Monster Sanctuary & Forgotten World review: Grind-heavy experience with untapped potential

In the indie game scene, the monster-collecting genre is more present than ever. With games like Palworld, Temtem, and Coromon on the market, developers need to give all they have if they want to make a truly outstanding creature-collecting RPG.

This was my initial thought upon hearing of Monster Sanctuary when it first came to my attention in 2021. However, following the title closely and occasionally looking at the official screenshots on Steam, I never really got around to buying the title and have gone without playing it until the day I finally got my chance to try it for myself.

Upon booting up the game, I am greeted with a booming, triumphant anthem encouraging me to select the glowing “New Game” button even further. After picking and naming my character, Luke entered the world of monsters to discover the legends and mysteries of the new Forgotten World area. If only I knew what I was in for.

Forgotten World DLC: New additions

The new Forgotten World area (Image via Team17)

In terms of new additions, there is a surprising amount of New Game+ content to bring players back to the title. Two new difficulties, Permadeath and Bravery, have been added for those seeking a new challenge, as well as a randomizer to bring a bit of spice to their playthrough.

Ten new monsters, five of which are community-made, two new character outfits, 13 new items, and 78 new skills have also come with this expansion. For users interested in the game’s online battling scene, this will surely warrant another romp through the world of Sanctuary.

Pair this with the latest New Game+ content, and the experience is quite indistinguishable from its previous state for returning gamers.

However, the meat and potatoes of this content for newcomers is the new area added in this expansion: the namesake Forgotten World. It goes above and beyond in terms of its visuals compared to areas prior.

With bright colors, abstract flora, and giant mushrooms populating the region, the Forgotten World fits Monster Sanctuary’s fantasy theme.

As a newcomer to Monster Sanctuary following the release of the Forgotten World DLC, I did not notice this until I was looking into it, but the sprites for some monsters have also been redone. The sprites and animations for 17 monsters and the game’s antagonists, the Alchemists, have been updated.

My experiences with Monster Sanctuary

Monster Sanctuary post the Forgotten World release (Image via Team17)

I was given the opportunity to experience the Forgotten World update before it was publicly released on PC. I enthusiastically downloaded this game, completely oblivious to what I was in store for.

Of course, after hearing about the new content coming to the title, I was excited to sink my teeth into all the new modes and features this game now has.

However, I was met with immediate disappointment upon discovering that I could not jump right into the game’s Bravery difficulty. While this bummed me out at the time, looking back, I’m glad that Monster Sanctuary kept me from going in over my head with the hardest difficulty option.

Right away, I was enthralled with the game presenting its world before me. The title opens strong with a brief overview of the world and a showcase of a few monsters.

The Spectral familiar selection screen (Image via Team17)

Of course, in typically creature-collection fashion, I was prompted to select my starting creature, my spectral familiar. As everyone knows, the correct option is always the frog monster, so I made my choice and went on my quest through the world of Sanctuary.

For the first couple of hours of my playthrough, I was enthralled with the world and gameplay of Monster Sanctuary. Inspiration is taken from the classic Metroid and Castlevania titles, with areas gradually opening to gamers as they unlock more equipment and monster abilities.

I still remember how excited I got when I unlocked the ability to double jump. I also found out I could get help from my bird monster to glide to platforms.

The game’s main source of gameplay, like many other RPGs, is its battle system. At first, I was deeply invested in every battle as each turn required focus and strategy to reign victorious.

Of course, type and attack advantages are present, but Monster Sanctuary takes things a bit further by implementing combo bonuses based on how many hits an attack lands. Each spell and ability have a set amount of times they proc a hit which contributes to a combo.

These combos lead to powerful damage multipliers, which add an extra layer of strategy where I had two of my monsters dedicated to setting up large combos and one to execute a powerful attack at the end of my turn.

These combos are also increased by spells that provide support through buffs, healing, and shields, further adding to the feature’s utility.

Graphics

Monster Sanctuary’s title screen (Image via moi rai Games)

Monster Sanctuary features an inoffensive pixel-art style of graphics many players have sadly come to expect from the indie game scene.

While such an art style can inflict strong feelings of nostalgia to the Super Nintendo’s vast library, especially with RPGs like Chrono Trigger and Secrets of Mana, this style has been done to death in the genre resulting in a title that doesn’t really stand out at face value.

