Monster Sanctuary

Bought the game on discount and didn't play until a year or two later due to gaming backlog. Mostly went in blind only looking at some screenshots to note graphical choice/fidelity. Fun game which progressively became more enjoyable as I got more creatures. Each monster has skill trees which contain passive traits or active spells/skills. The skill tree system in a creature collector/battler is a pretty cool change and surprise going in blind. My experience has mostly been Pokemon games starting with the original Red/Blue up to Scarlet/Violet, otherwise I played Temtem, Coromon, Lumentale, and a bit of Cassette Beasts. ( I need to restart Cassette Beasts and beat it ) -- Anyway, you get a team of six and battles are 3v3s. So you want to make two separate teams that mesh well together. There's a lot of options for synergy amongst the monsters for team synergy. Never played any of the older Castlevania games or any Metroid game, so I wasn't sure what to expect with creature collector/battler mixed with Metroidvania. For the most part, I take no issue with traversing through the game. It's pretty clear when you get to points in the story or when moving around the map that you'll need either an item or a monster to help you get past an obstacle. Pretty simple, nothing complicated. -- Personal minor gripe; Not a fan of having to go back to an area in the beginning or middle of the game after having to get something late/end game to either open or reach that spot. This is something that bothered me since youth whenever it comes up. It's a bit annoying because I can go several hours of playing and I might have forgotten how far back or where specifically it was on the map, or even if I can access it after whatever point I've gotten by progressing further. Later I learned that you can create markers on the map in-game, but I learned that well...late. This wouldn't be a minor gripe if the/any game let's you know when you can go back to those areas and progress pass it. ---- Again, minor gripe, just wanted to share my view on this gaming aspect/design. Soundtrack is nice. Story nothing crazy, nothing special. Fun game. Only beat it once, but I may return to it once I've cleared some backlog of games. Monster Sanctuary has a Newgame+ with options you can take like RNG monster spawns/locations, items, permadeath.