The gameplay sees you navigate the game world, from town to town, with forests, deserts, caves, and dungeons in between. I went with a monster called Ambigu – an “unstable” type, which is a slimy octopus looking creature with attacks that made him/her grossly overpowered in the starter area (but then again, this could be typical of any of the starter monsters). I should also mention that you take a personality test at the beginning which determines which starter monster is recommended to you. The story develops as you progress from settlement to settlement, meeting humans and monsters alike. Eventually, you’ll come across Beth, a power-hungry woman, destined to rip apart the balance on Crown Island and return the monstrous Philosopher Kings to power. Along the way, you’ll encounter several characters who all play a role in the goings-on in their locale. Eventually, a group of people rose up and overthrew the Philosopher Kings.Ī little while in the future, you play as a 14-year-old trainer, who sets off on a task to leave his parents’ farm to forge a bond with a nearby king in order to gain a good standing for the farm. Monster Crown is set on Crown Island, which, according to the game lore, was 20 years prior ruled by the “Philosopher Kings” (if this is a reference to Plato’s Republic, kudos to Walsh) who were tyrannical beings, hell-bent on exerting their own power. However, the game boasts a large world with plenty to explore, over 200 monsters, and a decent story, which makes the whole title really appealing to those who enjoy this type of game. Lead developer Jason Walsh endeavored to create a monster taming game with a truly involved breeding mechanic, which is what makes Monster Crown unique. Monster Crown has been in development for over four years now and is finally in early access. Monster Crown doesn’t disappoint and put me right back in that mindset I was in when I was younger – catch, tame, train and progress, with a considerable amount of time being poured into the first two. If only these bugs led to some kind of super-secret “missing number” monster (if you know, you know).In a world where monster taming games are quite abundant, it takes a decent one to get me hooked. As mentioned before, monsters were getting stuck in areas I couldn’t access, but they would also get stuck in trees or in water. Too often I would open the map or journal and the game would seize up, or I would be talking to an NPC and the text box wouldn’t disappear. On top of that, my time with the game was riddled with bugs, and not the ones to collect in-game… actual game-crashing bugs. The issue with this is that many parts of the map are inaccessible, so monsters I want to either fight or make a pact with often get trapped in areas I cannot get to. One of the most infuriating downfalls of Monster Crown is the monster AI monsters appear onscreen as encounters, much like Persona, instead of random encounters in the grass. The world feels entirely too familiar, at times a carbon copy of what has come before, but perhaps that is simply a symptom of 8-bit style games. The game also feels mightily unbalanced I was blasting through basically the entire game just using my starting monster, an unremarkable wolf-creature, and almost never felt the need to strategise or utilise my party’s various types and movesets. Default movement is slow, and then the run option feels too fast. To start simple, the game just doesn’t feel right. I found the darker tone a welcome change to the tried-and-true storylines of monster collecting titles of the past. Indeed, early in the game, there is a confronting scene where the villain sets one of her monsters upon you, lashing out with its claws to try and beat you into sharing some information. The game’s narrative, while following the blueprints of the genre, is a darker and more mature approach to the coming-of-age adventurer tale. All the fringe extras are present too: trading, breeding, monster storage boxes, and the moment-to-moment gameplay is essentially a carbon copy of the gameplay you know from the Game Freak titles, with some twists that try to set it apart. You make your way through the continent battling other trainers, collecting monsters, and thwarting the dastardly plans of the various thugs and villains you meet along the way. You play as a young teen, living on a farm on the outskirts of a small town, and the time has finally come for you to embark on your very own poke-… I mean monster collecting journey. Monster Crown’s narrative follows an all too familiar premise.
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