The Biasphere

Skambu (gaming profile | personal site)

Joined: Sat Oct 11, 2008 11:56 pm EDT
31 Game Reviews

Monster Lab is rarely talked about. But why? Certainly not because it's a bad game, it's most likely because of how underhyped it was. I didn't even know the game was coming out until it well... came out.

If you want an idea of what Monster Lab is like, it's basically Pokemon. Except it's far more customizable, and it has robots. FRICKIN ROBOTS MAN! Sounds awesome, right? Well yeah, it is. Just like Pokemon, you can have many different robots at one time, but I really only use my main Robot. Though, I think you can only have 1 robot out on the map at once. If that robot dies, you restart from the last time you saved (you can only ever save the game at your Lab, so save often).

One thing you may notice about the game is that it has really nice looking cutscenes. The cutscenes look awesome, and they set the mood for the game pretty well. The only bad thing I have to say about them is that they're very compressed and are really pixelated. But it doesn't matter, they're still awesome.

Monster Lab certainly isn't a traditional RPG. It's not free-roaming like Pokemon or Final Fantasy, and there are limited paths that you can go down. It's pretty hard to explain, but basically your robot can only go down certain paths. There's no random battles either, because you see where your enemies are on your screen. It's really easy to avoid them, which saves you LOTS of time.

Other things you can see on your map include NPC's that can give you little quests sometimes, and Mini-Games. The mini-games are VERY touchscreen intensive, and you will scratch your screen constantly while doing this. There's even a mini-game after battles where you draw a circle on your screen repeatedly to heal your robot. But, if you complete mini-games, you unlock some extra parts that you can use to upgrade the limbs of your robot!

There are many things to do in the HQ, and there's still 2 locked doors! I'm not very far into the game yet, probably about 30%, so there's obviously more for me to unlock. But so far, I can do this:
- Go out to different towns, to fight and do quests.
- Play Multi-Player (my brothers played more than me so I get pwned, but I'm catching up)
- Make new parts for your robot.
- Add-on and replace parts of your robot.
- Save the game.
- Talk to the Professor.

So yeah, it's obvious that this game is jam-packed full of stuff for you to do.

The combat isn't like a regular RPG either, where you choose to Attack, Defend, use Magic or Flee. There's loads of options and they all work differently, depending on how damaged you are. For example, you need your legs to flee from a battle. If you lose your head, both of your arms and both of your legs, you lose. If you lose your torso, you lose aswell. Every part of your body has health so it isn't your standard HP system. Every part of your body also has 2 different abilities. The chest has Restore and Dodge, while the Head has moves like Headbutt, and the Legs have moves like the Legsweep. It's really fun, and requires more strategy than other RPG's out right now.

BUY IT, BORROW IT, OR BREAK IT?
If you like RPG's or Adventure games, it's a must-own. But if you're not a big fan of those genres, Borrow it first to see if you like it. Because it's certainly not a game that everybody can easily get into.

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