Monster Monpiece progresses in a fairly linear fashion, with your character being placed on a map where there’s generally only one direction to go at any given time. They’re fairly catchy, but they do tend the grate on your nerves after awhile. As for the soundtrack, I do hope you enjoy repeating Jpop style themes, as many of the battles loop the same songs over and over again. Everything sounds all well and good, though if you’re foolish enough to play this when other people are in the room with you, I’d suggest you keep the volume down on account of all of the suggestive moaning. The voice track is Japanese only, though that shouldn’t be a surprise considering the digital only nature of the game. When the cards are played they are represented on the grid using 3D chibi models of the card, though many of the models look identical. Probably the most tasteful card in the whole game is likely Neptune from Hyperdimension Neptunia, though even she can be… uh… “rubbed” into her Purple Heart form (more on that later). It’s actually a bit off-putting, as I would never expect that someone playing a card called Poison Toad would result in a young girl with her legs spread open wide, but it is what it is. The hundreds of cards that you can collect are very diverse too, with each one illustrated as a hyper-sexualized take on mythological monsters, such as minotaurs or hydras.

The localization is actually pretty good and the story does give your adventure some structure, even if it isn’t exactly the star of the show in this case.Īs with other Compile Heart projects, the tale is told through still images and text, though the artwork is at least pretty good. Along the way, you learn a bit about May and her comrades as well as important lessons about friendship and teamwork. The plot is a predictable affair, with the bulk of it consisting of journeying from town to town in hopes of obtaining the Magus Quartz there before Elza does. During her journey, her friend Elza becomes “Lost”, a sort of human zombification of sorts, and May sets out to find a way to cure her before she succeeds in pilfering the world’s cities of their powerful Magus Quartzes. May is one such human who is training to be as talented as her mother when it comes to battling monsters. Monster Monpiece takes place in a seemingly female dominated world of Yafaniel where humans befriend and subsequently train Monster Girls. Turns out, underneath all of that questionable content is an incredibly competent card game. Some of the cards got some edits (which you can read about in my interview with the IF International CEO, Haru Akenaga, here), but one look at the ones that got left alone and it’s a wonder that they didn’t edit more.īut enough of the background information, you just want to know how the game is, am I right? Right. You see, while it may be a card game, MM contains cards that are rather graphic in nature as well as a mini-game that would be sure to illicit strange looks from anyone close enough to notice. Now, it wasn’t for lack of quality that Monster Monpiece got passed up, but rather, the risque content contained within.

To the extent that, when it came time to start releasing games themselves, little was left to choose from for a debut release other than a game that no other company would touch. For years, Idea Factory was all about licensing their North American releases to other companies.

Monster monpiece cards