Info about Monster Crown:

Official game description:
About Monster Crown
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Unravel Crown Island’s dark story as you create your own monster legacy. With a history of sadistic rulers and heroic saviors, the island faces another threat in the form of a malicious young woman seeking power. It’s up to you and the monsters you make pacts with to prevent the return of tyranny. Will your decisions make you a savior or a dark messiah?
Features
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*   Make pacts with monsters to receive their protection in return for shelter  
*   Breed and fuse over 200 base monsters to create your own new species  
*   Travel across Crown Island with your monster allies to uncover a dark world.  
*   Make a pivotal decision that will drastically change the ending and post-game  
*   Play online to battle and trade, and have your new species reach across the globe

Release date: 12 Oct, 2021

Categories: Monster Collecting, Monster Breeding, Turn-based Combat, Open-World Exploration, Single-player Story, Competitive Multiplayer, Character Progression, Character Customization


- Hardware Profile: No data
Feature extractions:
- Community Price: No data
- Playtime Metrics: No data
- Time-to-fun: No data
- Player Archetypes: No data


Below are summaries of things people say about the game per category.
Each point is assigned a weight that represents how often it is mentioned across all reviews.
What players like:
- Enjoyable and Engaging Gameplay (weight 0.45): Players generally find the game enjoyable and engaging, highlighting its potential and unique charm within the monster-collecting genre. Many appreciate the core gameplay loop and the overall experience, despite acknowledging some initial flaws that have since been addressed.
- Nostalgic Yet Fresh Experience (weight 0.29): The game successfully evokes a strong sense of nostalgia for classic Pokémon games, particularly the Game Boy Color era, while introducing fresh mechanics and a darker tone. It's seen as a spiritual successor that builds upon the familiar formula with its own unique twists.
- Engaging, Mature Storyline (weight 0.09): The story, while simple, is generally well-received for its engaging plot and willingness to delve into darker, more mature themes. This departure from typical monster-taming narratives is seen as a positive and intriguing aspect.
- Expansive Open World Exploration (weight 0.07): The semi-open world design encourages exploration and discovery, providing a sense of freedom and mystery. Players appreciate the vastness of the world and the interesting areas available for them to uncover at their own pace.
- Extensive Monster Variety & Customization (weight 0.06): The game offers significant variety and customization options, including a large roster of monsters, diverse starter choices, and the ability to have more monsters in a party. These features contribute to replayability and player agency.
- Efficient Monster Progression (weight 0.05): The game's progression system allows for quick monster leveling and efficient training methods, reducing the need for excessive grinding. Features like visible monsters and quick defeat options contribute to a smoother experience.
- Appealing Retro Art Style (weight 0.05): The pixel art style and overall graphics are highly praised, effectively capturing a retro aesthetic while maintaining visual appeal. The sprite work, especially for monsters, is noted for its quality and charm.
- Strong Foundation and Potential (weight 0.04): Many players see the game as a strong foundation with significant potential for future development and expansion. The core ideas and mechanics are solid, suggesting a promising future for the title or a potential series.
- Catchy Retro Soundtrack (weight 0.04): The game's soundtrack is generally well-received, with many players finding the music catchy and fitting for the game's aesthetic. It contributes positively to the overall nostalgic atmosphere.
- Balanced Difficulty & Mature Themes (weight 0.04): The game presents a good difficulty curve and is not afraid to explore more mature or gory themes, adding depth to the experience. The initial scope of the game is also noted as impressive.

Common complaints:
- Numerous Game-Breaking Bugs (weight 1): Players consistently report a high volume of game-breaking bugs, glitches, and softlocks across various aspects of the game, including UI, controls, movement, and progression. These issues frequently force restarts, lead to lost progress, and significantly hinder the overall playability and enjoyment, making the game feel unfinished.
- Clunky UI and Controls (weight 0.89): The user interface and controls are widely criticized for being clunky, unintuitive, and buggy. Players experience issues with unresponsive inputs, chaotic menus, poor button explanations, and graphical glitches that make navigation and interaction frustrating.
- Shallow Combat & Monster Mechanics (weight 0.24): The core monster-catching and battle systems are described as shallow, uninspired, and generic, lacking depth compared to genre leaders. Issues with unintuitive stats, problematic capture rates, and repetitive combat contribute to a tedious and unrewarding experience, especially with the heavy grinding requirement.
- Weak Story and Writing (weight 0.21): The game's story and writing are consistently criticized for being nonsensical, uninspired, and poorly paced. Players find the plot confusing, characters uncompelling, and overall narrative underwhelming, often lacking clear direction or explanation.
- Uninspired World Design (weight 0.1): The overworld is largely uninteresting and poorly designed, featuring many dead ends, generic locations, and a lack of meaningful exploration incentives. Navigation is often tedious due to sparse encounters and a lack of guidance, making the world feel empty.
- Repetitive & Poor Music (weight 0.07): The game's soundtrack is frequently described as repetitive, generic, and sometimes grating. Issues with seamless looping, inappropriate music for areas, and poor sound mixing further detract from the audio experience.
- Poor Language Translation (weight 0.06): The game suffers from extremely poor localization across multiple languages, with machine translations, untranslated text, and dialogues appearing in incorrect languages. This significantly hinders comprehension and overall immersion for non-English speakers.
- Long Loading Times (weight 0.06): Players report excessively long loading times, even on high-end systems, which makes restarting after bugs or navigating between areas a frustrating and time-consuming process. The game also appears to be poorly optimized, consuming significant system resources.

