Video Game / Dragon Quest Tact

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Dragon Quest Tact is a Dragon Quest game released on Mobile devices. It is a Turn-Based Strategy Gacha Game, featuring Mons in a similar way to the Dragon Quest Monsters series.

Long ago, the Dark Lord Gargeos ruled Orchesterra with an iron fist until a human named Amatea and the Five Fiends defeated him, restoring peace to the land. However, many years later, monsters around Orchesterra start going crazy and a human is brought into the realm by Majellan, a Slime with vast knowledge and Mindini, a Pink Sanguini with a penchant for trouble. Wielding the Baton like Amatea did, the human travels with Majellan and Mindini to stop the monsters from overrunning the world, calm the Five Fiends down and stop Gargeos's return.

The game was released in Japan on July 16th, 2020, with the global release happening a year later on January 28th. The global version was later announced to close on February 29, 2024 after three years of service; while the Japanese version is still active.

The combat is similar to the earlier turn-based strategy game Dragon Quest Wars, though there are more skills and spells to choose from.

Tropes associated with this game are:

• The Beastmaster: Players command monsters to attack enemies and help allies with their various skills and spells in battles. However, starting with the Dragon Quest IV event, the Hero family was added to the game and allowed players to add characters from the other games in the series to their group.
• Big Bad: Gargeos, the Dark Lord. Malini and Rotchester are scheming to revive him.
• Breath Weapon: Breath skills are one of the four main ability types in the game and naturally included the standard fire, ice, and status-inflicting breaths from the series, but this game also introduced a plethora of new breath attacks, ranging from lightning, wind, and even explosive breaths.
• Court Jester: Bailey, a Leery Lout who's also Augoostus's right hand man.
• Dance Battler: Both Debora and Maya perform flashy dance attacks as part of their offensive repertoire.
• Dash Attack: There are several abilities that move the user forward while attacking at the same time, damaging any units in their path. In some cases, if there are still enemies or obstacles in the way, the attack can still be performed without moving them forward.
• Damage-Sponge Boss: The idea behind Mega Boss Battles in various events. The player faces off against an enormous boss monster and eventually whittles down their HP while trying to survive. Some bosses are so powerful, it takes several tries to eventually defeat them.
• Dangerous Deserter: Upon clearing Stage 7 of Gremlin and Madusa's Battle Roads, the monsters desert the Children of Hargon upon Hargon summoning Atlas and Belial, no doubt fearful of the High Priest's wrath for defeating 2 of the Unholy Trinity.
• The Dragon: Rotchester is Gargeos's right hand man, directing Malini to try and stop Majellan, Mindini, and the player. He's also the only villain of the game to have total loyalty to Gargeos, since Malini sometimes fluctuates between good and evil.
• Glad I Thought of It: During the Dragon Quest I Battle Road, the Knight Errant suggests to the Cosmic Chimaera to have a throne room much deeper than the original, so the Hero doesn't fight the Dragonlord right away upon entering Charlock Castle. The Cosmic Chimaera goes to tell the Dragonlord of this renovation idea, which the Knight Errant suspects his master will claim the idea as his own.
• Guest-Star Party Member: Quite a few levels will give the player an extra monster or character that will help out in battle. Most notably, several of the Five Fiends will help out the player long before they were able to be scouted themselves by players.
• Informed Equipment: Some characters, such as Kiryl, Bianca, and Psaro, always wield weapons on their character models even if they have nothing equipped. They are able to perform weapon abilities even if they are unequipped or if their weapon doesn't visually match what they're wielding.
• Leeroy Jenkins: Mindini, unsurprisingly, loves trouble and always finds it, much to the chagrin of various monster characters such as Cogsgrove and Majellan.
• Level Cap: Initially when a monster is recruited, the max level they reach is 30, though ranking them up will increase their max levels, allowing them to become stronger and learn new skills and spells. As of the latest update, rank S units are able to reach level 140 when they are fully upgraded.
• Level-Locked Loot: Units can only start equipping armour once they reach rank 5. A later update also added accessories to the game, which can only be equipped by units at rank 6 or higher.
• Limit Break: Hero characters are distinguished by their ability to perform Coups de Grâce, powerful abilities they're typically only able to use once or a few times in a single battle to turn the tide. To compensate for this, hero characters cannot use ability scrolls to learn extra skills.
• Mage Marksman: Angelo from Dragon Quest VIII is able to use bow attacks infused with elemental powers such as Freezing Bow, while the original version of Maam from Dragon Quest: The Adventure of Dai uses her Magic Bullet Gun to cast various spells.
• Magic Knight: Carrying over from their original games, some units excel with both physical attacks and magic spells, such as Rickerd, the Prince of Cannock, Erdrick, and Anlucia. Some characters like Terry and Psaro the Manslayer even learn abilities that act like spells, but have their damage calculated with the user's Attack attribute rather than Wisdom.
• Magic Missile Storm: Ashlynn's Moonlight spell has this appearance, sending out beams of moonlight that smite a single opponent.
• Metal Slime: Naturally, Metal Slimes will drop large amounts of experience if defeated and the player can face them in daily quests. Certain storyline quests have a rare chance of having them show up amongst the enemies, as well. As of yet, most of the Metal Slimes themselves are still not playable.
• Money Spider: The daily gold quest gives players a chance to earn a large amount of gold, facing monsters from the main series that typically drop large amounts such as Goodybags and Gold Golems.
• Named by the Adaptation: During the game's Dragon Quest II event, the Prince of Cannock is named Rickerd (an anagram of Erdrick), while the Princess of Moonbrooke is named Peronel in the global version. In the original Japanese, the prince is named Tonnura, while the princess is Pudding; both names have been used before in different media.
• Olympus Mons: Just like in the Dragon Quest Monsters games, it's possible to have the Demon Lords of the series join the player and they tend to be some of the strongest units available.
• Rare Candy: Experience scrolls can be used to quickly level up units, the amount increasing based on its rarity.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Majellan is the calm and rational Blue to Mindini's go getter and trouble-making Red.
• Starter Mon: The Slime Knight is the first monster that will join the player's party at the beginning of the game, with the tutorial battle showing off how to use its abilities.
• Sword Beam: Some characters such as Erdrick, Solo, and Terry can perform long-range attacks with their swords in the form of Thunder Flash, Flash Slash, and others like Thunder Strike.
• Stone Wall: Quite a few defensive monsters don't have much in the form of offense, but instead are able to protect their allies with the Cover or Selflessness skills. Some strategies revolve around letting other units wail on the enemy while said monsters tank attacks. Among the most noteworthy ones are the Diamond Slime, Wyrtle, Stone Golem, Dragurn, and Leery Lout.
• A Taste of Power: When Psaro the Manslayer's humanoid form was first added during the game's 1.5 anniversary event, there was a side quest that gave all players a chance to use him in combat, even for those that weren't lucky enough to draw him from his scout banner.
• Wake-Up Call Boss: In Level 3-3, you face a Healslime, an Orc, and two Bodkin Archers. The archers are the first enemy you've faced with ranged physical attacks, the Orc is carrying a lightning attack (and a lot of the monsters you can get early on are weak to lightning), and the Healslime heals everyone... for 25 HP at a time, enough that unless you've spent some time level-grinding it will probably undo any two attacks from your monsters. It's designed to teach you about the importance of party composition (and/or spending gems to get better monsters).
• Whip of Dominance: Juliante always wields a whip, in both her default and Party Animal form, dresses in black leather like a dominatrix, and often exerts her dominance over others, particularly her Vendor Ghost companion.