I picked up Monster Tale because I’ve been getting tremendously annoyed at Jesse flaunting his progress in Monster Hunter Portable 3rd. As the guy probably most responsible for getting me into the series, it tears me up to hear about his stories of Ice Barroths and Poison Royal Ludroths. I keep seeing all the fancy new equipment and armor dancing around in my head at night. I had to do something, anything, to tear in and bash up some monsters. I had to get my fix.

It turns out Monster Tale has absolutely nothing to do with Monster Hunter, but it’s still a really good game.

Monster Tale is a 2D platformer, specifically a Metroi…cast…roidio…vani… one of those games where all the areas are interconnected. It’s developed by DreamRift, a studio born from the Henry Hatsworth developers. It tells the story of Ellie, a young girl who finds a mysterious bracelet that transports her to the Monster World. She runs into a newly hatched monster that follows after her, and names him Chomp. She then journeys to find a way back home, though she’s obstructed by other kids who’ve come to the Monster World and taken over, and now refuse to return.

You play the game as Ellie, while Chomp operates like a familiar from Castlevania: Symphony of the Night and acts of his own accord most of the time. Ellie has short ranged melee attacks which can be executed with Y, and can fire projectiles from her bracelet with A (which consumes energy). With jumping set as B, this scheme may seem wonky to platforming aficionados, but you get used to it fairly quick. Ellie gains more abilities as she finds runes from statues (very much like in Metroid), like executing melee combo chains, ground pounding, firing more powerful bracelet blasts, and wall kicking. All of these are crucial to opening up additional areas, as well as giving Ellie more options when combat heats up.

Meanwhile, Chomp enjoys the game’s RPG-geared elements. Chomp can either be on the top screen or bottom screen. The bottom screen is his “rest area,” and the various items you pick up from beating enemies are sent here. Items include things like food, toys, books, and other gadgets, which each take Chomp a bit of time to consume or otherwise use. When items are “consumed” they give Chomp experience as well as stat boosts depending on what the item is. When Chomp is summoned to the top screen, he will automatically follow Ellie and attack enemies (which also grants experience). Chomp will also learn attacks which you can assign to L and R and use at will.

While on the top screen, Chomp’s energy gradually decreases, and will also decrease when you use his special attacks or when Chomp takes damage. You can send him back to the bottom screen to recharge, though if he gets knocked out he’ll just be sent back and become unresponsive until his energy recharges fully.

"Monster rave!"

As you might expect, Chomp levels up as he gains experience, and gaining levels will let Chomp learn new attacks and other assignable traits like stat boosts or elemental affinities. But making things much more interesting, leveling up Chomp also unlocks new forms for you to use. Each new form starts back at level 1 and has a different distribution of base stats. Forms are also elementally based in either fire, water, or earth (a common chain if you’ve played Pokémon). Leveling up these forms will let Chomp learn attacks and traits related to them, as well as unlock additional forms down the tree. What’s more, while Chomp starts with the “child tree” of forms, the game will also open teenage and adult forms as you progress, creating many more assist possibilities for Ellie.

You may want to play a little with each form and see what abilities they will learn. Leveling a form more, however, will let you master their abilities. Abilities that are mastered can be used with any form. You have to be careful, though, since each form caps at level 30. If there are still more forms down the chain yet to be unlocked when you hit 30, so far as I can tell it makes it extremely hard or even impossible to unlock them. I found this out the hard way.

To be honest, most of Chomp’s possibilities are fine since Ellie can kick a lot of butt in her own right. Once you learn the combo chain and upward bash, you’ll be juggling enemies in the air with painful blows, even after they’re defeated. This is key, since the longer you can keep bashing an enemy without it falling, the more money and items are likely to spill out of them. And really, juggling enemies is just a lot of fun, though it can leave you vulnerable to attack if you’re not careful.

As mentioned before, Monster Tale is designed with an open world in mind. The world is split into five kingdoms, each of which are split into two or three unique regions. Some of the areas are from the typical platformer environs, while others are pretty unique, such as a wind swept wheat field with large, toy windmills. Also, a monster dance club. While the game is an open world, there isn’t very much in the way of exploration. Every path leads to a new power up, which in turns leads you to the next power up, and your next destination is always marked on the map. Furthermore, the game has you backtracking quite a bit just to progress. Even when you’re waist deep in the adventure, you’ll find yourself continuing to traverse back and forth across areas near the game’s beginning.

Areas are also dotted with the typical save rooms, as well as rooms where you run into a shopkeeper character. He will offer items that increase Ellie’s health and attack damage and so forth, as well as items for Chomp to consume. This is helpful since many of Chomp’s forms have preference to specific items.

Monster Tale is also pretty strong in the audio department. The sound effects are fitting, and really add a sense of physicality to Ellie beating down enemies. The music is pretty catchy, and upbeat where it needs to be. The variety of different lands allows the game to offer a good mix of styles, but most are still suited to an action platformer. Monster Tale also features small bits of voice acting, which don’t come off quite as well. Ellie’s sound bites lack consistency. Sometimes she sounds like a young girl, while other times she sounds like a mature woman. The other kids are also pretty cliché in character and have quips that are pretty corny. Some of them still do have their charm though, like the nerdy kit who attacks and yells “Blast processing!”

I’ve gone on record numerous times saying that the only developers who can still make worthwhile platformers are those who were there during the arcade era. But I always give credit where it’s due, and DreamRift has made a very solid and very enjoyable game with Monster Tale. It’s a little rough in places, especially with world design and all the backtracking. It’s a little on the short side, but the mechanics are pretty spot on and the world is fun to experience nevertheless.

I’m pretty sure Monster Tale will fall into obscurity being released by a developer that’s not well known and coming out so close to the release of the Nintendo 3DS. Some have even called it the DS’s Shantae. But I will say one thing; I know a number of people who are presently still not too confident in picking up a 3DS with its selection of launch titles. If you’re one of those people, I think Monster Tale is a great choice for you. It’s definitely fun and a lot cheaper than jumping into new hardware. And if you do finally get a 3DS, the game still looks and plays pretty good on it.

This review is based on a copy of Monster Tale purchased by the reviewer.

Tags: action, blast processing, DreamRift, DS, Majesco, Monster Tale, nintendo ds, platformer, review

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 5th, 2011 at 11:00 am and is filed under Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.