Monark Reviews
Monark is a solid start to a promising aspect of JRPG games filled with horror elements. It tackles heavy issues with its characters. Monark is a solid blend of Tactical RPG with JRPG leveling mechanics. It is an enjoyable game with difficult rewarding battles.
Monark has a lot of good ideas, but almost all of them are let down by a repetitive structure, grindy combat, and baffling design decisions.
Monark has a refreshing battle system that will appeal to turn-based strategy gamers, but the dated graphics and overall redundancy make it a hard game to recommend at its full asking price. As with the game's dangerous Mist, enter with caution.
We had high expectations for Monark, as some of the people who worked on it have given birth to some of the old Persona games, but we've come highly disappointed, due to absurd design choices and PS2 era graphics.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Monark is a game filled with great ideas and themes, and it manages to deliver on some of those in spades. Unfortunately, Monark is also its own worst enemy, and many of the gameplay elements simply get in the way of making it something truly exceptional. Still, if you can manage to get through the slog of repetitiveness, there’s a fascinating and thematically engaging story underneath.
Monark weaves an engaging story even though it may rely on tropes and archetypes to do so.
Monark brings me both surprise and disappointment, the depth of the story and gameplay are unique, but the combat is boring, making it not as good as expected.
Review in Chinese | Read full review
Fans of JRPGs with time to kill can probably find a game somewhere here with Monark, but I doubt it’d be fruitful. Give this one a pass or buy it on a steep discount so you won’t be in for a rude awakening.
Monark is a tangled web of good ideas that could have become a good game, but end up being hidden under an awful execution. The combat system is the best part, but it fails by its excessive repetition and the story stuns the player by taking one of the worst possible directions and throwing away all it could have been.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
Monark brings to the table a lot of fresh ideas, but the bad game design prevents the game from reaching its full potential, leaving you with nothing more than a mediocre experience.
Review in Persian | Read full review
Monark is a smart game. It knows it, and it wants you to know it too. Some may well find that it's even pretentious. But it’s also in so many ways a boundary-pushing and innovative experience, and one that I imagine will be unique for a very long time to come. Putting aside the disappointment that comes from realising that it could have attacked with its themes more, I don’t think there is any other way that the creative team could have delivered on a more coherent and compelling vision and, really, it is experiences like Monark that keep me interested in this medium. Don’t let this one pass you by, folks.
Monark is a fun JRPG with interesting characters and a unique story full of personality tests and high school drama. Though at times navigating the character can get a bit frustrating.
undefined.If I'm not having fun with an RPG I've noticed lately that I have to force myself to play it. Monark started strong but my opinion of it dropped rapidly every time I spent an hour checking everything I had unlocked in the school; I had to be missing SOMETHING that would get me to proceed, right? If you're feeling sharp and are okay with little to no environmental variety then Monark might be worth a look - there's a demo for it - but it's nowhere near the best RPG from this developer in the last six months.
While certain aspects of Monark have great potential, the formulaic design, trope-heavy story, and frustrating puzzles render the product as a whole feeling unimpressive.
This is a game that will provide you something you can keep coming back to for relaxation. This is a comfort food JRPG. This is a game you can put on and just grind away to build your party, with the enemies growing alongside you to ensure there’s enough challenge.
I’ve got to admit, there are games that I review that I don’t really get, but sometimes they can still make quite an impression on me… though maybe not always with the hook that would grab other people...
Monark presents us with an experience that draws inspiration from landmark RPG series while also hinting at a survival horror experience. It does a good job when it comes to its attractive art style, a flexible and smooth character development system, a challenging combat, and its plot with themes related to the human ego. Unfortunately the game's execution stands on the way to delivering a fine experience, and the frequent slowdowns that happen even more often during combat, as well as a simplistic level structure make this a game that's unable to stand up to its peers, even if it should not be disregarded by RPG fans.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
It’s not going to be able to stand toe to toe with the kings of the genre, but Monark presents a fantastic and niche adventure you might be looking for.
Monark is not a perfect game, but it's a really solid RPG. The battle system is good, the storyline is interesting once it gets going, and there's some great music, too. Graphically, the game is one of the uglier releases I've come across over the last few years, and I think the game could do a better job explaining elements of its battle system. However, if players can ignore these imperfections, there really is a lot to love, and I can see fans of the genre falling in love with it. The RPG genre has plenty of great options to pick from at the moment, but Monark's blend of JRPG, strategy, and horror elements make it a compelling option.
In our intent to devote the right attention even to the less noble projects, we would have really liked to give Monark a higher grade, especially to reward the ideas and efforts of a certainly talented team that is looking for its space in the market. However, there are still limits to overcome for a real leap in quality, and we are not just talking about budget.
Review in Italian | Read full review