Plenty of racing games, tons of sports ports, and more than enough action titles have made their way to PlayStation Portable; yet, role-playing has been put to shame with a string of substandard releases. Coming from the creator of the Shin Megami Tensei series, Monster Kingdom: Jewel Summoner attempts to break the nasty little trend of lame role-playing games. A pretty presentation and fun monster development elements initially would lead you into believing that it successful does this; however, a relatively banal story and unnecessarily slow battles leave Monster Kingdom: Jewel Summoner amid mediocrity.
Monster Kingdom follows the story of Vice, a young man whose mother has been killed by a vicious monster. Known only as an Abomination, Vice is determined to strike down the creature that slew his mother. His inexperience with jewel summoning doesn’t temper his tenacity, however, as he embarks on a journey to track down the beast. After an unwanted encounter with Razni, the head of the jewel summoner Academy, Vice is coerced into joining the institution with the hopes of gaining the revenge he so desperately seeks. Only by completing his training at the Academy, capturing monsters within jewels, and developing his strength as a summoner can Vice reach his goal.
A mix of traditional role-playing and Pokémon-style creature management, Monster Kingdom encourages you to keep a stable of powerful monsters for battling against a host of threatening abominations. Summoned in place of its owner in battle, only monsters can act during combat making it vital that you capture and develop new creatures. With over a hundred different monsters available through the course of the game, much of your time will be focused on bolstering your strength with new creatures. You’ll frequently have to sit through loads of inane dialogue before taking your monsters into combat, but at least it’s worth the effort.
Battles in Monster Kingdom are completely turn-based, focusing on elemental attacks to determine turn order. Jewels are defined according to their elemental alignment, of which there are eight (water, fire, ice, wind, earth, thunder, light, and dark). Ideally, you want to attack monsters with an opposing element to maximize damage; for example, a fire golem is best hit with attacks from a water wolf. Not only does this increase the damage dealt, but it also has a chance of regressing and/or intruding the enemy. Regression delays the turn of a monster whose element opposes the attackers; similarly, intrusion moves up the turn of the attacker. These mechanics aren’t anything new to turn-based combat, they’re simply made dependent on the game’s elemental system.
In this way, Monster Kingdom almost feels like a glorified game of rock-paper-scissors in which playing elements against each other yields success in battle. Battles are excruciatingly slow, making you sit through a lengthy introductory sequence and superfluous attack animations; in fact, it’s so bad that the game allows you to speed through battles by holding down the circle button. There’s no reason the turn-based battles of Monster Kingdom should be so protracted. Rather than adding a sense of deliberate strategy, the slow nature of combat drags the game down with its slow pace.
As boring as battle might be, the experience it provides is invaluable. Members of your party will grow stronger with each new level, increasing their core attributes as they gain experience. Additionally, jewels can level up and learn new abilities for use in battle. Ability points earned in combat can be assigned to jewels manually through a process called amalgamy. Easily the most enjoyable aspect of Monster Kingdom, amalgamy offers the freedom to customize and explore a wide range of creatures. Generally increasing a jewel’s level or specifically targeting core attributes can be done with ability points; but, you can also augment a jewel’s abilities by fusing special quartz crystals. There’s a good amount of potential for developing your jewels and it’s this sense of possibility that gives the game much of its depth.