Gameplay feedback:
- Deep Monster Breeding System (weight 0.4): The game features a deep and central monster breeding system, allowing for extensive customization of monster appearance, stats, and abilities. This system is crucial for creating stronger monsters and exploring various combinations, with over 200 base monsters and multiple variations per species.
- Unique Turn-Based Combat (weight 0.33): The combat system is turn-based, similar to classic monster-taming games, but introduces unique mechanics like a synergy bar that builds during battle and enhances monster abilities. Monster capture is done via 'contracts' rather than traditional methods, adding a distinct flavor.
- Strategic Type System (weight 0.26): The game utilizes a type effectiveness system with 5 distinct monster types, similar to other monster-taming games. This elemental system dictates strengths and weaknesses, adding strategic depth to battles.
- Overworld Monster Encounters (weight 0.17): Monsters are visible and roam freely in the overworld, actively pursuing the player to initiate battles. Players can also ride monsters for faster travel and potentially defeat weaker enemies outside of combat.
- Grindy Progression & Level Spikes (weight 0.11): Players noted significant grinding is required, especially for leveling monsters and overcoming boss difficulty spikes. The experience sharing system is criticized for being inefficient, forcing players to manage monster levels carefully.
- Short Story Campaign (weight 0.05): The game's main story is relatively short, with some players noting it can be completed in a few hours. While there are side quests, the overall narrative progression is quick, potentially leaving players wanting more content.
- Dynamic Battle Synergy (weight 0.05): A key combat mechanic is the synergy system, where defensive actions and monster swapping fill a bar that boosts attack power and unlocks special skills. This encourages dynamic team management during battles.

Performance notes:
- Long loading times (weight 0.04): Players are experiencing unusually long loading times, particularly during initial startup due to unskippable splash screens. This significantly impacts the early user experience.
- Excellent controller support (weight 0.02): The game offers excellent controller support, specifically for Xbox One controllers. It automatically detects the controller, providing a seamless plug-and-play experience.
- Erratic weather changes (weight 0.01): There's a noticeable bug where weather effects, specifically rain, toggle on and off erratically. This issue seems to be triggered or more frequent near stair structures.

Recommendations:
- Not Recommended Currently (weight 0.45): Many players cannot recommend the game in its current state due to numerous bugs, crashes, and a general lack of polish. They suggest waiting for significant updates, a lower price, or a sale before purchasing, indicating it feels unfinished.
- Good for Monster Collector Fans (weight 0.08): The game is recommended for fans of monster-collecting games, especially those who enjoyed early Pokemon generations (Gen 1, Gold/Silver/Crystal) and are looking for a darker or fresh take on the genre.
- Better Alternatives Exist (weight 0.03): Some players suggest that if you're looking for a truly dark or more polished monster-taming experience, other games like Shin Megami Tensei, Coromon, or even free Pokemon fan games might be better alternatives.
- Support Early Access (weight 0.02): The game is recommended for players who are willing to support an Early Access project and contribute to its development by playing and providing feedback.
- Breeding System Potential (weight 0.02): The breeding system and exploration aspects are highlighted as areas with potential that, if further developed, could significantly improve the game.
- Guides Needed for Progress (weight 0.01): Players may need to consult external guides, particularly towards the end of the game, to progress through certain sections.
- Save Often Advised (weight 0.01): Due to potential bugs or issues, players are advised to save their game frequently to avoid losing progress.
- Play in English (weight 0.01): Players who are proficient in English are advised to play the game in English, implying that other language localizations, such as Japanese, may be of lower quality.
- Decent Story Length (weight 0.01): The game offers a decent story length, estimated to be around 15 hours for the main narrative, which is considered fair for its price point.

Other player notes:
- Strong retro Pokemon homage (weight 0.09): Many players feel the game successfully captures the essence and nostalgia of early Pokemon games, particularly through its retro graphics, chiptune music, and monster-catching mechanics. This design choice is seen as a deliberate homage to the genre's roots.
- Unique monster designs & features (weight 0.05): Players appreciate the unique monster designs and the ability to combine them, which adds a distinct flavor to team building. The developers have also addressed early storage issues, improving the monster box system.
- Active, responsive developers (weight 0.04): The development team is highly praised for their active engagement with the community, consistent updates, and responsiveness to bug fixes. Their presence on Discord is noted as a positive aspect.
- Mixed music quality (weight 0.03): Player feedback on the game's music is mixed, with some tracks described as screechy or average, while others are noted for specific influences. There are also mentions of missing music.
- Low player retention/completion (weight 0.02): Player achievement data indicates a significant drop-off in engagement, with only a small percentage of players reaching the second town and even fewer completing the game. This suggests potential issues with early game retention or overall completion.
- Eerie, glitchy atmosphere (weight 0.02): The game's atmosphere, combined with occasional glitches, can create an eerie, 'creepypasta-like' experience reminiscent of old Pokemon myths. This unique, somewhat janky charm appeals to a niche audience.
- New creatures underpowered (weight 0.02): A design choice where newly discovered creatures often serve as cosmetic skins or are statistically inferior to pre-built teams, potentially limiting the incentive to catch and train new monsters.
- Save backup recommended (weight 0.02): Players are advised to back up their saves due to potential issues, though the PC version does include an 'unstuck' command as a safeguard.
- Variable pricing noted (weight 0.01): The game's price point is mentioned, with some players acquiring it at significantly reduced costs through third-party sites or sales.
- Outdated wiki information (weight 0.01): The official game wiki is noted as being outdated and unhelpful, which can hinder players seeking information or guidance.
- Designed for keyboard control (weight 0.01): The game is primarily designed for keyboard control, which might impact the experience for players preferring other input methods.

