7/17/2023 0 Comments Monark video gameI can tell that you wouldn’t enjoy this game if you can’t handle lengthy visual-novel style cutscenes. Monark is an extremely plot-heavy game, to the point where I’d say it’s better to play this title for the plot and not necessarily its gameplay, which I’ll get more into later. Instead, I’d say Monark stands tall as its own new IP. The antagonists of the game are genuinely scary.Īlthough both The Caligula Effect and Monark look similar and although they both take place in school environments, Monark is its own game with its own battle and gameplay systems, and is neither plot-related or gameplay-related to The Caligula Effect. The character portraits in the cutscenes are illustrated well, even if the 3D models aren’t the best. Most of the major characters have many facial expressions as well depending on the situation. The character designs of Monark were done by Oguchi-san, who did the character artwork on both of the previous The Caligula Effect titles, and the character portraits are very well-made. The game’s presentation looks very similar to that of the The Caligula Effect 2 and it is clear that the game has developers who have worked on both projects. In this particular private school there is a separate building for each grade. For instance, in contrast to four-year secondary school in the West, in Japan secondary school is only three years in length. This game was developed in Japan, so of course it is respectful to Japanese culture.Įxploring the school felt like going on an exchange trip and you can learn a lot about the Japanese school system from playing the game. I enjoyed observing the architecture of the school buildings, from libraries to school club buildings, and it certainly felt eerie exploring a school surrounded by mist. And just as in chess, if you lose your king you immediately lose! The characters’ forms in battle are really unique and each character is based off of a chess piece, such as the protagonist who turns into a king chess piece. The art design is really up there, with characters having interesting models in battles that are very symbolic. The game’s graphics are not technically impressive however, the graphics are not where the strengths of Monark lie. The game contains dozens’ of hours worth of voiced content. This is a huge plus because the narrative of the game relies significantly on its characters. With older games, sometimes publishers would not voice all of its English dialogue, but in Monark every line of dialogue is guaranteed to be voiced in English with the exception of the generic NPCs you can talk to around the school. I played through the game with the English voice acting and all of the voiced dialogue was very professionally done. You can choose to play the game with either English or Japanese voice acting. The 3D character models in the background, however, aren’t too detailed. The cutscenes are done in a visual-novel style, with beautifully illustrated character portraits on-screen as they voice their lines. The premise I provided is very simple, but there are a lot of interesting plot twists and the plot is heavily character-focused. You team up with other students and the faculty to remove the mist and to eventually escape the school. The mist prevents the students from escaping and students who inhale the mist seemingly go mad. There’s a strange mist surrounding the school that is also seeping into the school’s buildings, such as its library, the first and second-year buildings, and the school club building used for gym activities. Your character wakes up with amnesia and you need to learn about other students in the school as well as its faculty members. You play as a protagonist you name, who is a student in a Japanese private school named Shin Mikado Academy. To summarize my experience playing through the game, Monark is a very unique turn-based RPG with an enthralling story and an amazing amount detail to its characters. I’ll explain game elements present later in the game, but I won’t spoil its associated narrative. Any screenshots shown herein will be non-spoiler in nature and will be from the first few hours of gameplay. I will only provide a brief synopsis of the first hour of the game’s story and characters. I won’t spoil any of the game’s plot in this review.
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