Was Monster Sanctuary Worth It?

There are a lot of games out there vying for your attention. Which of them are worth playing, and which ones are a good value for your money? Today we’ll be answering the question “Was Monster Sanctuary Worth It?”

What does it do well?

It’s a metroidvania platformer combined with monster catching and battling. If I had to liken it to another game, I would say that it’s closest to Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow. Instead of using souls from defeated enemies for new movement abilities, you earn upgrades through quests and from collecting monsters.

All the monsters are in the base game. There’s no need to trade with other players or anything. You can complete your “pokedex”, no problem.

Every monster in the game is useful. You don’t have to dump your early game critters because they aren’t scaling well. Granted, some monsters are better than others, but no single monster species is unusable.

Some early monsters even get the ability to evolve later, adding to their appeal. What’s done especially well is that monsters and their evolutions aren’t strict upgrades, but more like side options. To put it in Pokemon terms, Monster Sanctuary evolution is like going from Slowbro to Slowking instead of Magikarp to Gyarados.

What could it do better?

The minimap needs some extra detail or TLC. I also wish there was a way to keep areas permanently open after beating the champion monster of the area. The switch puzzles in the Underworld were pretty annoying anyway, but revisiting the area is groan inducing.

Backtracking through other areas isn’t a lot better. For example, switches at the lower end of a room near the teleporter in Stronghold Dungeon prevent you from descending through the room, so you have to take an alternate route.

Some of the monster exploration abilities aren’t explained well (or at all).

Short rant incoming.

For example, I didn’t know that riding a monster would allow me to travel faster over collapsing terrain.

How would I have known? The text for the mount ability literally just says “Player can ride the monster”.

On my first playthrough, I was locked out of the Magma Chamber until I accessed it through a back route, which sucks when I think about the monsters I missed out on using early. I had a monster with the right ability, but I didn’t know to use it.

Earlier in the game, I had gotten double-jump boots, and I assumed that I’d probably earn some fast run/sprinting shoes later. I had already obtained an item that evoked Metroid’s Varia Suit: the Warm Underwear, which allowed me to access cold areas. It seemed like the next upgrade was something like Super Metroid‘s Speed Booster or A Link to the Past‘s Pegasus Boots.

Honestly, I don’t feel like the game did a good job of telegraphing this to me.

I found a visual glitch that occurs when you have Spinner as your active monster. Keep an eye out for it when the video for this article goes live.

You can carry around as many monsters as you like, which makes teambuilding on the fly pretty easy. However, once you start to get a couple pages of monsters it gets tedious to find certain ones. I can’t tell you how many times I accidentally overlooked a monster. You can drop some of your monsters at the farm, but there’s no benefit to doing so.

I’ve also seen complaints regarding saving teams. When swapping back and forth between teams, you might want to make sure that your monster’s equipment is accounted for.

The difficulty spikes are a bit uneven, and in some case, entirely unexpected. Without spoiling anything, there are some points in the game where it’s a big wakeup call. I enjoyed the challenge but it did feel a bit uneven.

Is it fun?

I enjoy it but I can see how the battle system might be difficult for some players. If this puts you off, the devs are adding an easy mode (and a hard mode) soon.

As for the platforming, some sections are a bit annoying, but it wasn’t ever to the point that I had to stop and come back.

Value?

If you read The Aggregate: Monster Sanctuary, then you know that I sunk about a hundred hours into the game before shelving it. I’ll probably replay it after the big patch that adds New Game+ and some balance changes.

If you’re a fan of monster catching games, then you know how it seems like some games just hate to give you the full experience. Monster Sanctuary wins a lot of points with me for having all the content straight up in the game. No bullshit, no trading, no DLC, everything is just right there in the base game. Even Digimon Cyber Sleuth didn’t do this.

Monster Sanctuary goes for 19.99. Hell, it’s free if you have Xbox Game Pass.

Here’s some perspective. I was hard on SteamWorld Quest, which is another indie RPG, but that game had the balls to charge $5.00 for comparatively less content. Monster Sanctuary could have probably gotten away with charging a bit more than $20 just based on the nostalgia bait aesthetic and the unique premise.

I grabbed this game on its initial release offering on the Switch, for only 17.99, so I guess I got extra value out of it.

Was Monster Sanctuary Worth It?

Despite my laundry list of complaints, I like this game. I think that Monster Sanctuary was worth it.

Pros:

• All monsters are available
• All monsters are useful
• The game rewards you for mastering the mechanics
• Eventual New Game + mode
• Fresh concept

Cons:

• The map could use some TLC to make exploring/backtracking better
• Many fun monsters are gated behind postgame/lategame (granted, this will be mitigated by the ng+ patch)
• Some exploration abilities aren’t immediately apparent/useful
• No way to sort monsters, and it does become cumbersome once you have a lot of them

Other:

Some of the monster designs are top notch, and I really like the ones that are an homage to other games. I won’t spoil any of them, but some of them are super obvious once you encounter them.

Still on the fence? Check out this extremely early demo of the game on Newgrounds. The game has progressed a lot since this release, but it’ll give you an idea of what to expect.

Looking for more?

We’d love to see your thoughts in the comments below, or feel free to join us on the official Aggregator Reviews Discord! We want to build a community, and we’re looking for members, content creators, and moderators.

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The Aggregate: Monster Sanctuary, an infodump for this game