Monster Viator
Studio: Kemco
Genre: RPG
Platform: Nintendo Switch
Monster Viator is the latest game from Kemco, well known for creating mobile-friendly RPGs and from the looks of it, it’s one of the best games they’ve released yet. The game follows a young boy called Culter who begins the game with amnesia and a mysterious ability to be able to communicate with monsters. It quickly becomes evident that this ability is something extremely rare and enables him to take on the prestigious role of becoming a monster tamer. Together with a growing collection of monster friends and a girl called Aira can Culter uncover the mysteries behind his lost past?
Monster Viator comes across as a fairly standard RPG, but despite this, it’s incredibly enjoyable to play – the colourful art, playful storyline and fun battle style make up for what could have otherwise been a rinse and repeat video game. At first glance, this game looks the same as any other JRPG out there but spend a bit of time with it and you’ll see that as simple as the game is, there’s a bit more to it than meets the eye. Firstly, both the music and visuals are well done – the visuals, in particular, make the world and characters bright and nice to look at. Character designs are limited to pixel graphics but even so, there’s enough to showcase their personalities well whether it’s the protagonist, jumping for joy at gaining a new team-mate or a bratty prince posturing at the heroes. Each monster too has its own distinct personality and goals for joining the protagonist, which makes them less like cute collectibles and more like characters in their own right. Villains in particular often come across more as comedic than real threats which does make the storyline much lighter in tone. It’s reminiscent of more old school JRPGs and makes the game fun and more relaxing to play than the more serious RPGs which are in the mainstream of late.
The other thing worth noting about this game is the battle system. While limited to only a four-person party (two of whom will usually always be taken up by the hero and Aira), there are many monsters available to collect allowing you to change up your party pretty easily. This does backfire in some circumstances however as by collecting all the monsters the game has on offer does invariably mean that some of them will never really get their chance in the spotlight. Still, it adds a nice bit of strategy to the gameplay as you can mix and match to best utilise type advantages. In addition, as well as equipping your party with various equipment, there are additional skill slots called ‘Carmina’ – these are little boosts that you can give to each party member which are found through exploration. It adds a nice extra layer of tactics to the battling which pays off the further in the game you get. It’s also worth noting that the AI for the autobattle is perhaps one of the most intelligent ones I’ve seen in a game yet – something which makes grinding sessions much more bearable. The AI actually uses your party’s full skills to buff, heal and attack efficiently and whilst it’s never going to match up to manual battle, it’s perfect for those random encounters you keep bumping into. Also worth noting that after a battle your party heals back up to full straight away meaning that you’re not constantly having to reach for healing items or rush back to the nearest town to rest up.
Exploration is clearly one of the big things this game tries to promote – the only way to find all the available Carmina, Monsters and Levels for your job classes is through investigating every area on the map. This does mean that many of these things could easily be missable, but for someone who loves wandering around worlds in their fantasy games, this offers a nice little incentive. The game never pushes you to do this and whilst multiple quests also appear in your journal that you can take up, none of them are compulsory outside of the main story and so they act as additional extras to take up as and when you want.
One of my complaints about the game however, would be the frequency of random encounters – often the bane of many older games it’s something very commonly found in Monster Viator. I can’t count the number of times I was trying to get through a dungeon swiftly and was constantly set upon by encounters every few steps. Whilst there are measures to help speed this along, such as the battle AI (and potentially a monster unlock which allows you to travel swifter through dungeons), it gets frustrating very fast. The game in general, gets grind-heavy very fast – travel a little too quickly onto the next area and you’ll fast realise how the monsters here are ten levels ahead of you and there’s nothing to do but… battle and level up until you’re able to match them. At the beginning of this game, this was more fun but once the story starts getting underway it starts to slow the pace when you just want to move onto the next part of the plot but instead must level your party first.
Monster Viator is a nostalgic look back at old school RPGs with its charming pixel art and simple storyline. Despite the plot’s simplicity however, there’s a lot of fun to be had here and plenty of collectability with regards to various creatures and items make this a game with a lot of mileage.
Monster Viator
A charming and nostalgic pixel JRPG with a lot to offer
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