Spooky Monster is a fantasy Otome set in a unique fantasy world, where the unknown can be much more dangerous than you think. One wrong mistake, and you just might not be returning home. And yes, that mistake includes falling in love with some cute, yet lonely bachelors.
At the start of the game, you start off as a hard-working, yet ambitious young woman. Spending her life working on her farm with her brother has been great, but she decides to make a wish upon a nearby lake on a moonlit night. Unfortunately for our heroine, the legend isn’t necessarily true… But the lake connects to another world. Just as her wish is made, it is heard by a demon who drags her down into the lake - flipping her world, quite literally, and dragging her into an unfamiliar world filled with fantasy creatures. The wish has now turned into a binding contract with the demon, also known as Osbert, who does not intend to let you leave so easily. He harbors ulterior motives that you learn very, very quickly.
Spooky Monster includes a cast of several (mostly) likeable characters, all with their own problems - some more severe than others - which our heroine just might be able to solve. But the number one goal intended for you here is to persuade the noble vampire, Cyril, to drink blood. Osbert wants to preserve the already endangered vampire race, and he’s willing to go to extreme lengths to achieve this, even abducting a human from their world… ahem. Other than Osbert, I genuinely really liked the whole cast. I originally thought I would join the “why isn’t the demon romanceable” crowd. But honestly? After meeting him, he can stay in the hot-but-not-romanceable bin. Even Patrick becomes likeable if you follow his story!
When it comes to the controls for this one, I played on the steamdeck - and honestly, it wasn’t terrible and better than a lot of other VN I have played on it. I noticed a few issues, such as words being cut-off as if it was the end of the line of dialogue, and the second-half of the word being shown on the next line. Sometimes the heroine’s sprite also would bug out, with a clipping of her on the very bottom of the screen. These could very possibly be just steamdeck issues, however. Between each scene you are brought to a large map with several areas on it. You choose where to go and who to talk to by picking a location. It is often pretty easy to know where characters are by following their usual hangouts or just following where they mention in your last scene with them. However, I think it would be a great QOL to include icons for where characters are currently, as well as some kind of signal/warning when a selection will lead to the end of the story as there is more than one “no turning back” scenario, so I suggest regular saves. There is also a point where if you’re following Ghost and Eleven’s story, you will lose all affection with Cyril and I assume get locked out of his route entirely so those saves can be very, very important to prevent having to do a full replay for multiple endings.
Spooky Monster has pretty art, I enjoyed the appearance of all of the characters, especially how unique some looked. Eleven (who I was quite fond of) has a cool design, notably more unique than the others. But even despite that everyone else looked great. Patrick’s design really caught me off-guard, but I enjoyed the details - even his mouth moved when he spoke,despite being wrapped up in bandages. The music was also fitting for the game, and honestly gave me the vibe taht this would be a cozy little play for halloween.
The biggest issue I came across with Spooky monster was the script itself for a few reasons. The English translation is good. It’s understandable and I don’t have to drill my brain to try and work out what’s being said or happening, however, I think it would be right to assume the translation was done via AI, if not the proofreading was done through AI. A lot of sentences would just be written oddly, in a way that I don’t think would be how a native English speaker would say. On top of this, I noticed it was pretty common for the script to have people’s names typed incorrectly. For a large chunk of the game I noticed that people were calling Eleanor “Eleonor”, and Lianan Xi got extended a little to “Liannan” in one scene. I did enjoy the game enough to think quite positively after play, so this didn’t hinder it enough, but especially from the mistyped names, I did feel like it was constant and annoying enough with the “Eleonor” that it did pull me out of the game/immersion a little. I believe this all could be solved with an experienced proofreader checking over the script.
Despite my above complaints, overall I really did quite enjoy my time playing Spooky Monster. The later you get into the game, the more enjoyable it becomes. I wish I had more time getting to know the characters as I didn’t feel as strongly as the heroine presented in their endings, because I felt I only really got a good chance to know Eleven. Especially considering… well, you don’t even get to learn anything about Ghost until near the end of the game. Cyril’s good ending was a little brutal, but enjoyable. However I didn’t feel as emotionally affected as I could have been with more time to know him. More time in the world and the characters would be one thing I’d have asked for, or at least some more time with Cyril so I can feel more deeply about him or at least understand the heroine’s feelings more. He had probably the most significant ending, but I enjoyed others more just because I felt I had more time to connect to the characters to a certain level.
Spooky Monster is a fun, short and enjoyable Otome. It has its flaws, but considering the price for the content I personally can overlook them. For the price, I also think it’s a great deal. Depending on your reading speed you could easily get 3-4 hours of enjoyment out of a £5 purchase. If you like fantasy worlds and slightly darker themes, you could definitely enjoy Spooky Monster. Just be aware of the script errors/issues I mentioned before if they are something you’re likely to be put off by. I feel a lot more lenient on such things as long as I enjoy the game, personally. This might even be a solid pickup for a cozy little halloween night, as mentioned before - I definitely think it could add some extra enjoyment.
Otome Lovers wishes to thank [i]VNka[/i] for providing a free review copy for this game.
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