Without being too harshly critical, this game feels like something created with a vision, and then a genuine limitation on knowing how to do it, or at least convey the idea to the player.

As an example, the game starts with a long wordy opening about the main character finding a haunted doll at a curio shop, a number of scary things happening and then needing to return it.

That's the introduction, so I expected to be in the thick of it, with all sorts of terrifying imagery and such... but then I realized as I was playing that the introduction was actually just... the plot. I started and went to the antique store, got the doll, brought it home and then was randomly teleported to terrifying areas inexplicably with a sense of fear but there wasn't actually anything happening?

Sprites would pop onto the screen either accompanied by an evil laugh or giggle or just a roaring sound. Oftentimes, you just needed to wait 2-3 seconds and they would disappear in order to progress.

It was the most surreal experience I've had in gaming so in that it was worth the $0.99 I paid for it but I would never recommend this to another living being.

Overall, Monster Sanctuary is an interesting title with a fairly basic overview that steadily gets more complex the more you look under the hood. At its core, it's a monster catching game with some platforming elements (side-scrolling, reminds me of a more cartoony Symphony of the Night or Valkyrie Profile in terms of controls) as there's no real way to 'run' for more distance (although the walking speed is perfectly acceptable) but you do eventually unlock a double-jump to access other areas.

But where it starts to get interesting are the monsters themselves. Each monster has innate strengths and weaknesses to different types of damage (physical, fire, ice, nature, wind, poison, etc. There are quite a few) similar to Pokemon, but the S/W are dependent upon the monster.

Beyond that, each monster, as it levels, has 3-4 skill trees that you put points into in order to get passive and active skills to help in battle. The part that gets fun, especially for those who have a mind for this, is the synergy between all of these different monsters.

There are about 10 different buffs and debuts, and there's one monster that gains a lot of passive stats by having buffs on it, but no way to buff itself. Another monster is a buff machine, applying multiple to your first, and then your third (as you fight with a team of 3) might have auras that allow buffs to stack multiple times, so your primary monster turns from middling to incredibly powerful by synergizing them in this way.

In addition, each of these monsters have different abilities in the overworld, leading you to need to collect many types to deal with platforming with flying up to obstacles, or breaking down walls, or even riding a monster to run over a crumbling bridge.

The story is present but it's...not engaging. It's about on-par with a Pokemon story in having you as a young, aspiring Keeper (Trainer) trying to find new monsters and help people out while dealing with an evil team before eventually facing the boss. It's serviceable to move the plot forward but you can pretty safely skip all of it and not miss much.

tl;dr: Metroidvania meets monster raising, with turn-based combat and intensive synergistic skill trees with a forgettable plot line.

I'm genuinely unsure what to think about this game, and honestly most of it comes down to the fact that it felt... flat. The visuals were perfectly fine, the characters were interesting, the way one story grew into the next was great and everything had the hallmarks of being this really powerful story.

But when I got to the ending and the reveal it felt...flat. I think part of it is that when you come into finding out who the big bad is, getting there is just a series of almost kind of silly investigative events that felt that they happened because they needed to happen, rather than organically.

All the same it's still a fantastic game and worth a play. Highly recommend.

What a cool game.

I have no experience with the Webcomic that this is based from, and am strictly writing it from what I've experienced in the game itself. Overall 40-50 hours I'd wager, depending on how much you go looking for side content.

There are a few factors that make this game really interesting and fun. For the battle system, it runs on a Charge-Turn Battle (kinda like FFX) so you can see the turn order. You have up to four (you learn more as you level up) basic attacks which can do some damage, inflict status, defend, etc. These things build what's called 'Overcharge' which is basically temporary mana.

So by careful use of balancing your basic attacks and your more advanced moves, you can get through most dungeons using very little actual mana at all.

The other thing, battle-wise is the fact that for most of the game, you need to be tactically-minded. For example, you can see attacks enemies are using, and there could be one incoming that will deal more damage than you have HP, so making sure any Taunts, damage reduction buffs, attack power debuffs, etc are present to ensure you can get through the battles.

Near the end of the game, once you start unlocking the legendary weapons the difficulty falls off a bit because you can kind of steamroll most things (and you can also play on a lower difficulty if you'd like).

Storywise, without spoilers, it's interesting enough. Most of the fun comes from seeing the characters interact and talk during battles, downtime and so forth.

If you like turn-based games with a high degree of thinking and strategy, this is your game. Gameplay is top-notch.