nitrosmob, on 28 May 2014 - 11:32 AM, said:
My Monster Monpiece first impressions
I am currently kind of enjoying Monster Monpiece as a pick up and play card/board game thing. It's a little repetitive (as are most Compile Heart games) but is enjoyable enough. I'll go ahead and give pros/cons on the game.
Pros
- Easy to understand game play after finishing the main tutorials up to the rubbing tutorial (was confusing at first and i'll give a basic explanation below of the flow of game play)
- Nice character graphics as well as card art graphics
- Simple easy controls for playing in the battle and navigating the menus
- Card gameplay seems very simple but has a bit more depth to it
Cons
- Graphics in battle are a bit too basic. There is 4 sets of roles in battle (Melee, Ranged, Healer, Support) and every character looks the same on the battlefield and it's only seperated by their roles. I think rarer characters in the S/SS rate look like their character on the battlefield.
- I'll be honest and say I hate the rubbing in the game. This is the only way to evolve characters and it is recommended as most forms as the evolve get better stats and sometimes special skills. It is very awkward to hold the vita when using the rubbing action and is a good way to hurt your fingers haha. Also the game never quite tells you how to do all the actions (I figured out stroking and poking but couldn't figure out pinching or the other action). Also the noises and feeling during this section are interesting....but yeah...enough on that.
- The game play might be a little too simple. You just play a card and it marches forward till it meets an enemy card and if they reach the castle at the end they do 1 damage and disappear. I'll go into more details below.
- The interface itself feels jumbled. I found it a huge pain to update my deck as you had to go to a card you didn't want, remove it and then choose from the other side and click that empty slot to put it in your deck (This is made easier when you sort and the empty slots are at the end). You can also touch from your reserve to main deck but it never feels easy though this does replace the card you drag over.
- The music gets very repetitive and isn't that good imho. It's basic background fodder most of the time, but the one for the card place seems to annoy me a good amount and it's one of places you spend a bunch of time on.
- Story is a typical weak seeming person supposedly having a high potential and they're trying to bring it out of her. Cliche but easy enough to understand.
Basic overview of Gameplay
You build a deck I believe maximum 40 cards with a minimum or 25 cards I believe (I could be wrong on this). This consists of Monster Girls and they usually cost from 2+ mana. You start with a castle of so much health and your opponents also have a castle of so much health. Each time a character attacks a castle it loses 1 health and the character goes away. Once someone has a 0 health castle you lose the battle.
Each card has a role in battle (Melee, Ranged, Healer and Support). Melee attacks what's in front of them every turn and usually have more HP/Damage. Ranged attacks have an indicator for how far they can attack (usually 2-3 spaces) and attack in that range in front of them every turn. Healer heal the character in front of them, and their uses is the amount of int they have. Support give damage to the character in front of them and also have int to how many times they can give their support (I could be wrong about the int use but it seems to go down everytime the supports/heals go off).
Every turn you can play 1 card and usually get 3 mana a turn. This can be changed a bit by looking at the aura of your cards. There is a combo type thing for playing cards of the same aura in a row. The 2nd card with the same aura played in a row gives 1 extra MP. The 3rd Card with the same aura played in a row gives 3 extra MP, and 1 attack and a health permanently for the cards on your side of the battlefield. The counter resets after this. These are important for extra mana and buffs to your cards.
Each card also has a type (bird, dragon, etc....) and if one of these types is on the board you can also play the same type on this card and you get a fusion. This helps increase a monsters stats and the monsters inherit skills during fusion as well. This is an alternative move to playing a card on the board.
Every turn all your characters except for the one played this turn move forward 1 space on the grid. There are character special abilities such as one where when you place a character it also moves that turn. When moving forward the characters attack and use their abilities (buffing/healing).
You can also pass in a turn to save mana such as for a more expensive character. Once your turn ends it's the opponents and they play cards, the characters move and attack and such. It's pretty basic but fun enough overall.
Final Opinion
I feel this game is worth probably around 20 dollars. It's a decent pick up and play type game and it should be fun becoming the strongest and collecting and evolving the monster girls. The strategies are decent once you figure them out and it can be a great game for multiplayer, as the singleplayer AI so far seems OK but not great. It's a low budget type game and feels like it, but it's also not a full priced game. The rubbing gimmick is annoying but necessary, but the battles themselves are decent fun. I will beat it although I will probably not collect every card, but i'll see once I beat the game. It reminds me of that old game MTG Battlegrounds. Also I like the monster girl card graphics and like seeing the changes as they level up. Got to rub them all Monster Monpiece!!!
