Monster hearts represent one of the most transformative systems in DRAGON QUEST VII Reimagined, offering passive abilities that can completely reshape your party's capabilities. These powerful accessories drop from elite Vicious enemies and provide everything from automatic healing to damage reflection, making them essential for optimizing your team composition.
What Are Monster Hearts and How Do They Work?
Monster hearts function as specialized accessories that grant unique passive effects to whoever equips them. You can equip up to two accessories per character, which means you can combine monster hearts with regular accessories or even stack two monster hearts together for powerful synergies.
Here's the key thing most players miss: monster hearts activate automatically based on specific conditions, making them perfect for reducing micromanagement during long dungeon crawls. Instead of constantly monitoring your party's health and MP, these hearts handle the busywork for you.
Dragon Quest VII Reimagined Monster Hearts Guide
Tip
Always prioritize monster hearts over regular accessories when you find them. Their passive effects provide more consistent value than stat boosts in most situations.
Essential Monster Hearts for Every Party
Gold Golem Heart and Metal Slime Heart - The Farming Powerhouses
These two hearts transform your grinding sessions from tedious to efficient. The Gold Golem Heart boosts your gold income by a massive 50%, while the Metal Slime Heart accelerates experience gain by 20%. Both come included in the Jam-Packed Swag Bag DLC with the Digital Deluxe Edition.
Pro tip: Equip the Metal Slime Heart on characters who are learning new Dragon Quest VII Reimagined Guide: Vocation System paths. The experience boost significantly reduces the time needed to master advanced vocations.
Cactiball Heart - The Ultimate Counter-Attack Tool
The Cactiball Heart reflects 100% of physical damage back to attackers, making it incredibly powerful against bosses who rely on heavy physical attacks. You'll want to equip this on your tankiest character, preferably someone with high defense who can survive the initial hit.
You can obtain this heart by defeating the Vicious Fandangow enemy found roaming the overworld. This elite monster has a distinctive red glow and doesn't move around like regular enemies.
Dragon Quest VII Reimagined Monster Hearts Guide
Auto-Healing Hearts for Effortless Survival
The auto-healing monster hearts eliminate the need for constant manual healing during battles:
- Little Devil Heart: Automatically uses a single phial when MP drops to 50% or lower
- Goon Heart: Automatically uses a medicinal herb when HP drops to 50% or lower
- Swagman Heart: Automatically uses strong medicine when HP drops to 50% or lower
These hearts work perfectly for characters in your Dragon Quest VII Reimagined Early Game Party Builds who tend to take damage frequently. Equip the Goon Heart or Swagman Heart on your frontline fighters, while the Little Devil Heart works best on spellcasters.
Important
Auto-healing hearts trigger at the start of a character's turn, not immediately when they take damage. Plan your strategy accordingly.
Monster Heart Locations and Acquisition
Finding Vicious Enemies
Most monster hearts drop from Vicious variants of regular enemies. These elite monsters appear with a distinctive red glow and remain stationary on the overworld map. They're significantly tougher than their normal counterparts but guarantee valuable drops.
Dragon Quest VII Reimagined Monster Hearts Guide
Vicious Enemy Hunting Strategy:
- Look for enemies with red auras that don't move
- Prepare with full health and MP before engaging
- Use defensive tactics since they hit much harder
- Focus fire to eliminate them quickly
Treasure Chest Locations
Several monster hearts can be found in specific treasure chests throughout your adventure:
Warning
Some monster hearts are missable if you don't explore thoroughly during specific story segments. Always check every treasure chest before progressing to new areas.
Advanced Monster Heart Strategies
Stacking Hearts for Maximum Effect
Since you can equip two accessories per character, consider these powerful combinations:
- Gold Golem + Metal Slime Hearts: Maximum farming efficiency for experience and gold
- Cactiball + Golem Hearts: Ultimate survivability with damage reflection and death prevention
- Auto-healing + Stat Hearts: Combine passive healing with attribute bonuses
Character-Specific Recommendations
For Healers:
- Golem Heart (survive fatal blows to keep healing)
- Little Devil Heart (maintain MP for crucial spells)
For Tanks:
- Cactiball Heart (reflect physical damage)
- Swagman Heart (automatic strong healing)
For DPS Characters:
- Clawcerer Heart (increased critical spell chance)
- Metal Slime Heart (faster vocation mastery)
Maximizing Monster Heart Effectiveness
Battle Tactics with Hearts
When using auto-healing hearts, adjust your battle strategy to account for their activation timing. Since they trigger at the start of a character's turn, you can take calculated risks knowing that healing will occur automatically.
The Cactiball Heart works exceptionally well against bosses who use multi-hit physical attacks. Position your equipped character to tank hits while your damage dealers focus on offense.
Vocation Synergies
Different vocations benefit from specific monster hearts. Warriors and Gladiators excel with defensive hearts like the Golem Heart, while Mages and Sages maximize value from the Little Devil Heart's MP management. Consider your party's vocation distribution when assigning monster hearts. A balanced approach ensures you're covering all defensive and offensive needs effectively.
Monster hearts transform Dragon Quest VII Reimagined from a traditional turn-based experience into a more automated, strategic affair. By collecting and equipping the right hearts for each situation, you'll spend less time on tedious healing management and more time enjoying the adventure. Focus on acquiring the farming hearts early, then branch out into specialized defensive and offensive options as you encounter tougher challenges.