Monster Crown

Monster Crown is a decent game that falls short of greatness in a few areas. Legitimately cool ideas with breeding and an overall solid combat system are let down by lackluster monster designs and performance issues. Then there’s the elephant in the room, which is that Monster Crown ultimately feels like a jankier and less addictive version of the oldest Pokémon games. We’d still give this one a recommendation, as the bones of the experience are good enough that its worth a punt for big Pokémon fans pining for the 8-bit days, but you might want to wait for a sale with this one.

Monster Crown is chock-a-block full of monsters and retro charm but you might want to wait for some of the bugs to be squashed first.

From the get-go, Monster Crown wears its inspirations on its sleeves. From the chip-tune melodies, 8-bit Gameboy-esque visual style, and charming monster designs, it is pretty clear what players are going to be in for with this game. Recently coming out of early access on Steam and also launching on Nintendo Switch, Monster Crown aims to bring back the feelings many of us had collecting, battling, and evolving creatures while undertaking a coming-of-age RPG tale. I’ve always been a pretty...