You've probably never wondered what reviewing over a hundred games a year does to a person, but I'll tell you anyway. After five years to a decade, thoughts that were once devoted to anything besides game critique have disappeared almost entirely. By the time someone finally decides they want to quit, it's already too late. The instant they turn around, ready to face the world they ignored for so long, all that's there is an enormous void. Rather than wade through the inky blankness in search of a purpose, or at the very least, someone friendly who isn't going to use them as a content mill, they retreat back to the comfort of reviewing a dozen lifetimes worth of games. If you know anybody besides me that's like this, please for the love of whatever's righteous, extend a caring hand.
Anyway, enough about my woes, let's get onto discussing the real victim. Monster Sanctuary does pretty much everything necessary to keep players engaged with its mechanics. It's got a deep monster-raising system, battles where success depends heavily on party synergy. There's also quite a lot of Metroidvania-styled exploration. Indeed, the monsters you obtain carry with them some traversal power or the means to flip the many flavors of switches found throughout the world. An average playthrough could take 25 to 30 hours, and that's without digging into gobs of optional content. New Game+ features and support for online duels round out what should be a very lovely package. I had a really good time playing this... until I didn't.
I want to make it clear that at no point did the game ever fail me. I wasn't completely blindsided by a cheap boss or got stuck in a wall. There just happened to be a point when I became fed up with everything and quit. Explaining why is going to require a few steps, so strap in for more nonsense. For starters, the art-direction is very pleasant, inviting, and not really for my tastes. The friends and foes I encountered all acted as if they were designed by a committee, hardly ever straying from their defining characteristic. It never felt as if there was anything to latch onto. I didn't care about the stories, but never to the extent that their entire presence deserved scorn. More often than not, I just found myself nodding politely and hoping that they didn't try to get in my way. Since this a monster-battler RPG, those hopes were often dashed, and that's fair.
When I first began to disengage with Monster Sanctuary was after listening to the default battle theme one time too many. The soundtrack is generally quite good; at least during exploration. However, this is a genre often defined by a single theme that's heard for a majority of the playtime. It didn't take long for me to tire of something that I couldn't listen to, so the decision was made to mute the BGM and catch up on my "Other RPG soundtrack" playlist. Even though this isn't something I like doing, it helped make the experience quite a bit more palatable. I was able to focus on enjoying everything else about the game... for a time.
Acquiring new monsters is as simple as collecting rare drops. Depending on the player's performance, the possibility of rares will increase, which includes the eggs from which monsters will hatch. Players are then encouraged to name their new friend. As long as the generous character limit allowed, I named all of my recruits after shmups. Since almost every battle is 3v3, winners and losers are determined by who has the better party synergy. Leveling is of course, essential to acquiring all of the necessary skills. The boost in stats provided by food and equipment are also really helpful. Really though, the most important aspect of a party is how well each member works with one another. Grinding until one's party can squish everything without giving tactics or builds a single thought is not going to happen, ever.
Basically, a monster's value is in their ability to sustain, eliminate, or spread ailments. Sustain means staying alive, or more pointedly, outliving the opposition. You'll want to seek out creatures that can heal, create shields, or spread buffs that minimize damage. If two sustain parties go at it, then the difference-maker is often going to be a special skill like Age, which increases one's stats for every round of battle they survive. Naturally, eliminate is the inverse, relying on monsters that can dish out extreme damage in a short time. This is where good equipment can turn an already powerful monster into something truly frightening. With the right setup, a Ucan crab will cut through adversity like scissors.
At first, I thought the Metroidvania elements were a cute touch that give Monster Sanctuary its identity. Over time however, I started to question why this game had to be so huge. It's not like, Hollow Knight-sized or anything, but all the biomes feel like they were stretched out to reach some arbitrary size. Each biome adds one or two new traversal abilities to play around with, and there are numerous opportunities to return to previous locations to grab stuff that couldn't be reached in the past. The controls are also quite good. Almost good enough that if the Monster Keeper wanted to just grab a sword or a whip and handle things on their own, then I'd probably still be in for a decent time.
It's just not the kind of environment that's conducive to the review process. With every passing biome, my tolerance for the rigors of battling monsters and grabbing treasure waned. After finding a monster party that worked for me, there just wasn't enough of an incentive to spend so much time on what was starting to become filler. Over a dozen hours were spent watching my avatar jump around, flip switches, and engage in battles that played out exactly the same. I'd command my dragons (and lizardman) to drown the enemy in ailments. Some battles took two turns, others took three. After a couple instances of "No wait, THIS is the final dungeon!", I was beyond ready for the credits to roll. Maybe this feeling wouldn't have occurred if I allowed myself more time with other games. That's just the way I roll though; always on a deadline even when I haven't had one since 2019.
I forget exactly when I stopped having fun, but it must've been at least several hours before I quit. In what had to have been the third-to-the-last encounter, I was pitted against a Sustain-party. My typical combination of buffs and ailments fell apart the instant the enemy could pile on the debuffs much faster than I could remove them. Also, at least one of the enemies, likely all of them, had the Age skill. As I tried to cleave through their gobs of shielding - which replenished practically the instant their next turn began - their parameters were increasing at a rate my party could never hope to overcome. It was during this time that the Terranigma OST started playing, and it got me thinking "Damn. Why am I still here?"
Invaluably, Monster Sanctuary has a multitude of features to alleviate unnecessary grinding. Bringing a freshly hatched monster up to speed with the rest of the veterans doesn't take any time at all. Building a new party is usually something to look forward to; a chance to put accumulated knowledge to work. My issue however was that I was so burned out from going through the motions that I became unreachable. Investing even more time into a game I only ever seemed to halfheartedly enjoy just to get a +1 to the clear count would just make me miserable.
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