Emotions:
- Frustration (weight 0.29): Players experienced significant frustration primarily due to an overwhelming number of severe, game-breaking bugs that led to lost progress, crashes, and an inability to advance. This was compounded by poor UI/UX design, unintuitive mechanics, lack of guidance, and optimization issues, making the game feel unpolished and difficult to play.
- Disappointment (weight 0.28): Disappointment stemmed from the game's unpolished and unfinished state, with numerous bugs and technical issues preventing players from enjoying its promising concepts. Many felt the game squandered its potential due to poor execution, shallow gameplay, and a perceived lack of developer focus on fixing core problems.
- Satisfaction (weight 0.11): Satisfaction was largely driven by the game's unique monster breeding system, which players found engaging and well-executed. Positive aspects also included the art style, monster design, story, and overall gameplay mechanics, providing a good value for its price and evoking a sense of discovery.
- Annoyance (weight 0.05): Annoyance was caused by repetitive music, loud sound effects, and minor but persistent bugs that impacted the overall experience. Players also expressed irritation with poor monster pathing, slow battle animations, and a perceived lack of developer attention to fixing base game issues while focusing on new content.
- Enjoyment (weight 0.04): Enjoyment was derived from the core gameplay loop, including exploration, monster breeding/fusing, and the overall design. Players appreciated the retro aesthetic and nostalgic feel, finding the game fun to play despite acknowledging its existing bugs.
- Excitement (weight 0.03): Excitement was generated by anticipation for future content, particularly a sequel, and the game's potential in its Early Access state. Players were also enthusiastic about the engaging gameplay, unique breeding mechanics, and the dark, story-driven approach to the genre.
- Nostalgia (weight 0.02): Nostalgia was a strong emotion, evoked by the game's visual and audio style, which reminded players of classic Pokémon games. The retro vibe and old-school feel, combined with a sense of discovery, contributed to this sentiment.
- Acceptance (weight 0.02): Players expressed acceptance, indicating that despite the presence of bugs and jankiness, the overall fun and core gameplay experience made these issues tolerable. This suggests a willingness to overlook flaws for the sake of enjoyment.
- Hope (weight 0.02): Hope was centered on the game's future, with players expressing optimism for upcoming patches and the potential for improvement. The developer's commitment and the game's positive core elements fueled this hopeful outlook.
- Love (weight 0.01): Love for the game was expressed through overall enjoyment of the experience, particularly highlighting the monster breeding system. This emotion reflects a deep appreciation for the game's core appeal and anticipation for its continued development.
- Anger (weight 0.01): Anger arose from perceived poor quality for the price, a lack of thorough bug testing by developers, and frustration with the developer's priorities, suggesting a feeling of being let down by the product's state.
- Confusion (weight 0.01): Confusion stemmed from unclear UI elements, nonsensical game mechanics (like monster types), and a disjointed plot. Players were also unsure whether certain issues were intentional features or actual bugs, leading to a lack of clarity in the gameplay experience.
- Engagement (weight 0.01): Engagement was driven by the game's ability to captivate players, particularly through its story and mechanics. The game successfully hooked players, drawing them into its world and systems.
- Amusement (weight 0.01): Amusement was found in unexpected and often humorous elements, such as specific in-game encounters or the sheer absurdity of some of the bugs, providing moments of lightheartedness despite other issues.
- Support (weight 0.01): Players expressed support for the developers, driven by a desire to back indie creators and an appreciation for their efforts and the community surrounding the game.
- Mild frustration (weight 0.01): Mild frustration was caused by minor bugs and a lack of external resources or guidance, leading to small inconveniences rather than game-breaking issues.
- Neutrality (weight 0.01): Neutrality reflected a balanced view of the game, acknowledging its general competence and aspects like story and difficulty without strong positive or negative feelings.
- Enthusiasm (weight 0.01): Enthusiasm was a general positive feeling about the overall game experience and enjoyment, indicating a strong positive sentiment without specific detailed causes.
- Optimism (weight 0.01): Optimism was tied to the potential for future improvements and a promising sequel, suggesting a belief that the game's issues are fixable and its future is bright.
- Appreciation (weight 0.01): Appreciation was shown for the game's charm and its underlying potential, as well as for the developer's efforts in creating the game.}