[Please note that the video reviewer is not me, it’s just the most appropriate video I could find]. Wow, this is a cool and innovative indie game that costs only 80 Microsoft Points and has a lot going for it. Surely everyone is talking about it, right? No? Well, why the heck not? “Monster King” is a light RPG that dumbs things down in just the right ways, while still leaving enough meat on the bones to be interesting.
For example, inventory management is done away with. If you find equipment that’s better than what you have, it simply auto-equips. Heck, that’s inventory management about as complicated as Golden Axe, that’s something I can get behind. Sometimes I don’t want to spend forever pouring through menus.
But what makes it different? Well, for one you can actually capture defeated monsters and have them fight *for* you. Screw the party of wooden NPCs that follow you for no good reason, let’s get some captured monster-on-monster action going here. That’s neat. It introduces strategy to the game as well, as you must consider the strengths and weaknesses of your captured monsters, versus the properties of the enemy you’re fighting.
Outside of the combat, you have a top-down 2D RPG with fourth-wall breaking wisecracks and it all adds up to something easily worth 80 Microsoft Points.
Here’s what the developer (NickB) has to say about the game:
“Travel a classic RPG land as Monster King, capturing monsters to fight for you! Explore a world of ice, desert, and lava! Acquire gold, weapons, and armor on your quest to capture every monster, and meet NPCs on the way! Some of them say hilarious things!”
Writings of Mass Deduction 