You’re standing in the middle of a dark, pixelated forest in 9th Dawn Remake, and honestly, you’re probably about to die because a swarm of giant insects just cornered you. Then it hits you. You forgot to bring your friends. Not human friends—I'm talking about the massive, chaotic, and surprisingly deep army of 9th Dawn Remake pets that make this game more of a monster-collecting simulator than a standard ARPG.
Most people treat pets like a side gimmick. They think, "Oh, neat, a little wolf following me." That’s mistake number one. In this remake, your creatures aren't just mascots; they are your primary source of damage, your tanking frontline, and sometimes your only hope of surviving the brutal endgame dungeons.
If you've played the original 9th Dawn III, you know the drill, but the remake tweaks the feel of the monster AI and the progression just enough to keep you on your toes.
The Absolute Chaos of Monster Taming
Taming in this game is weird. It’s not like Pokémon where you just throw a ball and hope for the best. It’s a messy, frantic mini-game involving creature bait and a lot of patience. You’ve basically gotta drop food on the ground while a monster is trying to rip your face off. It’s stressful. It’s loud. It’s brilliant.
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The success rate depends heavily on your Creature Taming skill level. If you're trying to bag a high-level Drake while your skill is sitting at level five, you're just feeding the local wildlife for free. You need to grind the small stuff first. Rats. Slimes. Things that can't kill you in one hit.
Once you actually catch something, the real game begins. You can have a literal army. I’m not talking about two or three pets. We are talking about a screen-filling swarm of up to 10 active creatures. It transforms the game from a solo dungeon crawler into a tactical squad-based RTS where you're the commander who occasionally swings a sword.
Why the Stats Actually Matter This Time
In the remake, pet scaling feels a bit more aggressive. You can't just ignore their gear and expect them to survive the snowy peaks or the deeper cavern systems. Each pet has its own leveling curve. A common mistake is sticking with your early-game pets for too long because you’ve grown attached to them.
Look, I get it. "Sparky" the fire ant has been with you since the first hour. But Sparky is going to get vaporized by a mid-game boss. You have to be willing to cycle your roster or invest heavily in the "Morph" system to keep them viable.
Morphing is where the complexity spikes. When a pet reaches its level cap, you can reset it to level one, but it keeps a percentage of its stats. This is how you create absolute monsters. Do this five, ten, or twenty times? Now your 9th Dawn Remake pets are hitting harder than you are. You become the sidekick. It’s a humbling experience, really.
Managing the Horde Without Losing Your Mind
Let's talk about the UI. Managing ten pets is a nightmare if you don't use the quick-commands. You can set their behavior to aggressive, defensive, or passive.
- Aggressive: They run off-screen and pick fights with things you didn't even know existed. Great for clearing trash, terrible for staying alive.
- Defensive: They stay close and only bite things that bite you first. This is the "sweet spot" for most players.
- Passive: They just stand there and take it. Only useful if you’re trying to position them for a specific strategy or keeping a rare tame alive.
Honestly, the AI can be a bit... special sometimes. They get stuck on corners. They fall behind. But the remake has improved the pathfinding significantly compared to the older versions. There’s a "teleport pets to player" button for a reason. Use it often. Especially when crossing bridges. Trust me on the bridges.
The Gear Factor
You can equip your pets. I feel like half the player base forgets this. You can craft or find specific pet armor and necklaces. If you’re playing on a higher difficulty, this isn't optional. A pet with no armor is just a meat shield that doesn't last very long.
The variety of creatures is staggering. You’ve got your standard fantasy tropes—spiders, goblins, skeletons—but then you get into the weirder stuff. Elementals that throw massive AOE spells can clear a room in seconds. If you find a creature that has a "Stun" or "Freeze" proc on its basic attack, keep it. Status effects are king in the late game.
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The Synergy Most Players Miss
The real "pro tip" for 9th Dawn Remake pets involves your own character build. You shouldn't just build a warrior and have pets. You should build a commander.
There are passives in the skill tree that specifically buff your pets' damage, health, and even their critical hit chance. If you go all-in on the Charisma-based skills and the creature-focused perks, your army becomes unstoppable. You can literally sit in a corner, drink a potion, and watch your pets dismantle a boss that would have taken you twenty minutes to solo.
It’s a different way to play an RPG. It’s less about your own "skill" with a dodge roll and more about your ability to manage resources and build a balanced team. You need some melee bruisers up front to take the hits, and some ranged casters in the back to provide the DPS.
The Morphing Trap
Don't morph everything at once. This is a classic blunder. If you reset your entire team to level one at the same time, you are suddenly incredibly weak. You’ll step into a dungeon you cleared easily ten minutes ago and get absolutely bodied.
- Pick your best pet.
- Morph only that one.
- Let your other nine high-level pets "power-level" the baby back up to speed.
- Repeat the process for the next one.
It takes time. It’s a grind. But if you want to see those massive damage numbers that the community posts screenshots of, this is the only way.
Finding the Rare Spawns
Not all pets are created equal. While you can beat the game with a bunch of buffed-up rats if you really want to (and there is a certain charm to that), you should be hunting for the elites. Elite versions of monsters have a distinct glow or color palette. They have higher base stats and better growth rates.
The "Remake" adds some subtle cues to where these guys spawn. Usually, they’re tucked away in the corners of maps that look empty on the mini-map. If you see a weirdly shaped clearing with nothing in it, hang around for a bit. An elite might spawn.
Also, pay attention to the dungeon bosses. Many of them can actually be tamed. Yes, you can have a miniature version of a world-ending demon following you around like a lost puppy. It’s as ridiculous and awesome as it sounds.
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Actionable Steps for Your Next Session
Stop treating your pets as an afterthought. If you want to actually master the system, start with these specific moves:
- Check your Taming Skill: If it's below level 20, go back to the starting areas and tame every single low-level creature you see. It’s boring, but it’s the only way to reliably catch the good stuff later.
- Inventory Audit: Clear out those old "pet seeds" and "baits" you've been hoarding. Categorize them by creature type so you’re ready when a rare spawn appears.
- Focus on One "Tank": Find a high-HP creature (like a Golem or a heavy melee beast) and dump all your best pet armor onto it. Set it to aggressive while keeping your glass-cannon casters on defensive.
- The Morph Rotation: Start the morphing cycle on your weakest "useful" pet first. Get a feel for how long it takes to catch back up to the group's average level before you commit to morphing your primary damage dealer.
- Experiment with Status Effects: Find at least one pet that can "Root" or "Slow" enemies. In the remake's faster combat, crowd control from your pets is more valuable than raw damage in 90% of encounters.
Go out there and start building your swarm. The world is huge, and it’s a lot less lonely when you’ve got ten mutated spiders protecting your back.