On Steam alone, there are over 1,400 different adventure RPGs with pixel graphics, meaning that games in this style need to stand out to attract an audience. Undertale, another indie adventure RPG with pixel graphics, stood out by having its unique gameplay of sparing or killing front and center in the game’s promotional trailers.

Lisa: The Painful is another lesser-known pixel-art RPG that gained a cult following due to its unique, story-rich, post-apocalyptic environment, dark humor, and unique battle system.

These titles do not have a strong focus on their graphics as the gameplay and story take center stage resulting in a groundbreaking experience for users seeking adventure and a plot with the fun gameplay being the icing on the cake.

To summarize my point, lots of these pixel art RPGs need a stronger draw to justify simplistic graphics. Sadly, Monster Sanctuary lacks this intricacy, which makes the title look a bit like a cheaply made mobile game in RPG maker.

It is positively basic but fails to stand out in an oversaturated market.

Graphics: Character design

The Sizzle Knight’s detailed sprite work in the game’s Monster Journal (Image via moi rai Games)

While the game’s visuals leave a lot to be desired, the same cannot be said for the designs of some of these monsters players will encounter in their journey. When creating a monster-collecting title, the designs of these creatures are the most critical part of the experience.

Thankfully, Monster Sanctuary delivers heavily on this front.

This is the part of the game where a lot of passion and love for gaming as a whole shines through. My personal favorites were the Worm monster, taking inspiration from the niche “Worms” franchise, as well as the Sizzle Knight, which I felt drew heavy inspiration from the beloved Solaire of Astora from the Dark Souls franchise due to his design and access to sun-esque abilities.

However, for every Sizzle Knight, there is a Blob. This enemy is an RPG staple, leaving many game developers to sadly fall into the pitfall of having countless identical designs for the same enemy.

Sadly, moi rai Games falls into this trap by having six total “blob” enemies, with the only variety being the King Blob, a giant blob with a crown, and the Tar Blob, a recently added community-created monster.

The library section of Monster Sanctuary’s hub area (Image via moi rai Games)

The human characters in the game also feel a bit boring at times, with their attire mainly consisting of standard fantasy mage attire, with the only difference between each character being the color of their clothing.

The only character I can remember off the top of my head is Will because he sports the most unique addition to his wardrobe, a pair of glasses.

However, one thing I sincerely appreciated was the difference in gamer attire that was available. After realizing that I could change my avatar’s uniform, I fell in love with the treasure hunter costume and kept it on throughout the rest of my adventure.

Music and sound design

The soundtrack of Monster Sanctuary goes from relatively average to grating as my playthrough continued. This can be attributed to my feelings towards the title’s gameplay and combat as it shifted heavily throughout my time.

The sound effects of specific attacks sometimes feel a bit too realistic, leaving many of the sounds feeling out of place in a pixel fantasy world.

The clangs of metal in the fiery stabs attack is one I’ve let out a few chuckles about during my playthrough as it always, without fail, makes the same metal-on-metal impact sound regardless of the target. The same punching sound effect is repeated far too often to be taken seriously.

Monster Sanctuary’s new content: The Forgotten World

The new Forgotten World area (Image via moi rai Games)

It took me a surprising amount of time to begin exploring this new area. I could only access the Forgotten World 25 hours into my playthrough.

However, once I was there, I immediately began exploring every corner of this new area. The design of the monsters of this world fit right in with the site’s theme, with lots of the latest designs featuring dinosaurs and mushroom people.

However, there is one monster that stuck out: The Bard.

Upon reaching the entrance to the Forgotten World, gamers come face to face with a new monster. When locking eyes with them, the sharply-dressed crow takes off into the seemingly bottomless chasm that leads to the new world.

Without spoiling the area’s story, hijinks ensue as players chase The Bard further through the Forgotten World.

The player’s avatar alongside one of the new monster designs (Image via moi rai Games)

Users need help from some late-game monsters before they can even access this new area. That is if they can even find the entrance to the Forgotten World.

This world is relatively detached from the rest of the story, so it is never explained how to reach it. I had to watch a YouTube walkthrough on how to find it.

Gameplay downsides

Monster Sanctuary’s battle menu (Image via moi rai Games)

Monster Sanctuary’s combat constantly walks the line between being intuitive and antiquated. The beauty of turn-based combat is its simplicity.

