Master of the Monster Lair
Nov. 13th, 2010 03:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chuckroI recently finished Master of the Monster Lair another example from the "under $10 and looks neat" pile. It's half-sim, half dungeon crawler, in which you build a dungeon with your magic shovel and then go back the next day to kill the monsters which have populated it. It’s fun, and cute in a goofy Atlus-translated sort of way.
The cuteness may be a problem for some players, mind you, as the monsters are freakin’ adorable. The fourth floor even features otter monsters. (Jethrien doesn’t like me playing this game, if I have to kill otters.) There’s also a selection of cute slimes, jester ghosts, catgirl monsters, and eventually penguin warriors.
Besides that, though, it’s a very “workaday” sort of game, more a time-killer than an epic quest or any particular challenge. During each game day, you buy rooms from the furniture store, dig out hallways in your dungeon and place the rooms, fight monsters that have come to live in the rooms that are already there, then come home and eat a meal (made up of monster random-drops; this is what raises your stats rather than gaining levels), then go to bed. Next day, get up and do the same thing. Occasionally one of the shopkeepers or the mayor will request a task of you, such as retrieving a special item or killing a boss monster (which appear after you get enough of a certain room on each floor).
There’s no particular danger or sense of urgency to the game—nothing seems to be gained by completing it in more or fewer days; and there’s no penalty for dying, you just end up back at your dungeon entrance with 1 HP. No reduction in stats, money or anything. You can go right back to where you were and re-challenge that same enemy. (Which you’ll probably end up doing with some bosses—especially the one who you basically have to whittle down 1 HP at a time, hoping you score a critical hit.) Once you get multiple party members, one of them getting knocked out means they’re out until the end of the battle, at which point they revive with 1 HP. There’s never really a sense of danger.
The game runs very heavily on random drops--each enemy has a collection of items it can leave behind, usually a weapon, several pieces of armor, and an item or food. As noted, the monsters in your dungeon refresh each day. It seems like the RNG is set up such that each new day, you're more likely to get certain items. I've noticed this both with monsters that have a lot of drops (I'll get three swords in a row from monsters with five possible drops, then the next day get three helmets) or those that have only a few (Waterslimes drop either a ring or food, and some days I'll get six rings and no food, and other days I'll get no rings and six food items). I wish I had better control over this (or at least a better sense of how it worked), because when you get to a new floor, you want to get the new equipment as fast as possible to make taking out the new enemies easier; but after you have a full set, you only want food, because that's what slowly-but-surely increases your stats.
If you were particularly anal, you could redesign the earlier floors after you complete them so you only have to fight monsters that drop things you want. Floor 4, which is the first “water” floor, is a good example of a floor you’ll be coming back to, because the Dry Waterslime that drops there is the best food item for most of the rest of the game, until Dry Venomslimes become available. (You apparently make it into pasta. I don’t want to know. But it’s very good for your Constitution score.) Once I realized this, I started splitting up floors into “likely to drop equipment” and “likely to drop food” areas.
Thing is, through all of this, the battle system is nothing special and a little slow, and the game is incredibly repetitive. If you get bored in the first hour of the game, there’s no reason to continue.
The plot is simple, mostly filler with a lot of “very Japanese” silly bits. The magic store owner is obsessed with food, and more interested in new foods than in getting you new magic. The weapon shop owner is very shy and may have a crush on you. The mayor is much more concerned about attracting tourists than any danger associated with the dungeon. I doubt it’ll spawn a massive fandom, but it amused me. (And apparently the main character make an appearance in My World, My Way, which I’d like to play at some point.)
Overall, if you know what you’re getting into, it’s fairly mindless fun. If you get bogged down by the system early on, there isn’t really enough to pull you back. It’s a cotton candy game, sweet and fluffy but ultimately lacking much substance.
The cuteness may be a problem for some players, mind you, as the monsters are freakin’ adorable. The fourth floor even features otter monsters. (Jethrien doesn’t like me playing this game, if I have to kill otters.) There’s also a selection of cute slimes, jester ghosts, catgirl monsters, and eventually penguin warriors.
Besides that, though, it’s a very “workaday” sort of game, more a time-killer than an epic quest or any particular challenge. During each game day, you buy rooms from the furniture store, dig out hallways in your dungeon and place the rooms, fight monsters that have come to live in the rooms that are already there, then come home and eat a meal (made up of monster random-drops; this is what raises your stats rather than gaining levels), then go to bed. Next day, get up and do the same thing. Occasionally one of the shopkeepers or the mayor will request a task of you, such as retrieving a special item or killing a boss monster (which appear after you get enough of a certain room on each floor).
There’s no particular danger or sense of urgency to the game—nothing seems to be gained by completing it in more or fewer days; and there’s no penalty for dying, you just end up back at your dungeon entrance with 1 HP. No reduction in stats, money or anything. You can go right back to where you were and re-challenge that same enemy. (Which you’ll probably end up doing with some bosses—especially the one who you basically have to whittle down 1 HP at a time, hoping you score a critical hit.) Once you get multiple party members, one of them getting knocked out means they’re out until the end of the battle, at which point they revive with 1 HP. There’s never really a sense of danger.
The game runs very heavily on random drops--each enemy has a collection of items it can leave behind, usually a weapon, several pieces of armor, and an item or food. As noted, the monsters in your dungeon refresh each day. It seems like the RNG is set up such that each new day, you're more likely to get certain items. I've noticed this both with monsters that have a lot of drops (I'll get three swords in a row from monsters with five possible drops, then the next day get three helmets) or those that have only a few (Waterslimes drop either a ring or food, and some days I'll get six rings and no food, and other days I'll get no rings and six food items). I wish I had better control over this (or at least a better sense of how it worked), because when you get to a new floor, you want to get the new equipment as fast as possible to make taking out the new enemies easier; but after you have a full set, you only want food, because that's what slowly-but-surely increases your stats.
If you were particularly anal, you could redesign the earlier floors after you complete them so you only have to fight monsters that drop things you want. Floor 4, which is the first “water” floor, is a good example of a floor you’ll be coming back to, because the Dry Waterslime that drops there is the best food item for most of the rest of the game, until Dry Venomslimes become available. (You apparently make it into pasta. I don’t want to know. But it’s very good for your Constitution score.) Once I realized this, I started splitting up floors into “likely to drop equipment” and “likely to drop food” areas.
Thing is, through all of this, the battle system is nothing special and a little slow, and the game is incredibly repetitive. If you get bored in the first hour of the game, there’s no reason to continue.
The plot is simple, mostly filler with a lot of “very Japanese” silly bits. The magic store owner is obsessed with food, and more interested in new foods than in getting you new magic. The weapon shop owner is very shy and may have a crush on you. The mayor is much more concerned about attracting tourists than any danger associated with the dungeon. I doubt it’ll spawn a massive fandom, but it amused me. (And apparently the main character make an appearance in My World, My Way, which I’d like to play at some point.)
Overall, if you know what you’re getting into, it’s fairly mindless fun. If you get bogged down by the system early on, there isn’t really enough to pull you back. It’s a cotton candy game, sweet and fluffy but ultimately lacking much substance.
