Do you know that feeling you get when you finally get to know someone whose interests match yours, and you start getting to know each other better? …And then you realize there’s more to him/her; things on the inside, that really disappoint you? This is exactly how I felt when playing Monster Tale.

To put it simply, the game is about a little girl, Ellie, who somehow ended up in the Monster World (the same one from Henry Hatsworth). She meets a weird creature that hatches out of an egg and follows her, who she decides to nickname him Chomp. Apparently, other humans (kids, obviously) have also stumbled into the world and are abusing the monsters for their own selfish needs. It’s up to Ellie and her new companion to free the monsters, and find Chomp’s missing mother.

Possible spoilers: Now while that sounds nice (if not a little cliche) the plot itself has a few problems. Other than the kids encountered being almost completely forgotten about until the ending of the game, they never did anything about Chomp’s mother. At first, she’d been described as fearsome and powerful, and a lot of the plot involved actually finding her, she was never there. You just get a message that they were reunited in the ending.
If that’s not a problem, then there’s the fact that you have a little 10 year-old (at most) who can actually kill dragons, destroy robots and beat everything else with just her purse. Nope, she has that oh-so-magical bracelet, but she attacks with her purse instead. Even the “energy blast” attacks (which look almost EXACTLY like the X Buster in Mega Man X – even the charging looks the same!) aren’t exactly that threatening.

This game’s sprites do look well-animated, but a bit weird some other times. With the way they flow and move, you can tell some people who worked on Henry Hatsworth also had a hand in this. The music was barely memorable or just “there”. It’s almost as if they were trying too hard just to make them sound good, instead of actually fitting the situation they’re in.

As for the game mechanics… Well, I’ll give them some credit: They did “borrow” a lot of great ideas, and everything else seems to work out correctly… if the game didn’t have so many problems, that render these points moot. The game is oh so FILLED with backtracking, it would probably only be 3 hours long otherwise. Here’s an example: Leave the world you’re in (you can’t warp), walk across the hub to another world (“thankfully” the game tells you exactly where to go) and go all the way to one end and use your useless power-up to unlock a new path. In most cases, it’s just one or two screens with a power-up so you can repeat that cycle. What’s worse is that most of those power-ups are just improved versions of ones you already have. Do I really need an extra level for my charge shot? Or an aerial version of an attack I already have? (twice!) It doesn’t stop there. Half of those power-ups are either impractical or overpowered, so you won’t be making use of that “diversity”.

Chomp. The one thing that makes this game different… and the game can be beaten just as easily (if not faster, too) without making use of him at all. Chomp can level up and get new forms/abilities/attacks, and… that’s it. You can only map two attacks at once – they’re, again, either overpowered or near useless. They’ve even got elements, but in the long run, that doesn’t matter. The damage bonus/reduction is barely worth noticing, and elemental enemies are just your average enemies but they have more health. In the last world, you’ll probably spend too much time just taking care of enemies. Their drops (which Chomp can use to get exp or unlock new forms) are barely worth the risk, and they’re EVERYWHERE.

Speaking of the difficulty, this game is very, very easy. You don’t have to explore or anything – the map tells you where to go. Enemies bothering you? Just go past ‘em – while leaving out potential experience for Chomp, but he’s not that useful. The bosses are so predictable and laughable they’re barely worth mentioning. You might lose once against a certain boss (due to its clues being a bit misleading at first) but once you get the pattern, you can take care of anything without a care. You can avoid buying improvements for Ellie, or leveling up forms for Chomp, but that only makes the game redundantly longer than it should be.

There’s really little to no replayability. Yes, you can spend some time to unlock forms for Chomp, but you have to keep in mind that some are actually missable, and there’s no New Game+ of some sort. In other words, you’re potentially screwed if you didn’t know not to overlevel/overuse certain forms in advance. I’ve played the game for about 7 hours and unlocked almost everything.

I seriously can’t think of happy thoughts when I think of this game. It just tears me up on the inside to know that Ellie alone can overshadow everything Chomp has to offer. Not to mention the game is WAY too short for anyone to enjoy it, or make use of the content. I wouldn’t mind a sequel if they change… just about everything. Let’s start by making the monster the playable character and dump the Metroidvania-based “exploration” with ~~Mega Man~~ Ellie. Perhaps they can stop ripping off other games while they’re at it, hm?

What I think: Rent the game, at best, if you want to try it out. It won’t last more than a few days, I guarantee you that. You can check out Henry Hatsworth instead – it’s also short, but at least it’s fun, challenging and original.