Monster Sanctuary

My kid and I have really been enjoying co-playing this game, as kind of a more flexible, enjoyable Pokemon style battler. We've made good progress! The skill trees for each monster are satisfying, and there is great variety. But also you can choose a core group of 6 flexible monsters and not have to significantly grind in order to progress the game.

Love this game, and highly recommend it to fans of RPGs, exploration games, and monster-collecting games. I will say, though, it can get really frustrating really quickly if you expect it to be like Pokemon. This is not the type of game where you look at a monster's element and simply counter it with an element its weak to. It's more like Yugioh: you need to understand how your monsters synergize with each other and how they can counter or undo opponent synergies while also dishing out enough damage to knock them out before they knock you out. Each monster has its own skill tree and you'll want to go through each one carefully and allot skill points based on what skills you want to unlock further down the line. It can seem a bit overwhelming, but the game does a good job of starting you off slowly so you can get used to things, and the difficulty settings can be changed at any time if you're getting overwhelmed (or if you think things are too easy). And keep in mind, it's cheap and easy to get Skill Resetters (you can buy them in the Keeper's Stronghold), and you can use them as much as you like so don't be afraid to do some quick respeccing if you want to try different tactics. All in all, I'd absolutely recommend it, just be aware that it's a bit different than your usual turn-based RPG.

I'd give it neutral if I could. The game has a lot going for it. It's unique with its mixture of pokemon and metroidvania elements. I love metroidvanias and I love pokemon, so I thought it would be a blast. The fact that each monster has its own skill tree and upgradeable gear is awesome and very unique, and I like the idea that you need to catch certain monsters to get around certain obstacles or complete certain puzzles. There seems to be a great mixture of fairly well thought out and designed monsters that make it easy to assemble a good, balanced team throughout the parts of the game I played. The fast travel system works well and the travel points are located at good spots, and for the most part I didn't have to look anything up. The downsides were hard for me to look past. The game just feels flat. It's missing something - charm or design, something along those lines, kind of hard to put my finger on it. The story is not interesting at all. The battles don't really feel satisfying from the getgo, and eventually they start getting annoying. The most frustrating part for me was all of the chests that are locked away behind puzzles, mechanics, etc. I'd be really excited to unlock an area that I remembered and came back to and the reward in the chest was underwhelming at best in every instance. I wish the rewards for doing these types of things were more worth it - good weapons, good gear, even a special monster egg etc. The Metroidvania elements are okay, but I'd say this is more of a creature collector with some minor metroidvania elements. Around the ten hour mark I started getting bored with the battles and not feeling satisfied with progress I was making. Game just wasn't hooking me. I gave myself a few more hours to see if that would change, and eventually decided to move on to another game. I think this game is a good sale game. Sub $10 if you really like creature collectors, I think it's an okay deal, but there is nothing revolutionary or extraordinarily interesting here.

I'm not into the monster collector genre by any means, but this turn-based rpg awakened a longing in me for a more simpler, relaxing time when you could enjoy your game slowly and take in it's atmosphere. This is what I wish Pokemon games were. A journey full of heart, fantastic monsters and their epic evolutions, special attacks, items, massive secrets, charming graphics, good music and an okay story. Truly a hidden gem... something that is worth your time for sure. Songs to listen to while playing through the game: Fallujah - Sanctuary Cavalera Conspiracy - Sanctuary Iron Maiden - Sanctuary Ouroboros - Sanctuary

自分には合わなかったというだけではあるんだが、不満点として ・戦略性という点に重きを置いてるせいで、レベル上げしようと思った際に戦闘のテンポが悪すぎて雑魚敵と戦いたくない ・見た目の好きなモンスターが見つからず、モチベが維持しづらい（上記の雑魚敵との戦闘のテンポの悪さも相まって愛着がわかない） ・ようやく好きそうなモンスターを見つけ捕まえようと思っても、卵が入手できるかどうかは運で確実性がない。マラソンしようにもエリア間の移動がめんどくさい上になかなかリポップしないので運が悪いとひたすら時間がかかる ・場所によっては特定のモンスターを連れていないと進めない or 進んだら戻れないことがあり、とてもめんどくさい（帰還アイテムも自分の進行度合いだと店売りしていない、そもそも店売りされるかわからない） モンスターの見た目が刺さってモチベが維持できればまだいいんだけど、それがないので時間かかる or めんどくさい要素が苦行になってるのが自分にはきつかった… たぶんここを乗り越えればコンボとかで気持ちよくなれるんだろうけど、今のところそこまで進めるモチベが維持できない… 個人的に良かった点としては ・戦闘ごとに全回復するので探索時にHP管理などに気をつかわなくていい ・スキル構成が重要となるが、スキルリセットのアイテムがショップに売られているので気軽に割り振れる ・戦闘時に選択できる ＆ 経験値が取得できる手持ちモンスターは６体だが、メニュー画面が開ければ簡単に切り替えることができるので拠点に戻ってメンバー入れ替えとかをする必要がない 正直、モンスターの見た目が刺さればめちゃくちゃはまりそうなんだけど自分の進行度だと微妙なのしかいないのがきつい…

