Monark review – a slightly unconventional JRPG

There are games that you just recognize from the first trailer and the first screenshots that you WANT to play. And paradoxically, I’m not talking about Horizon: Forbidden West, which you’ve probably all been waiting for and finally waited for last week. Maybe I’m a little off topic, so for me the February dream was a completely different matter.

I’m talking about Monark, which was created by FuRyu, among other things. A team that you will find a bunch of talented people in and that you know mostly from the Shin Megami Tensei series. I have no idea which side the decision came from, but they ended up creating another JRPG set in a school environment. At first glance, you’re sure it’s been here a million times (well, maybe I’m exaggerating a bit with that figure), but Monark seemed a little dreadful and gloomy to me on first impressions. More than we are used to in most JRPGs.

• Platform: PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Switch (peer review) and PC (Steam)
• Publication date: February 25, 2022 (February 22, 2022 on PC, Japan on October 14, 2021)
• Producer: Lankars, Furyu
• Distribution: Nippon Ichi / NIS America Software
• Genre: japanese role playing game
• Czech location: Not
• Multiplayer: Not
• Data to download: 6.9 GB
• Game time: 70+ hours
• Availability: 12+
• Sales version: digital
• Price: 1,599 CZK

Predictable stereotype?

I won’t drag it out unnecessarily, so let’s get to the story. You wake up in Shin Mikado High School and “as usual” realize you don’t know anything. Amnesia is quite common among the main characters, so as a player you will deal with it on your own and go explore the academy that you have been going to for a long time (otherwise how to explain the uniform you wear). However, rather radical changes took place at the school, not connected either with a change in the teaching staff or with an improvement in the menu in the dining room. A mysterious fog has penetrated the school buildings, which quite slowly drives everyone who gets into it. With the help of your little sister, whom you obviously don’t know at all, and student council president Nozomi, you get to one of the safe floors.

But there is no way out of the school campus, and you will find yourself in another dimension called Another World in a panic attack. You meet Vanita for the first time. This plush pet looks a bit intimidating because it’s basically a powerful demon and it will give you powers to fight people who must have something to do with what’s going on at school.

They sin everywhere

We’re in the story now, and Monark is pouring out a bunch of text about how we should behave in this JRPG, how to fight, how to use the phone, so you’re surprised there’s no instruction manual for the toilets in the hallway. Enough, but reduced humor. The power that Vanitas gave you made you a pact bearer / pact holder. Over time, you will find that it is these carriers who are responsible for transforming the school into its current form. There are seven of them in total, and as you can guess, their beliefs correspond to the seven deadly sins, which are slightly more here than in Dante’s hell (or Dante’s hell, if you like). Your stats, your strength depends on your ego, and it just consists of the seven deadly sins, and thanks to that, you can be a Monarch. I admit that it can seem a little confusing, and the first few hours of the game are also pretty devoid of content, which should attract a certain gaffe. In short, however, there are seven other people in the academy who have these abilities, and you have to put them on the bar.

Your characteristics, your strength depends on your ego, and these are just the seven deadly sins.

Every Pactbearer has three reasons why he does this, which you must break. You’ll only find them in the fog, so you’ll have to venture into dangerous territory and risk your own mental anguish, here in the form of a Madness/Insanity meter. In the fog, you will meet many other students, some of them suffering from even a few, and others almost on the verge of collapse. You can find them writhing on the floor or banging their heads against the wall, which in turn reinforces the original idea that Monark is a horror game.

No smartphone or shot

From the very beginning, Monark has paid great attention to smartphones. The phone here works as a game menu and through it you can also get into the Other World. The way it happens is nice, you just take a call from an unknown but certain number. But in the fog, it’s also worth hurrying, as each new foggy area causes the Call of Death. You don’t have to answer this call, but once you do, you’re in for a really uphill battle that you have no chance of winning in the beginning. On the other hand, if you leave a call, the driver will “ring” until the end of the survey, and all the other students and teachers caught in the fog will go crazy and try to kill you. There is only one way to avoid this. Find a place on the floor of the building where there are other smartphones, accept a challenge to them, defeat the demon and, finally, break its magic crystal. If you fail, you will wake up in the morgue.

From the very beginning, Monark has paid great attention to smartphones.

Biting the fights, Monark has a pretty interesting and functional tactical system. Each character can move a well-defined distance and then, in turn, use an ability. Of course, you must take into account that the distance varies from one fighter to another and that abilities have different range and effect. Therefore, you will have to choose your moves very carefully, because each special attack will cost you health, and if not, it will increase your insanity percentage. And going crazy is just crazy, because then you lash out at your friends. The advantage is that all allies within range will join you in the attack. Enemies will counter, but only the main attacker. Surviving every battle requires either repetition or proper planning. Monark will not give you anything for free.

In order to easily defeat enemies, the game has several interesting features. In addition to the standard effects that affect your state or the state of your opponent, you can change the turn order or transfer your turn to another ally if he is in a more convenient position. But your character has one unusual special ability that I completely ignored at first, but then you suddenly realize its power. The thing is, you can share your buffs (but also debuffs) with your allies. So the main successful strategy is that some allies only increase their stats from the start and then you just “only” share them. However, even so, fighting is only for the strong. You get EXP for a successful duel, but their value can and often decreases very quickly, for example, for exceeding a given number of rounds before winning, for effectively using abilities, and also for the death of allies. And without experience, you just can’t pump.

Idea holders

The Bearers themselves are some of the best characters you can come across in Monark (and possibly other JRPGs). Even if they are sinners, you can find out in advance the reasons why they do all this, and although they are sinful, their thinking is usually not completely wrong. One of the first thinks, for example, that the fog can only survive if everyone follows its instructions. Through his Monarch’s powers, he brainwashes his classmates and controls them all. And despite his sharply superior view of the situation, he really thinks he is doing good and helping. Other Paktbers are even more interesting when it comes to faith, and their personality further emphasizes sin.

Surviving every battle requires either repetition or proper planning. Monark will not give you anything for free.

Ego and the theme of sins run through the game and even represent your strength in combat. But how you can increase the statistics of specific sins is funny. On campus, you will meet various characters who will ask you psychological questions (similarly, you will actually create your profile with a questionnaire at the very beginning), which you must answer. According to your answer, the statistics for each sin will increase, and you will also get a rationale for why this is so and why not for another sin. In addition, there are various bonuses in the school, but they can only be opened when a certain sin is at the required level. But when you consider your personality in the answers, you may have trouble with some. Personally, I may never have reached a high enough greed.

Trouble in Paradise

The big problem with Monark is character handling. The Yakuza are known for their “rubber” dummies, but Monark seems very outdated in this regard, it would not hurt to give them emotions. On the other hand, the game has very good dubbing, original Japanese and localized English, and then a mostly fun soundtrack. I even just listened to some songs through the menu on the phone.

The game has very good dubbing, original Japanese and localized English.

In the game you will love a lot and also hate a lot. For example, solving puzzles to advance further in the fog is great. Sometimes the answer is spoken at the beginning and just needs to be worked on logically (I even pulled out a pencil and note paper years later), but sometimes the problem is the combat side. Without torture, I can admit that the complexity is sometimes too high.

Monark is definitely a very interesting game, but definitely not every JRPG fan will appreciate it.

Thanks to NIS America for providing the game for review. You can buy the Monark game in the Xzone.cz store.