Monster Sanctuary: A Wonderful Mash-Up of Metroid and Pokemon

Lets start with the important stuff, shall we? The gameplay of  Monster Sanctuary is as smooth as silk. It feels great to control your on-screen character as you jump through the pixel-based environments of the game. I felt as if I could freely and easily navigate the over-world of the game. Next, lets talk about the Monster Taming and Monster Battles systems. You control a team of 3 monsters versus 3 enemy monsters or Champion Monster throughout the game. This plays out similarly to the Triple Battles of few Pokemon games where your 3 Monsters are incentivized to find synergy between your selected crew of 6. Will you have a more even spread of monsters? All-out attack? Turtle and stall your way to victory? The choices and combinations are endless with the 101 different monsters you can collect, which brings me to my next point and truly my only gripe with the game.

Collecting new and different monsters is limited only to you defeating the monster and it dropping an egg. This is a percentage chance drop that is increased by preforming well in battle via the Combo System that the game utilizes. The more damage/heals you do to the enemy/yourself builds the combo meter and applies a percent damage buff to the next attack by your next monster. By scoring big combos and finishing fights quickly, you can earn a better score up to 5 Stars.When entering new areas, it can be difficult to find the right combinations to maximize your score initially if you want or need a new monster, it can take a while. This is a small gripe in the grand scheme of things, though. Simply by either taking it head on and grinding it out, or coming back later and quickly farming though the weaker monsters one-by-one. 9/10

The cute, pixel-based graphics of Monster Sanctuary are some of the smoothest animated sprites I've seen in a long while. The amount of life and bounce these adorable piles of digitized color have give every creature and character their own little spark. The backgrounds of the games various areas are visually appealing and do a great job of setting the mood for each different zone.I can appreciate all of the hard work that the art team over at Mo Rai Games has done; the monsters all have their own adorable/cool quirks about them, the main characters have looks that suit their personalities well to easily identify them and the color palette chosen in every area is distinct enough so you never have to guess where you are. Truly a well designed and implemented art direction. 8/10

To say that music is a vital part of any video game experience is an understatement, in my opinion. There have been many fantastic games that have an ill-fitting soundtrack that completely alters the experience that you have. This is not to say, however, that Monster Sanctuary's soundtrack is bad or even poorly made. It is a very solid and safe soundtrack. The music is very clearly molded to each area and is pleasing to listen to, but I find it to be a bit uninspired. The grasslands area has very typical grassland/calm lands-esque music. The ice area music sounds like it belongs in an ice area, as well as the cave music, temple music and town music. They all SOUND like the belong there and that is fine, but the music did not captivate me or psyche me up or make me feel anything more than just "Yeah, this sound goes here." Its very strictly 'average' and nothing about it blows me away. I only wished Monster Sanctuary took some risk with the sound design and music to really make it stand out, but playing it safe is okay so long as it doesn't take away from the overall experience, which it does not in this case. 5/10

Monster Sanctuary is a great new spin on two old beloved formulas that work surprisingly well together. With a fun and engaging gameplay system with tons of depth and customization, charming art design, and solid music soundtrack, this is definitely a game you should pick up and play. If you are a fan of taming cute, yet powerful, beast, metroid-like exploration and progression, and finding the best combinations of beast to beat the opposition - this game is for you. You can find it on Steam or on the Nintendo Switch Store for only $19.99 for some solid fun.