Monomyth Review Summary

Immersive, nostalgic, and promising experience: The game world is immersive, with a strong atmosphere, good graphics and sound design, and engaging gameplay. It successfully captures an old-school feel while incorporating modern elements, making it enjoyable for both nostalgic players and newcomers. Many reviewers highlight the game's potential and solid foundation, especially considering its Early Access status and single-developer origins.

Intricate level design rewards exploration: The game features intricate and rewarding level design that encourages exploration and discovery. The interconnected world, reminiscent of classic dungeon crawlers, offers verticality, hidden paths, and a sense of freedom. Players are rewarded for experimentation and problem-solving, with the game avoiding excessive hand-holding.

Captures classic dungeon crawler essence: The game successfully evokes the spirit of classic dungeon crawlers like Ultima Underworld and Arx Fatalis, blending old-school mechanics with modern sensibilities. Reviewers frequently mention the game's immersive sim elements, challenging gameplay, and the sense of nostalgia it provides. The game is often described as a love letter to the genre.

Rewards player ingenuity: The game avoids excessive hand-holding, allowing for player discovery and problem-solving. The game respects logic, allowing players to use environmental elements to their advantage. Overcoming obstacles and using physics to reach new areas provides satisfying dopamine hits.

Unique and enjoyable magic system: The game features a unique and enjoyable magic system that enhances the overall gameplay experience. Reviewers praise its complexity, balance, and immersive qualities. Playing as a mage feels authentic and rewarding, with spells effectively replacing traditional tools and weapons.

Clunky, unsatisfying combat experience: Many reviewers found the combat clunky, unpolished, and unsatisfying due to stiff animations, poor enemy AI, and a lack of impactful feedback. Melee attacks often miss, enemies are damage sponges, and the overall combat system feels outdated compared to modern standards. Some reviewers also noted the difficulty and lack of variety in combat encounters.

Poor navigation, lack of direction: Players frequently get lost due to confusing map design, lack of clear direction, and absence of fast travel. The game lacks a player-created map or visual markers, forcing reliance on memory and leading to frustrating backtracking. This makes navigation a chore and detracts from the overall experience.

Poorly explained game mechanics: The game lacks clear instructions and explanations for its mechanics, including the magic system, skills, and stats. This lack of guidance can be frustrating for players, as they are left to figure things out independently through trial and error. The magic system, in particular, is criticized for being complex, tedious, and poorly explained.

Incomplete, short early access content: The game is currently incomplete due to its early access status, with some features still in development and the story abruptly ending. Some reviewers felt saddened by the end of the early access, indicating a desire for more content. The game is too short, ending just as the player becomes invested and understands the mechanics.

Empty, unrewarding world: Reviewers noted that many areas feel empty and underdeveloped, with limited loot, repetitive environments, and a lack of engaging content. Chests often contain underwhelming or useless items, making exploration feel unrewarding. This contributes to a sense of emptiness and a lack of depth in the game world.

Old-school RPG dungeon crawler: The game emphasizes old-school RPG elements like methodical exploration, manual note-taking, and challenging navigation through maze-like corridors without a minimap. Players must rely on memory, visual cues, and backtracking to solve puzzles and progress, contributing to a sense of danger and discovery.

Combines mechanics from classic games: The game blends elements from various classic titles like Dark Souls, System Shock, Thief, King's Field, Arx Fatalis, Skyrim, EverQuest and Oblivion, creating a unique experience. It combines exploration, crafting, combat, puzzle-solving, and stealth within a dark dungeon setting, encouraging experimentation with different playstyles.

Unique rune-based spellcasting system: The magic system, inspired by Arx Fatalis and Dungeons and Dragons, involves discovering and combining runes to create spells. It encourages experimentation and offers a unique spellcasting experience, with spells evolving as the corresponding magic skill increases.

Interactive physics and crafting: The game incorporates physics and dark/light effects, allowing players to interact with the environment in meaningful ways. Players can stack boxes, bake pies, brew potions, and hand-craft spells and spell books, adding depth to the gameplay experience.

Cheesable enemy AI: The game allows players to lure enemies one by one, and those further away may lose interest in pursuing the player. Also, enemies can be cheesed by running around them and hitting them while they constantly try to turn around.

Generally smooth, optimized performance: Many players report the game generally runs smoothly and is well-optimized, even on the Steam Deck and with mid-range GPUs like the RTX 3070. Some users share specific settings for optimal performance. However, others note that lighting settings impact performance and require adjustment.

Settings reset after loading: The game resets mouse sensitivity and FOV settings after exiting a loading screen. This is an annoyance that requires players to readjust their settings frequently.

Noisy surface audio is jarring: The volume of sound effects when traversing noisy surfaces is too loud compared to the ambient sound. This creates a jarring audio experience for the player.

Close weapon viewmodels: The weapon viewmodels are positioned too close to the player's perspective. While the FOV slider helps mitigate this, the default positioning is still a minor issue.

Air jump spam consumes stamina: Players can repeatedly jump in the air, which consumes stamina. This could be unintended behavior or an exploitable mechanic.

Strongly positive overall impressions: Many reviewers express strong positive sentiment, recommending the game and highlighting its potential, solid base, and overall quality, especially for fans of the dungeon crawler genre. They are eager for future updates and the full release, anticipating a great final product. Some reviewers are giving the game the benefit of the doubt due to its potential and the engaging early access experience.

Support the solo developer: Many reviewers recommend purchasing the game to support the solo developer, praising their passion and dedication. They consider the game a worthwhile purchase, especially given it was made by a single person. Some reviewers are giving the game the benefit of the doubt due to its potential and the engaging early access experience.

Evokes classic RPGs/immersive sims: Reviewers frequently compare the game favorably to classic titles like Arx Fatalis, King's Field, Thief, Ultima Underworld, and early Elder Scrolls games, emphasizing its immersive sim elements and old-school RPG feel. Some suggest focusing on Dark Messiah-like elements to enhance appeal. However, one reviewer notes it doesn't feel like Elder Scrolls.

Good value for the price: Several reviewers feel the game is a good value for its price, especially considering the amount of content available in early access. Some reviewers consider the purchase to be money well spent.

Not unique, overly punishing: One reviewer suggests that only hardcore fans of Ultima Underworld who enjoy enduring pain should try the game. The reviewer suggests that the game doesn't offer anything unique compared to other dungeon crawlers like Lunacid and Dread Delusion, which have better exploration, combat, and atmosphere.

Unreal Engine, modding potential: The game runs on Unreal Engine, which allows for potential modding and the use of UEVR mods. This opens up possibilities for community-created content and enhanced VR experiences.

Experimentation and thorough investigation: Crafting, forging, and cooking require experimentation, and thorough investigation is necessary to avoid missing content. This encourages exploration but may also lead to frustration.

Lacks ambient soundtrack: The soundscape is adequate with realistic sounds, but the lack of ambient music makes the world feel empty. Adding ambient music could improve immersion.

Detailed, gritty graphics: The game features detailed graphics comparable to Exanima, with a gritty and lived-in aesthetic. This visual style contributes to the game's atmosphere.

Interactive NPCs, branching dialogue: The game features interactive NPCs with branching dialogue choices, allowing players to gather information. This enhances the RPG elements and player agency.