Monark Review - Nintendo Switch
Monark’s story kicks off with the vast majority of students and staff trapped inside Shin Mikado Academy, they can’t leave, and large areas of the school are enveloped by a strange mist.
This unexplained mist induces madness in people who veer too close to it. This is where we are introduced to the main protagonist who is suffering amnesia due to being nearby the mist.
Luckily, you are found by another student, the school’s medical officer and your younger sister, Chiyo. Chiyo receives a strange phone call that transports you to the ‘other world’ where you’re attacked by some skeletal looking demons. Just as things seem pretty dire for our characters a friendly, bunny-like demon called Vanitas agrees to help you out and unlocks the main character’s power in a very similar manner to how the protagonists of the Persona series gain their powers.
You wipe the floor with the enemies are you’re returned to the Academy. Here, you meet the school’s Dean who tasks you with getting to the bottom of the mystery of the mist.
They’re quite a few different systems within Monark, but each section of the game usually plays out as follows: You enter a mist-filled area, solve a puzzle to open a locked door or progress further and then face a boss. This is, of course, a massive oversimplification but does sum up the gameplay loop pretty well.
While exploring the Mist you will come across fellow students being driven crazy by the mist. You’ll also be able to make and receive phone calls that will transport you into battle. As you reach the end of a section, you’ll come across a pile of mobile phones, interacting with them will trigger a boss fight. Once you beat the boss, the Mist from that area will dissipate and you’ll be able to progress further.
Staying in the Mist too long will result in madness, represented by the MAD meter. This will slowly rise while exploring mist-filled sections or while using certain actions during the battle known as authority attacks. At 100% you will pass out and end up back at the school’s nurse’s office, very annoying.
The battle system is one of Monark’s biggest strengths and is genuinely a lot of fun. battles take place over smallish board like maps which makes sense due to Monark’s subtle nods to the game chess. Each side moves their units and attack the other team in turns. First, you will move your characters into place and use your actions and then the enemy will move their units in a manner not too dissimilar to the Fire emblem series, sans the grid system.
Attacks are broken down into two main categories, Skills and Authorities. Skills are typically your character’s melee type attacks, and these cost a set amount of HP to use whereas Authority abilities can be thought of as magic attacks, buffs and debuffs which will fill your MAD meter as you use them.
If you use too many moves that fill a unit’s MAD meter to 100% your unit will be afflicted with Madness, which means your unit will attack both friend or foe indiscriminately and will die in three turns. If the main protagonist dies, it’s game over, so do be careful!
If your units are bundled around an enemy and one uses an ability, the rest will pile in with follow up assist attacks which feel really satisfying, however, having all your units bunched together leaves you open to enemy attacks that target more than one unit at a time. This risk/reward element is a nice addition and makes you carefully plan out all units positioning which is very rewarding when it pays off.
At the end of each battle, you noticed you receive no experience points, instead levelling up is all handled by a currency called Spirit. You are awarded Spirit from battles and also by dismantling items that enemies drop upon defeat. Each ability or attack you unlock for your character will level them up by one level. I would suggest dumping most of your points into the main protagonist at first, as I had a hard time with the first boss in the game and if the protagonist dies: GAME OVER.
Although Monark’s battle system is very good, I have a slight issue with some of the design choices. Enemy varieties, in particular, are pretty basic and repetitive besides the boss-type units. It would have been nice to have a little more visual distinction between units rather than endless skeletal humanoid types, I found this actually made some of them quite difficult to tell apart once they surrounded any of my characters with the only real visual cue being the type of weapon they wield, a very minor gripe, but this did happen to me more than once.
While on the subject of visuals, Monark looks perfectly fine on the Switch, however, it’s worth mentioning that Monark does sadly suffer from what I’ve come to refer to as ‘Switch Fuzz’, the image seems a little hazy and this is noticeable while docked and also in handheld play due to running at a slightly lower resolution. Sadly, I haven’t had a chance to check out gameplay on any other platforms, but Monark visuals do feel a little ‘soft’ on the Switch.
In terms of performance, Monark has had a steady framerate which seems to target 30fps, and I did not notice any drops, stuttering or crashes at all during my playthrough.
One last thing I should mention is the soundtrack, it’s pretty good overall but a little subdued, however, there are a few standout tracks, especially the music used for boss battles. Each boss theme features full vocals and really make the boss fights feel special and I found myself looking forward to seeing what type of track the next encounter would bring and was one of the highlights of the game for me.
Conclusion
Overall, Monark is a good game and all of its systems executed well, however, I did feel somewhat let down by the repetitive setting and slow-paced dialogue at times. Repetition was a bit of an overarching theme sadly, from the music to the enemy variety, however. the main story and character arcs will keep you hooked and wanting to find out more.
The inevitable comparisons drawn to the Persona series do not help. Throughout my playthrough, there were many moments where I wished I was playing a Persona game and sadly Monark is not that, however, it does scratch that Persona ‘Itch’ on occasion.
The Story is interesting enough and the characters are all varied, but I felt like something was missing which I can’t quite put my finger on. That said, I would recommend picking up Monark, it’s worth a try and if you like these dark, high school mystery type games then you’ll probably have a good time with Monark.
There’s a demo of Monark available on the eShop which will give you a good idea of what the game has to offer.
7
Nintendo Switch review code kindly provided by NIS America