"Monsters. Yum."
Monster Kingdom Jewel Summoner is the lastest RPG from Atlus, publishers of the likes of Shin Megami Tensei and Trauma Center, to come to Sony's PSP. It has been in development for quite a while now, but now that it's finally out, we can assure everyone that it has been worth the wait.
The story is pretty basic, but once you get into it, it's quite engaging. It all begins in an era where Monsters have been transformed into jewels. Prior to that era, Monsters and Humans used to live in harmony, and it is your job to restore that harmony. But that is not so easy a task, as you will be faced by multiple foes, called abominations, who will try to hamper your progress along the way.
But to defeat the abominations, the player will have to join "The Order", an organization that prepares people to become "Jewel Summoners", which will enable them to bring back jewels into their original forms during battles in order to defeat "Abominations". The game works generally well, except for some minor slowdown during battles, which is almost unnoticeable. The battles are turn-based,and the battle system itself is pretty basic:"select an attack, select an opponent, and attack", but it has some extra factors to keep things interesting, like abilities, and element alignments, which help the player decide which of the three monsters he can carry is best against a certain foe. The battles are also very short lived , which really makes the game easy to pick up and play.
But that basic battle system is also quite smart, for choosing the correct attack against a group of foes can wipe them out immediately, or at least cause a great deal of damage, and sometimes delay their turn. Of course, one can upgrade his monster's traits and abilities, like increasing the attack power, or healing capabilities, using point that can be earned after each battle, which occurs randomly, or is scripted as part of the main story.
So even though the game has a slow start, the pace soon catches up thanks to some likable characters that accompany you along the way on your journey. And even though some of the cutscenes are somewhat lengthy, they were for me nothing but a nice distraction from the action. So Monster Kingdom is indeed a strong RPG, and one that stands well as one of the best on the PSP, so it come very highly recommended.
By CodeName_88
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