Monster Crownis a sprawling adventure across a vast world filled with unique monsters, curious people, and extravagant cities. Players will find themselves traveling to every corner of this world to form a powerful team, and take on forces bent on accumulating power at any cost.
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There’s a lot toMonster Crown, from breeding systems to intricate, environmental puzzles. While the game gets a lot of its systems right,there are a few areas where it needs improvement. With so much going on in the world ofMonster Crown, it’s no surprise that the game could benefit from a few fixes.
10Clearer Signposting
It’s clear from the jump thatMonster Crownis styled after older Pokemon titles, with its pixelated aesthetic and locked isometric camera. Studio Aurum has also brought forward some of the more antiquatedmechanics from those classic titles, includingobscure pathfinding that makes it challenging to find the next story beat.
While this was accepted as a necessary part of the video game experience twenty years ago, it’s significantly more frustrating in the modern era.Clear signposting would make it easier for players to stay engagedwith a game through to the end.
9Bug Fixes
Monster Crownoffers gamersan alternative take on the Pokemon formulathat mixes up many of the Nintendo franchise’s mechanics to offer a notably different experience. Unfortunately, it also boasts a debilitating number of bugs that, in certain circumstances, can completely break the game.
The worst bugs are those that affect story progression or monster development. One particularly nasty bug causesa boss monster to essentially skip the player’s turn in battle if their monster attacks first. Targeting these game-breaking glitches is easily the biggest fixMonster Crownneeds at the moment.
8Cleaner, More Responsive UI
The user interfaces for many of Monster Crown’s systems are designed to look like the menus fromgames that came out over 20-years-ago, and in that regard, the game succeeds spectacularly. Unfortunately, this style of menu was left behind for a reason, and its functional failings are more of a nuisance than anything else.
The biggest issue with the UI is how unresponsive it feels, with a noticeable amount oflatency between the player’s input and any sort of result occurring on screen. Improving the UI’s responsiveness and ease of access would go a long way towards improving the user experience.
7More Detailed Quest Log
One of the most crucial tools in any RPG is the quest log. Players use this system to keep track of any quests they’ve completed, which quests are still outstanding, and the individual steps within each quest that may offer clues about where to go next.
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Monster Crown’s quest log woefully fails to meet these basic expectations, and itjust keeps one running check box for each step of the main quest that does little to actually guide players to their next objective. Adding a littlemore specificity and detail to the quest log would turn it into a useful resourcefor players, rather than just another tab to skip over in the pause menu.
6Easier Party Management
The Pokemon series has nailed party management in the past few games, allowing for Pokemon to be easily moved, either individually or in groups, between the active party and a storage box. Recently caught Pokemon can also be swapped into the party in place of an existing team member.
Monster Crownneeds to implement some of these features in order to make its party management more accessible.Different sprites for each monster, group movement, and a vertical party menuwould allow players to keep better track of their monsters.
5Add A Monster Comparison Mechanic
Monster Crownplaces a heavy emphasis on breeding throughout the game, encouraging the player to try different combinations to find powerful new monsters to train. Each monster has about five different forms, and each egg can hatch into a monster with different attacks and stats.
Monster Crownneeds to improve how players compare monsters;there’s currently no feature that lines two monsters up next to one another. Adding a monster comparison mechanic will make it easier for players to invest in the best monsters they have with greater ease.
4Fly From Anywhere
The Pokemon series has changed how fast travel works a few times over the course of the series, but as long as players were outside,they could fly from just about anywhere in the world.Monster Crownplaces a limit on this byrestricting players to only flying from designated places around the world.
Without this feature, players may feel like they’re being penalized for exploring far away from nearby towns. Havingthe ability to fly back to a town from any point in the world provides players the freedomthey need to search every corner of the world without having to worry about trekking all the way back to civilization.
3More (And Better) Tamer Battles
There are a number of battles with other tamers throughout the world ofMonster Crown, but not on nearly the same scale as other titles in the genre. Tamer battles are randomly found throughout the world, often in out-of-place locations, andnever feel quite as special because of this randomness.
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The only exception to this is the Chief Tamer battles, but even these don’t feel like much of an improvement.Building these characters up more and giving them some kind of unifying themewould go a long way toward making the tamer battles feel like a more desirable experience.
2Clear Breeding Expectations
Breeding is a huge part ofMonster Crown, and one of the most fun systems that the game throws at players.Any monster can be mixed with anotherto create something new and potentially more powerful than either of its parents.
What is a bit of a letdown is how much information players have going into the breeding process. The only thingsplayers know ahead of time are the baby’s attacks and what monster it will be. Seeing the baby’s type and stats in advance would make breeding a more targeted, lucrative process.
1Better Environmental Navigation
Moving through the world ofMonster Crowncan be a bit of a pain at times, both as a result of how the player character moves and how the environment is laid out.There’s very little precision to the character’s movementsthat often results in overshooting an intended destination.
There are also several special movements that function likethe Hidden Moves in Pokemon games, allowing the player to bypass specific obstacles. Unfortunately, they don’t utilize the monsters themselves, andrarely feel necessary for the game’s story.Including more creative uses for these abilities would do something to justify their inclusion.
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