Selecting a move and watching a counter tick down has been a staple in the RPG genre since the Nintendo Entertainment System. However, games have begun to move away from this style.

While titles like Final Fantasy have been notable with turn-based combat, the franchise moved away from it long ago. Even the Pokemon games are experimenting with ways to mitigate this form of gameplay with their recent Legends: Arceus title.

For better or worse, indie games have been keeping this style of gameplay very much alive.

Nevertheless, the previously mentioned indie games, Undertale and Lisa, circumvent this now ancient form of gameplay by implementing more engaging features within their combat. Undertale has a real-time dodging mechanic, and Lisa features an input-based combat system reminiscent of classic fighting games with special attacks requiring special inputs.

Monster Sanctuary’s combat is slow and grindy, with each animation taking seconds that add up to conclude the AI’s turn. This combat is slowed down even more in later areas of the game, where wild monsters begin to stack supporting buffs, shields, and healing on each other, slowing down the experience even more and becoming infuriating.

Out of curiosity, I timed a few of my wild battles in one of my many grind sessions during my playthrough. I found that, on average, mid-to-late game wild battles usually took 3 minutes to complete.

While this may not sound like a big deal, these times quickly begin to add up in long sessions, resulting in only gaining two to three levels per hour of constant encounters.

The pre-battle menu (Image via moi rai Games)

Most notably, I vividly recall a session around the 18-hour mark of my playthrough where I grinded Targoat monsters at the Ice Mountain area of the game. These monsters were level 32, which was a little higher than my party at the time.

I needed to grind to get past one of the biggest difficulty spikes in the game, the battle with Keeper Dragoon Eric.

This nefarious grind session took me around an hour and fifty minutes before I stopped. I binged a Netflix series during this session and got through two whole episodes before I figured the grind would be good enough.

I attempted the battle again and got stomped worse than I did before I grinded. This is a direct side effect of the game’s combat system.

Nobody wants to sit through their opponent stacking up combos of attack and defense boosting buffs only to have their party one-shotted by a spell when it’s all over. These drastic spikes in difficulty are present constantly in the title, where grinding can only fix so much.

The tedious process of buff-stacking and heal-spamming in a casual playthrough significantly drags the game’s pacing by the ankle, making the title a slog to play.

When it comes to crafting an engaging and fun experience, pacing is key, and, sadly, Monster Sanctuary doesn’t quite make it in this regard. A combat system that requires players to stack buffs and combos to get through something as simple as a wild creature encounter gets old quickly regardless of its originality.

Something I’m disappointed that moi rai Games did not implement is a feature to instantly defeat weaker opponents. This was a feature in RPGs as old as Earthbound for the Super Nintendo.

The most recent game I have played that had a feature similar to this is Persona 5. This implies that big developers acknowledge the tedium of grindy gameplay.

Ways to improve

Given the quality of life changes in this recent content update, the developers honestly want their titles to be enjoyable. It would be a lot simpler to plop something out on the Steam market and forget about it for an easy cash grab, but this team really does care about their game, which is very commendable from a consumer’s standpoint.

A future update to streamline the experience could make the game much more enjoyable. Games like the South Park series of RPGs have a system to make their combat a bit easier to swallow that I feel could work very nicely with this game.

In the South Park titles, certain overworld interactions like throwing projectiles affect enemies when they are engaged in battle.

Many monsters’ explore abilities are slashes with weapons or full-body tackles. Using these field abilities on an enemy before the battle could deplete a portion of their health and stun them for a turn.

The angle at which an enemy is approached could also give players an advantage of a free turn in combat. Of course, these are just suggestions to help the casual audience.

Final thoughts

Monster Sanctuary: Forgotten World is an honest attempt to recreate the exploration and creature-collecting games of old. Sadly, this game falls just short of being a pleasurable experience as it is held back by abundant difficulty spikes, tedious grinding, and a combat system that constantly slows the game’s pacing to a grinding halt.

While some monster designs are charming, others are renditions of RPG cliches like slimes, giant worms, and goblins. The human characters users encounter in their playthrough are utterly forgettable, with the leading antagonistic group of the story feeling more like Team Rocket in masks.

With the Forgotten World update coming with a bevy of quality of life updates, the team has shown an interest in continuously improving this title. It has the potential to be something special with a little more consideration to the casual audience rather than bringing attention to the game’s niche online arena.

Hopefully, moi rai Games continues to update Monster Sanctuary.