![]() ![]() Having just played Persona 5, Persona 5 Strikers and Final Fantasy XV in the last two years, it was nice to have a game that was set entirely within a small space. Something I did enjoy about the experience though was the localised setting. “Monark could be a fun experience for JRPG fanatics.” This time sensitive element adds urgency to the game, which makes for some interesting, albeit stressful gameplay. Using items or taking visits to the infirmary can keep the percentage low. If it reaches 100%, you’ll be greeted with a game over. The game’s UI includes a Mad gauge which slowly ticks up as you explore areas engulfed by the mist. This mist sends students mad and as you explore the school halls, you encounter all sorts of panicked students worrying about what’s going to happen to them. The most unique part of Monark is the aforementioned Mist. This idea is cool in theory, but the slow and awkward movement makes it difficult to master. There is no grid a la Fire Emblem but rather, characters are free to run all over the battlefield. Combat wasn’t particularly intuitive and for the first few battles, I struggled to tell the difference between my fiend and the enemies I was fighting. ![]() The movement controls in and out of combat are slow and clunky, once again reminding me of games from the sixth generation of consoles. I’m not a proponent of games having to look amazing to be fun, but Monark falls short in the gameplay side of things too. This would have been okay if the rest of the game had been stellar. The in-game models reminded me of games that I used to play in the PlayStation 2 era. Unfortunately, that’s where my enjoyment of the game’s visuals stopped. In-game Screenshot “The movement controls in and out of combat are slow and clunky.” The character design and subsequent art were done by the artist so-bin, known for illustrating the Overlord light novel series in Japan. This art, along with the portraits that appear while the characters are talking are dynamic and gorgeous, even with the limited colour palette of reds, whites and blacks. These belong to students with a particularly strong sense of self and you must use clues in their character profiles to track them down. Another way to increase your stats is to look for alter ego crystals. Defeating fiends of the corresponding sin can also increase these stats and the higher aspects of your ego also allow you to control certain fiends. Your ego stats increase as you explore the academy and answer questions asked by other characters, with your answer corresponding to a certain sin. In-game Screenshot “Monark’s artwork immediately drew me in.” I was highest in gluttony and I’m not quite sure what that says about me but my character’s Imagigear (their armour) sure did look cool. These are based on the classic “seven deadly sins” and your percentages of each sin can vary depending on your answers. Like many JRPGs, the game begins with a quiz that will determine the protagonist’s stats, or ego in Monark and their starting fiend, a physical manifestation of their psyche. Your job is to fight off fiends and daemons to free the school and its students from the Mist. The protagonist – a student at the Academy – is part of a group who are able to enter the Otherworld. Monark takes place within Shin Mikado Academy, a high school that has been overtaken by a maddening mist, sealing it off from the outside world. While all these things are not uncommon in the JRPG genre, Persona 5 is one of the most recent titles to feature all these things and so it’s hard not to draw comparisons between the two. While I hate to immediately compare games, the similarities are obvious from the get-go – set in a high school and the player gets supernatural powers that are based on and manifested from their inner psyche, oh and of course the talking animal sidekick too. In-game Screenshot “These are based on the classic Seven Deadly Sins” It turns out, I was right and as I ventured into the game it came as no surprise to me when I found out that previous Shin Megami Tensei staff had worked on the title. When I first saw the trailer for Monark, the new JRPG developed by Lancarse, in 2021, I remember thinking to myself “hey, this looks cool, it gives me Persona 5 vibes”.
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