It's a Monster House!

Oh, no... anything but that! >.< If you have played any game from the Mystery Dungeon series, then there's a pretty good chance that you've run into a Monster House at some point. How do you feel about monster houses? Do you dread them, or are they just a nice EXP workout for you?

Feel free to share some of your worst (or best???) experiences with Monster Houses here! :D

When I first played a Mystery Dungeon game, I hated them. Seeing a monster house meant I was going to lose. They've gotten easier for me though, and most of the time I use my inventory to help escape.

ZeoStar said:

When I first played a Mystery Dungeon game, I hated them. Seeing a monster house meant I was going to lose. They've gotten easier for me though, and most of the time I use my inventory to help escape.

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Totally with you on this! I turned off my game the first time I encountered a monster house... it wasn't pretty. xD But yup, having the right equipment can really turn the entire situation on its head. Foe-Hold Orbs have the ability to completely freeze all enemies in the room until they are attacked, which helps you defeat each of them one by one without having to worry about the others ganging up on you. Those orbs are the best! :D

Depending on how well prepared you are for the chance of coming across one, my reaction is either "Nope let's not go there." or "Yay, lots of loot!". I usually try to have at least one room-hitting move such as Heat Wave on my team, just because of the possibility to come across a Monster House. The best items are usually in there, so it's definitely worth giving it a try.

Worst experience with Monster Houses is when you're not prepared for them and the stairs are in the room. Good luck then.

Orbs. Always carry orbs. My common strategy was to use Petrify, Totter, or Warp Orbs as soon as I found one. Petrify gives me the chance to retreat to a corridor to tackle them one at a time, Totter turns the place into a delightful madhouse, and Warp is probably the riskiest as monsters typically just warp a few spaces away and come after you anyway.

I had a few bad encounters with monster houses in some of the DS game dungeons, as you weren't always allowed to take items with you. But never anything I couldn't bludgeon my way out of...slowly.

I had the worst experience with one just the other day: I had gotten to the 66th floor of Zero Isle South...I spawned in a monster house. Didn't even walk into it. Just...spawned.
I fainted acouple turns later. I thought I was actually going to finish that monster of a dungeon but that monster house put an end to that. *Sigh*

Seriously though, orbs are life-savers in this kind of situation! Foe-Hold, Petrify, Totter... with them, Monster Houses are a breeze, and you earn heaps of EXP this way. Unless an enemy comes in from another room and uses something like Helping Hand to awaken them all again... haha.

I remember when the stairs were in the same room as the monster house and I didn't have any useful items on me. I tried backing into the corridor but enemies were behind my team! You can imagine the outcome... The worst part? This was the 87th floor. ;__;

Preparation is a must for monster houses. Everything else I would have to say on this subject others have already covered.
Idk about more recent PMD games, but in the first two games the main things you find in Monster Houses that have a low spawnrate anywhere else are Gummis. If you don't need Gummis or EXP, then I would probably avoid fighting monster houses unless you are overlevelled enough to not waste resources on them.

For those tough dungeons where you can't bring in any items to prepare yourself for monster houses (especially Zero Island South and Destiny Tower), it might be worth investing in grabbing Pass Scarf and/or a Warp Scarf. Either of the two makes escaping from Monster Houses almost trivial (Warp Scarf is especially helpful, but you need to survive for a couple of rounds first).

The Warp Scarf/Pass Scarf combo in general paired with a pokemon with good protection moves (eg. Lucario) makes you nearly untouchable in ZIS, but that's a cheese strat - If you want to experience the full challenge of the dungeon, you probably don't want either of those items.