[Disclosure: A free key was provided for the content of this preview]
Title: Monster Crown
Genre: RPG
Players: 1 (online PvP)
Developer: Studio Aurum
Publisher: Soedesco
Release date: (Early Access) July 31st, 2020
Content Rating: Red
Contains: Pronoun selection, anti-individualism themes, anti-capitalism themes
Despite the attention the developers have invested into Monster Crown, I simply couldn’t find it all that noteworthy. There’s nothing terribly wrong with the game, nothing that will enrage or that you’ll find significant objection to outside that of on principle. Then again, there is nothing particularly spectacular or all that engrossing either.
It’s hard to say who this game is targeting. By its description, you’d think it was going for the core gamer audience who is tired of bland politically shaped female characters. Then you play the game, and it feels more geared towards an audience that would probably want precisely that. Immediately upon starting the game, you’ll note two things—first, the inclusion of pronouns and second the lack of options in the character creator.
With the inclusion of pronouns, you’d assume the game has a lot of interactions with NPCs. An impression reinforced by the description insisting choices will matter throughout the game. In reality, what conversations you get typically are exposition dumps as you are rushed through the story. In the first town, the major issue was the local business owner boasts about keeping everyone poor for absolutely no reason other than “Bwa ha ha” evil capitalist.
This isn’t something you gradually uncover through investigation or talking to the various people of the town. Allowing you to form a complete picture of who this person is, how he has stayed in power, and what is precisely happening with the mine and his involvement. You just walk into town, talk to a person, and then the scene unfolds with you perplexed as to what is going on.
Further, the story itself makes no sense. The King himself wants the mine to be communal, but this guy has put only his name on the deed. Like you live in a Kingdom where the King is not only aware of the situation but has spoken on the issue. There is nothing clever to this scheme that circumvents the King or would even prevent the King from just tearing up the deed and ordering a proper one be made that is in accordance with his instructions.
Later I met a character named David, who seemed to know who I was. Followed by the BBEG, who went on a tirade that indicated she had an incredibly tragic backstory, one that propelled her to lose absolute faith in all humanity and the ideas of community. Driving her to view the only person she can rely on is herself and no one else… or she seriously needed to get laid.
I’m only partially joking.
Her exposition is careful not to present anything specific, but she rants and raves like a lunatic. David later will not provide any answers to what is going on other than to apologize for the situation. A situation where you are tortured with threats of death if David doesn’t spill who he is working for.
Given the option, I very much would have interrupted her rant to ask, “Okay, I have no idea what’s going on here. Can you explain this to me?” She, at the very least, seemed like the kind of person who would divulge her grudge against David and the three kingdoms.
What is worse is the entire game leading up until this moment proves her point about humans being selfish, and the only one you can rely on is yourself. Outside your mother and father, who were well fleshed out characters, nearly everyone has been passive to the suffering of others. That town that was being screwed out of their mine had to have you resolve the issue. Those criminals she said were weak and would do anything someone with money and more power told them to, did exactly that. No one wanted to challenge the monsters blocking paths or terrorizing regions. That’s reserved for you to do for everyone else.
The core gameplay does have potential. If the fights are made to last longer than 1-2 attacks on your part and the weakness system is made more apparent to the player, then the core experience could be fairly engaging. At present, fights are short and there is virtually no reason to use any other monster that you can capture other than your starter.
Only the first boss proved to be an exception to this. Nearly every other encounter that followed the enemies tend to take the initiative and wipe out your other monsters.
What this game needs is to figure out who their audience is going to be. The anti-political core consumer isn’t going to play a game with pronouns and poorly written anti-capitalistic antagonists. Twitter mobs would be more inclined towards that sort of content, but because the villain is an individualist female, they’re just going to view the game as problematic.
