Monster Guardians. Monster Sanctuary review

A mix of creature collecting, combat and platforming.

The game is announced for platforms: PlayStation 4, Linux, Nintendo Switch, Windows, Xbox One, Mac OS.

In the reserve, special people – guardians, coexist with monsters and tame them. But lately something strange has been happening. The number of special giant monsters that pose a greater threat has increased.

The gameplay is a mixture of collecting creatures, battles between them and a kind of platforming.

At the beginning, we need to choose something like a totem beast – our main monster, which is passed down from generation to generation in the family of our hero. The animals differ in appearance, parameters, skills and ultimate ability.

Well, then we are sent to explore the world. The first test will be getting into the hub fortress through the guardian path (name of location). Here we will be taught the basics of the game and here we will collect our first monsters.

The world is a single space divided into rooms. Some of them are simpler, and some contain secrets, jump quests or secret passages, and solving some puzzles is necessary for further progress in the plot.

There are teleports for quickly moving around locations.

In the rooms, as a rule, opponents are waiting for us and this is the main part of the game.

We jump on the grazing monster and the battle begins. Our fighters (with the possibility of replacement) are fielded against the enemy.

It’s interesting that if you jump so as not to touch someone else’s monster, then the battle will not start and this way you can avoid uninteresting battles.

In battle there is a classic exchange of blows and skills. Each monster has a specific set of skills and uses them according to our choice.

There is, again, a classic system www.cupcake-bingo-casino.co.uk of elements with interconnected bonuses and weaknesses. A water creature extinguishes a fire creature well, and so on.

There is also an interesting system for collecting combo points. They accumulate as our heroes progress and take into account how effectively their skills are used. The more these points, the more damage each next blow will cause, so it makes sense to collect them and put the fighter with the highest damage at the end of the action queue

Sometimes there will be special giant opponents. These are monsters with special attacks, very thick and that can make several moves. To improve your rating and receive additional rewards, you can fight with giants who have already been defeated during the game in a special location – the guardian tower.

When the battle is over, rewards are given out. They drop out randomly and depend quite heavily on the rating shown in the match. For each battle, points are awarded, the amount of which depends on how we played. The more stars, the greater the likelihood of getting rare loot – an item or a monster egg.

Quite often, pieces of equipment drop out that we can equip to the monster in the appropriate slots. You can improve your gear in the Guardian Fortress from the blacksmith for gold and corresponding resources, which are also given as rewards.

In the item equipment window, you can see detailed stats of the fighter and, if necessary, adjust them with items.

You can feed the animals. The effects of the last three meals are retained, this way you can also slightly adjust the fighter’s stats.

Each of our creatures, among other things, has an active ultimate ability that is used outside of battles. Someone can throw our hero when he jumps, someone breaks invisible walls, and so on.

Each creature has a fairly unique set of active and passive skills that can be upgraded as they level up.

A special area is the monster tower. This small location contains a lot of activities that become available as the guardian’s rank increases (to grow, you need to kill more giants). Here you can take part in PVP, fight waves of enemies or fight with already defeated bosses. Perhaps there is something else – we haven’t been able to jump to the very top of this tower yet.

Let’s look at the pros and cons of the game and summarize.

+ Nice pixel graphics.

+ Excellent music and sound accompaniment. I especially liked the varied and stylish soundtracks inherent in the locations.

+ Quite a lot of types of monsters and, accordingly, styles of play.

+ A lot of loot, materials for improving equipment, useful consumables.

+ Interesting monster battles. Good giant bosses.

+ It’s interesting to explore locations in search of secrets and rewards.

+ Lots of activities in the Guardian Tower.

+ Good Russian text localization.

THINGS THAT CAN BE BOTH A PLUS AND A MINUS:

+- The platform part sometimes (rarely) suffers from pixel hunting. And it’s simply not clear – it’s either you’re missing by a pixel or you’re basically unable to climb somewhere yet. This doesn’t make me happy, but in principle this is a classic theme, so I don’t list it as a pure minus.

– You cannot crossbreed monsters to obtain unique hybrids or perform any kind of evolution, as happens in similar games. So you can safely turn in all the extra eggs you get in the Guardian Fortress for rewards.

– Sometimes it gets boring and it’s quite monotonous jumping between rooms.

– There is practically no point in returning to the “old” locations, since the monsters remain the same weak level as they were originally.

Quite an interesting representative of the “collect them all” genre, with its pros and cons.

PS: I probably didn’t cover all the aspects, I might have missed something. I will be glad to add/correct the review or answer questions along the way in the comments.