PSP Review: Monster Kingdom: Jewel Summoner

While it's hard to compare Monster Kingdom: Jewel Summoner to Pokemon, the newly-released Atlus title brings a number of features from Nintendo's classic RPG over to Sony's PSP. Thankfully for players, the game does more than copy and paste and brings a serious, anime-style tale that unfolds through the interesting management of monsters raised by the in-game characters.

Monster Kingdom initially details the ongoing adventures of Vice, who spends his time tracking down a specific winged Abomination (the most powerful of monsters who control other monsters) that killed his mother. Spending his time as hunter, making money by carrying out monster hunting tasks, Vice has the unique ability to utilize monsters with being trained as a jewel summoner. With only a monster jewel left to him by his mother at his helm, he eventually becomes mixed in with a quest that involves a lot more than just him.

Shortly into the game, Vice unwilling joins The Order, a sort of university that houses and trains jewel summoners. There Vice can partner up with two more comrades of the player's choosing, allowing parties of up to three monsters at one time. While each character comes equipped with a default monster, players can capture more monsters through the use of jewel shards and keep up to nine monsters on hand at one time.

The monsters in Monster Kingdom each have an elemental characteristic, with which players have to match up with an appropriate shard to capture when weakened. For example, a baby Kirin is a thunder monster and can only be captured through the use of a thunder shard. Not only do the elements demand specific shards to capture, but they also detail the strengths and weaknesses of each monster – an ice type monster isn't going to like a fire-based attack too much.

Since three party members can tow three monsters each, ultimately, your party consists of nine monsters when you enter battle. The catch, however, is the fact the monsters' souls are bound with the character that controls them. When a monster takes damage, the controller feels the pain too. The strategy of what monster to use becomes even more crucial through this system as merely changing a monster doesn't bring a character's hit points back up to max.

The most straightforward way to power up monsters is by defeating enemies and gaining experience in typical turn-based RPG fare, but the game's unique analgamy lab features really allow players to get down and dirty with fine-tuning their monsters abilities and stats. The game's lab technicians have different abilities that allow you to fuse jewels with other items and use gained ability points to raise stats and abilities in any manner.

By infusing monsters with different elemental quartz, they can learn abilities outside of their element that they would never learn otherwise. For example, a wind monster can now have fire attacks, an option that allows monsters take advantage of multiple weaknesses. By using gained AP, players can artificially raise experience points to boost monsters faster or use them to raise specific attribute levels such as strength, agility or defense or even raise the levels of specific attacks and actions.

Monster Kingdom features a large cast, each featured in large, well-drawn anime-style figures. The characters are all very unique (aside from the ones that appear in multiple towns) and show off a huge amount of detail. Dialogue is a huge part of Monster Kingdom and you'll spend a large amount of time looking at the close-ups of the characters speaking. The backdrops, for the most part, are also well done and are unfortunately covered most of the time by the characters.

By far, Monster Kingdom is one of the most impressive titles I've seen presentation wise on the PSP. Not only are the characters designed and presented well during dialogue, all of the text, which furthers the game's storyline is fully voiced-over. No small feat for a portable since there is a lot of text. While when the characters are in battle or traveling in a dungeon level, some of the models can look a bit on the jagged side, Monster Kingdom does quite a good job of bringing console-style RPG presentation to a portable system.

Audibly, the game features sounds and music very typical to RPG dungeon games. The music fits each scenario appropriately with a number of different battle themes to reflect the severity of the current battle. Much like Pokemon, each of the different monsters in Monster Kingdom have their unique calls and each of their attacks are accompanied by a sound effect most suited to the attacks element. Outside of battle, the game's voice acting is surprisingly well done for the most part, with each of the main characters receiving very befitting voice talent.

Some players may be turned off by the huge amount of dialogue though, which takes up a huge portion of the game. With the story progression and linear battles at the beginning, Monster Kingdom doesn’t go anywhere fast in its waking moments. The over world maps are all point and click navigation so there are no random battles while traveling from town to town, adding more to the linear nature of the game. It should be noted to those interested in picking up the title should have a little bit of patience in order to tough out the introduction and move on to the meat of the quest.

With all the sounds and voices in the game, there is a lot of disc access and while there is little loading to be scene in the transitions between battles and scenes, the access can interrupt dialect and fights. Every time I got into a battle, almost every first hit led to a delay while the game loaded before the damage dealt was displayed. While the access merely leads to hiccups in the game, it is extremely noticeable and happens rather frequently.

The story, while full of its RPG cliché moments, is a refreshing change of pace for games in the monster-breeding genre. Coming from Cozy Okada, creator of the Shin Megami Tensei series, Monster Kingdom is a tad darker and more mature than most of the games in its genre. While there's no huge twists or surprises in store, the story accompanies the game appropriately and makes for interesting play through.

In addition to the single-player story mode, players can also locally link wirelessly with others to utilize a couple of options. Through wireless connectivity, multiplayer battles become accessible and the option to trade monsters is available outside of the battlefield. While the modes don't exactly add a huge amount of substance to the title, they make use of the PSP's wireless functions and give players not only something to do with other players but it also allows access to stronger monsters.

While Monster Kingdom: Jewel Summoner breaks no barriers in the RPG genre, it lends a number of unique and satisfying additions to the monster breeding genre to warrant giving it a look. The tale is expansive for a portable game and offers a lot of adventuring and customization to players. For those who really get into the monsters they raise in similar RPGs, Monster Kingdom will allow them to have a ball with the number of fusion and ability options available to those who take advantage of it.

Right off the bat, presentation comes across as Monster Kingdom's ace in the hole and it really makes the game come alive. However, once you boil down the actual game play, the title is, at heart, wholly similar to just about any other game in the same genre. Regardless, Monster Kingdom: Jewel Summoner will give PSP RPG or monster breeding fanatics a lengthy title with plenty of artistic flair.

GemuBaka Final Review Score: 3 of 5