Needs to Go Back in the Oven
Monster Tale's big hook is that it is a mash-up of adventure platforming and pet-raising simulation—in other words, it's Metroid meets Pokémon (as Richard Naik fittingly noted in his review on Gamecritics). Genre blends are a funny breed. I imagine their inception usually begins with a thought like "Wouldn't it be cool if we mixed X with Y?", and the variables are filled by a Mad Libs style brainstorm or by drawing randomly out of a hat. It sounds like a fun way of creating new ideas. Wouldn't it be cool if we mixed pinball with real-time strategy (Odama), or how about arcade action with role-playing elements (The Legend of Zelda)? The hybrid offspring could be a bastard mutt or a completely fresh pedigree. Which one depends not only on how well each individual component is executed, but on how those components interact with each other to create new gameplay. While it may seem easy to generate novel concepts by using this approach, it is also a risk because the developer has to follow through on multiple gameplay mechanics and make them work together. Unfortunately, this task proved to be too much for DreamRift.
The game begins when a young girl named Ellie finds a magic wristband that teleports her to a mysterious land of monsters. On arrival she stumbles upon an egg that hatches into a cute and cuddly monster whom she names "Chomp". Soon she discovers that the land has been taken over by the Kid Kings, a group of children who rule over various regions by enslaving the monsters. It's up to Ellie and her new pal Chomp to free the monsters and find a way for her to return home.
The player controls Ellie on the DS's top screen, where the main action takes place. On the bottom screen is Chomp's home base: the Pet Sanctuary. At any time Ellie can summon Chomp up to the top screen to help out in combat or occasionally remove obstacles. Ellie can let Chomp wander and fight enemies freely, or command him to perform various special moves. Chomp has a stamina bar that depletes when he uses a special ability or when he takes damage. Ellie can send Chomp back to the Pet Sanctuary to recover stamina, eat food, and use items. This seamless pet help is a genuinely intriguing and innovative idea. However, great ideas need equally great execution, and DreamRift fell short on this effort.
As a point of reference, consider the original Metroid. It was a game where the number of power-ups was fairly limited, but each one significantly changed how the player approached the gameplay. For example, it was easier to kill enemies with the wave beam since it penetrated walls, but the ice beam let the player freeze baddies and use them as platforms, making previously difficult traversal sections easier. Furthermore, the player was not required to get many of the power-ups in order complete the game—not even the ice beam! This made for interesting gameplay choices.
In contrast, Monster Tale offers a smorgasbord of power-ups, but most of them are completely superfluous. As Chomp battles and eats food, he earns experience points and can evolve into different forms, each with its own unique skill. Disappointingly, I found many of these abilities to be pointless or redundant in combat. For example, there are at least three forms that allow Chomp to shoot a spread of projectiles, each with slight variations such as bouncing off walls or homing in on enemies. While these differences sound legitimate, in practice the forms are all more or less equally effective. For the most part I used the same two abilities throughout the entire game because almost nothing I obtained afterward seemed as useful.
Ellie herself gets a regular dose of upgrades, but the only real purpose the vast majority of them serve is to give access to new areas. For example, I never found good cause to use the "Super Wave" ability, which lets Ellie fire a continuous stream of shots—much less the "Air Super Wave", which lets her do the Super Wave while in the air. It doesn't help that there are doors secured by very contrived locking mechanisms that can only be opened by a specific ability. I got the clear impression that her upgrades were designed more for unlocking these doors than for actual combat.
This obvious gating highlighted the fact that the game's level design is far too linear. Fans of Metroid may recall that the player could defeat the two main bosses, Kraid and Ridley, in any order before completing the game. There were also countless side paths and loops, almost every one of which gave some sort of useful reward such as a precious missile expansion. These design characteristics provided a lot of replay value and motivation to explore.
Unfortunately, there is never any opportunity in Monster Tale to deviate from the current goal. The game requires the player to defeat all of the Kid Kings and acquire the power-ups in one and only one order. There is not much motivation to seek alternate routes, either, as there are very few side paths and the hidden rewards are sparse. These issues are exacerbated by the large amount of backtracking that is required.
Despite all of the problems I had with Monster Tale, it might have been much more successful if it wasn't so incredibly easy. As it stands, the game is a straightforward, bland affair with a lot of meaningless complexities that aren't justified by the challenges presented. The original idea of combining adventure platforming with a pet-raising simulation had tons of promise, as it seemed like those two genres could mix very well together. It is too bad that DreamRift never capitalized on that potential.
Rating: 4 out of 10.
Disclosures: This game was obtained via retail store and reviewed on the 3DS. Approximately 11 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode (completed 1 time).
Update: July 17, 2011 - This review was published on Gamecritics.com through their community user review process.
