earning points for Talents doesn’t happen at every level. If you’re going hard in the paint for tough monsters you’ll be fusing ‘em over and over, so you wanna be efficient with when you pull the trigger. So follow the 10/20 rule - early on fuse right away at 10, but as EXP flows more in tougher areas you can push to 20. This will get you optimal numbers for the early to mid-game, and from there it’s a judgment call.

Use your resources to keep track of everything

Dark Prince stores a lot of information for you, so that you don’t have to go scouring the internet for guides and walkthroughs unless you really need to. Utilize the Monsterpedia for more than just completion progress! You’ll be able to dig up monster ranks, Talents, recommended synthesis combinations, and a lot more thanks to filters and more information than you can probably use.

Additionally, using the Reverse Search function in actual synthesis is crucial. There are filters there too, which help you plan ahead, make important choices, and get a more holistic understanding of the systems in general. The utility of these resources cannot be understated.

These are just a few tips, but there are all kinds of other little details you can discover under the hood. But these are the ones with a lot of travel from the start to the end, and I hope they help our readers. Don’t miss out on the latest Dragon Quest Monsters! It’s great!

Lucas White

Contributing Editor

Lucas plays a lot of videogames. Sometimes he enjoys one. His favorites include Dragon Quest, SaGa, and Mystery Dungeon. He's far too rattled with ADHD to care about world-building lore but will get lost for days in essays about themes and characters. Holds a journalism degree, which makes conversations about Oxford Commas awkward to say the least. Not a trophy hunter but platinumed Sifu out of sheer spite and got 100 percent in Rondo of Blood because it rules. You can find him on Twitter @HokutoNoLucas being curmudgeonly about Square Enix discourse and occasionally saying positive things about Konami.