Another candidate for neutral, really. Someone who wants to manage a lot of intricate stat details for a large team will find something to like here. The pixel art is excellent. The platforming is at best forgettable and at worst annoying and uninspired. Technically metroidvania, but, like, why? In pokemon, I most like finding a few creatures I really like and focusing on leveling them. I don't get any sense of that here. I spend all my time looking to see if "all my icons" (dmg types vs weaknesses, etc) line up correctly ahead of battle, as opposed to thinking about which monsters I like the movesets of and what I want to use. In other words, focusing so much on the colors and numbers kind of shoves the fact that they're all supposed to be different monsters a bit off to the side. Like, hey, here's a group of numbers. This group of numbers comes with this sprite. Makes it feel more like stat group sanctuary, rather than monster sanctuary. Duh, all video games boil down to something like that, under the hood, but...

The early game is pretty terrible. It's not great to look at, the music is pretty mid, the monsters aren't very interesting and the level design is very bland. The dialogue is especially egregious, where every living NPC is standing there to explain exactly one concept of story or gameplay and have nothing else going for them at this point. The one thing that kept me going was seeing my starter monster's skill tree and monster journal sprite, which hinted at both more gameplay depth and art talent down the line. I was right to keep going. Every aspect of the game drastically improves as it goes on. New characters start talking to each other according to their personalities, move around the map and play a role in the wider story. The environment art gets nice to look at. The music becomes actually enjoyable and match the area's vibe. The combat opens up with dozens of more creative monster designs with delightful pixel art animation, each with several skill trees including unique skills that combo with other monsters and everything. It slowly builds up to getting all the basics right. What sets it apart however is the scoring system. In this game, you don't capture the monsters. You kill them and they drop eggs you can hatch. This means you don't have to get their health as low as possible to increase the odds of successfully capturing them, like SOME other games (cough). You can go all out and not worry about accidentally killing them off. In fact, that's how you get them on your team. When you finish a fight, the chances of looting rare items (including the slain creature's egg) increases with your score. The main factors towards scoring are : - Healthiness (how close to full health your party is at the end) - Speed (how few turns you took to win) - Element advantage (including a large variety of elemental debuffs, it's not just damage multipliers) - High combos (that's a whole system explained in game I won't get into in this review) Long story short, if you finish the fight quickly without taking too much damage while using the game's systems to your advantage, you can 100% GUARANTEE a capture with no RNG involved. It's great. The single point of frustration one might have with this system, is that defensive teams are pretty bad because fights are longer, not only taking more time per fight but also reducing your odds of good loot, meaning you need to grind a bit to catch up compared to acing your fights. Its designed to make attrition a bad strategy, which some players might dislike. A detail that might be important for some : Your character's gender is dictated by its body type, but all outfits are unisex, and you can change your body type along with your outfit for free and at any time at the tailor. Characters in the game update the pronouns they use for the player accordingly. Overall, it has rough edges especially for the environment art and music (even outside the starting area), but it's actually really good stuff. There's A LOT of choices you get to make on how your monsters fight based on gear, skilltrees, upgrade items, variants, team composition and more. It's pretty long with many surprises along the way. Maybe a bit steep at 20€ given its faults, but an absolute steal on sale.

Everything about Monster Sanctuary feels like it was crafted with a reverence for the genres it melds into a perfect slice of indie gameplay. Every bit of this is a joy to play and it genuinely irritates me I'm only now discovering this game five years on. The Metroidvania aspects are both breezy and precise, while giving me a meaty world to explore and tons of secrets to find. If I have one complaint about the game, it's that those secrets often feel fairly inconsequential, usually hiding crafting material or potions of some kind. It's a very minor blip compared to the fun and ease of exploring the colorful world. In a similar vein, the turn-based RPG combat also fulfills a need in me for old-school RPG mechanics. Monster Sanctuary doesn't try to put on airs. There are no timers, no hybrid action-RPG elements, no parry systems to drag the experience down. This is meaty old-school hackin' and castin', and the myriad of abilities your monsters have at their disposal make it all fun. And the leveling mechanics... the leveling mechanics! Someone designing this game understood the deep, insane need in me to have skill tree options. Lots and LOTS of skill tree options. And that's not all - every skill point spent feels like it's important. The game is pretty easy to breeze through, so there are no real "wrong" options when it comes to your team and choices in how you level, but making smart choices makes the whole experience sing, and watching synergies play themselves out is a feeling I rarely get from RPGs anymore, and this game delivers it by the truckload. If there's a sequel, and i hope there will be someday, all I want is more. This is a blast of a game, an easy 10/10 from me, and I'm still whapping my forehead that I've missed the fun this long. Go play this game. It is digital cocaine. It is an angel with the attributes of Grace Boor giving you a massage and kissing your neck. It is everything I didn't know I wanted out of a Metroidvania/turn-based RPG, and I'm hopelessly, delightfully addicted to it.