Monster Sanctuary

This is one of my favorite games to date and my biggest issue with it is that I started to play it way past the point online pvp was a thing lol Partial joke aside, as many other reviews have said, if you're looking for a chill pokemon clone, this is not the game for you! This game is built on the core of strategic teambuilding that thrives when you begin trying to minmax your builds. You will struggle immensely if you just throw a team together mindlessly and can still struggle even when trying to make things work if you don't fully understand what works good with what. On one hand, this means you will not be able to make a team entirely of monsters you like visually. On the other, I usually have more issue with looking at the skill tree of every new monster I get and being like "wow! that looks like it could be so cool to use in its proper team comp, its a real shame it doesnt fit into my current team, but i want to try it some day" than looking at a monster and just thinking "man, i really like that one but ill never be able to use it." I think that's a really cool "issue" to be having and it has led me to replay this game several times over the years just to try out different things, and every time I've had a ton of fun with it (I have another 300 hours or so on my switch for the record, i only finally bought this on the pc when my switch started to get slow enough that the platforming was frustrating where it shouldn't have been) There also is several bonus options for new games unlocked after completing your first playthrough, like a randomizer and various nuzlocke rules split across several options, which makes replaying the game to try those other things you may have thought looked neat along the way feel less repetitive and can be combined to create some challenge runs (such as permadeath) if you really wanted It's also worth noting that while it is hidden away in the settings, you can change the difficulty at any time in your playthrough! I usually use this to turn the difficult up to master once my team gets strong enough that fights become easy and boring, but you can absolutely turn it down if you find yourself struggling for a bit as well until you either find a monster that fits your team better or start to understand the workings of your team better and then put it back up to whatever you had it at before after with no consequences TLDR: Not all monsters are good in combination with each other, but all monsters can be very good when built around correctly. This game likely will be difficult, but you can turn the difficulty down/back up whenever and the difficulty is what makes the teambuilding so fun/makes it feel really good when you do start getting something good going Outside of the teambuilding aspect, I cant say the game is particularly special anywhere, but definitely its not bad either. The only thing I think I genuinely have some level of problem with is the combat ranking system. It just has never felt good/like it made much sense. But at the same time I've never had enough issue with it to where it made getting drops (such as eggs) difficult, so I don't actually mind it outside of post game when I go back to try and get 6 stars on all the bosses, only to give up and stick with 5 for most of them since I just can't figure out what it wants me to do better. There is a story here, but it's nothing special And personally im not a huge fan of the game being a platformer/the puzzle aspects of it. But I wouldn't say theres anything actually wrong with any of the platforming/puzzles (perhaps that if youre used to either thing theyd just be unremarkable and easy), they just aren't things I enjoy too much, I'd much rather just get on with tinkering with and testing my team more. Being able to use your monsters abilities to move around and solve these puzzles is a fun touch to the whole thing, though All in all, if you're looking for a casual creature collector, go find a different game. If you're someone like me who loves numbers and minmaxing and extensive skill trees and all that, absolutely give this game a try, its incredible at giving you so many different options to play around with to try and find the very best combos you can use at any and every point in your journey through it (though of course, the end is where you can do the craziest stuff, and thats where i can loop back to the start of this and say i wish i found it so much sooner when online pvp was still an active thing since without it there isnt much to reach for once you've completed the story