The life of a monster is, in general, simple. You get up in the morning, stock up on magic tar, go home and wait for everything to start again. This is what Roy does, at least until he encounters a girl who accidentally ends up in the Underworld. Instead of eating her, Roy becomes her guardian and goes on an adventure to find her mother.
What follows is an adventure that speaks of humanity, often hidden behind layers of ugliness, and of a friendship that transcends the limits of space and time. Developed by to reciprocate and available March 2, 2023 for PC, Switch, and Xbox, Meg's Monster is a narrative adventure with a turn-based RPG feel.
To know all the details, continue reading ours. Meg's Monster Review.
Meg and her monster
The adventure, as we have already said, begins with the arrival of Meg to the world of monsters. He Inframundo It is a small place, nothing more than a very deep abyss populated by some deformed creatures, but it is still endowed with a culture and a government, which has made a peace agreement with humans: monsters will not climb the walls of the abyss and Humans will not try to eliminate those who live deep inside.
However, the underworld is also used as landfill by humans, which sometimes eliminate uncomfortable people and make them disappear into the abyss. Meg is one of them and she manages to survive, but she alone has no chance of finding her mother since she would be devoured immediately. Roy and his friend Golan, however, encounter him and discover that his cry is capable of triggering the apocalypse. What to do then? He finds a way to get her back to the surface with her mother without her crying.
This idea is the basis of the entire game and its combat system. Roy is a monster among monsters, huge and powerful. He has nothing to fear since no one can really harm him. Meg, however, is a sensitive child and immediately bonds with her brute, so seeing him get beaten while she defends him from her makes her cry and leads to Game Over.
Therefore, the idea behind the game is to have control an almost immortal character, who however must think of a small, weak girl with easy tears. In terms of gameplay, unfortunately everything is rendered in a very banal way. Meg has her own health bar and every attack Roy makes causes emotional damage to her. From a narrative point of view it works, but in practice Meg and Roy are a single entity and it is as if they have few life points, practically nullifying the idea of having control over such a powerful character.
Another basis of the game is the use of toys. As the plot progresses, five objects are unlocked, such as a soccer ball, crayons, and cards, which calm Meg or perform the healing function during the fight. Some also activate attack and defense bonuses, the only statistics in the game besides hit points. Its use, however, is truly basic, since the balance of the battles is always the same: after a couple of hits Meg is almost exhausted, you use an item, attack a couple of times and then repeat until victory. From start to finish, it's almost always like this.
Roy can also use increasing power attacks, spending points that are loaded in the turns in which we use the basic blow or other movements, such as defense or healing. Even in this case, however, it's a very trivial approach, as you simply have to charge up a couple of points and then use the most powerful move and then repeat.
The only element that makes the battles slightly different from each other is the presence of minigames, which mostly take the form of QTEs. These are always very simple actions and not too interesting from a purely recreational point of view, but they provide depth at a narrative level. We also point out that there are no random confrontations or secret battles, but rather each encounter is defined by the progression of the plot. In short, the RPG aspect of Meg's Monster is limited and quite repetitive: it is a shame that something more original and varied has not been created, such as the Undertale system (which is clearly the main source of inspiration).
A world of monsters and humans.
If there is little interest in the gameplay, at least Meg's Monster makes up for everything else. The adventure of the little girl and her guardian is Sweet, pleasant and in some fragments even emotional.. It is a training trip in which a small, defenseless creature manages to break through the exterior of a monster that until then had cared nothing more than itself.
Roy not only opens up to Meg, but also to the monsters he lived in isolation from. Together with him we meet the people of the Underworld, their fun government council led by four strange individuals whose history we will discover little by little. There Meg's Monster Plot It is broader than one might initially expect and when you think the story is over, you actually discover that we were only at the beginning.
Meg's Monster makes us fight against destiny and teaches us that the most important thing is the bond we create with others, no matter how ugly or bad they seem on the outside. in the period of It takes five or six hours to get to the end credits., we were fascinated by the characters created by Odencat.
Also graphic point of view A good job was done, especially for Roy, who reminds us that a few pixels are enough to express deep feelings. Meg's Monster is a small game, let's be clear, so don't expect dozens and dozens of areas, but what is present is well detailed, varied and useful to the plot, without a single second being too long: each area is small, sometimes. nothing more than a room, but that's all you need. There are some side events that can be ignored, but they are still relevant plot components that delve deeper into various characters, so we recommend playing all the events that are available to you.
In conclusion, we point out that the colonna sonora It may be the component that impressed us the least. The music and effects are adequate, but after playing nothing particularly impressed us. The game is also translated to Spanish.
Conclusions
Tested version Nintendo Switch digital delivery Nintendo eShop Price 14,79 € Holygamerz.com 8.0 Readers (2) 3.7 your voteMeg's Monster is a narrative adventure and should not be confused with a role-playing game. The battles are the least interesting part: although useful on a narrative level, the battles are always repeated identical to each other and the original idea, that is, controlling a very powerful monster, is immediately lost. That said, Meg's Monster should be played for plot and not pure gameplay: the story of the girl and Roy the monster is sweet, exciting, and a harbinger of important lessons.
PRO
- The plot is exciting.
- All the characters are interesting.
AGAINST
- The RPG part could have been more original.
- The idea of controlling a very powerful monster does not apply in the game.
