Nia's left her backpack at home and headed out all alone into a world full of danger. But luckily, this is no ordinary backpack. You are V, Nia's monster bag – and it's up to you to keep her safe. Avoid the violent wrath of angry citizens, bloodthirsty aliens and the inept military, or you'll end up as a pile of monster mush! Catch up to Nia without being seen, oh and… watch out for the apocalypse.
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Monsterbag's a weird one. Released in 2015 by latin american studio IguanaBee for a console in the midst of its failure of a lifespan, is a point-and-click puzzle stealth game with a remarkable artstyle, great sound design and a very competent story and ways of storytelling that honestly, get kinda heart-wrenching sometimes, it is very clear where the inspiration from things like Neon Genesis Evangelion are in the backstory behind the simplistic and goofy facade.
This game is a weirdly enticing and mesmerizing little adventure only spanning a couple of hours (or more if you go for all trophies), where you are quite literally, a monster bag trying to keep your owner--Nia out of constant danger that kind of goes in with the story that unfolds as you play the game. It isn't a technological marvel or anything but the CGI cutscenes cutting into gameplay are neat and honestly well thought out, fun to look at and reminiscent of cartoons like The Amazing World of Gumball with the goofy cartoony characters mixing in with semi-realistic (in detail) yet monochromatic environments.
Pretty much all positives but the only real thing hindering this game from being more known and having a better median score would be its platform of release, being a portable console with a rather small screen, having to tap here and there to pick out even smaller objects in game is kind of a hassle sometimes, the framerate is kinda bad and it can lag out here and there, and it just makes me wonder why did they choose the PlayStation Vita instead of PC for a game like this where a lot of things you can pick out from the background and stuff would be better to choose with a mouse of all things.
And then probably the one thing that kinda got me the most is that the some of the mechanics regarding "not being seen" work half the time, later on in the game you're faced with a lot of puzzles that require a lot of precision between two other entities who are facing both ways at the same time, and for one of the trophies you have to move from one monster to another in a time frame of like a second or two before you can be looked at, if a monster looks your way when you're in the middle of your animation you'll get caught and then sometimes the animation loop is so short that when you're sure to be able to go to another monsters' back, they already looked at your animation as you entered theirs and it's game over. A bit frustrating and I wish they could've toned it down a little bit for some of those last levels that do require you to do the same task over and over again if you fail, other than that the game is worth the time if you own the console, as it might never get out sadly.
This game is a weirdly enticing and mesmerizing little adventure only spanning a couple of hours (or more if you go for all trophies), where you are quite literally, a monster bag trying to keep your owner--Nia out of constant danger that kind of goes in with the story that unfolds as you play the game. It isn't a technological marvel or anything but the CGI cutscenes cutting into gameplay are neat and honestly well thought out, fun to look at and reminiscent of cartoons like The Amazing World of Gumball with the goofy cartoony characters mixing in with semi-realistic (in detail) yet monochromatic environments.
Pretty much all positives but the only real thing hindering this game from being more known and having a better median score would be its platform of release, being a portable console with a rather small screen, having to tap here and there to pick out even smaller objects in game is kind of a hassle sometimes, the framerate is kinda bad and it can lag out here and there, and it just makes me wonder why did they choose the PlayStation Vita instead of PC for a game like this where a lot of things you can pick out from the background and stuff would be better to choose with a mouse of all things.
And then probably the one thing that kinda got me the most is that the some of the mechanics regarding "not being seen" work half the time, later on in the game you're faced with a lot of puzzles that require a lot of precision between two other entities who are facing both ways at the same time, and for one of the trophies you have to move from one monster to another in a time frame of like a second or two before you can be looked at, if a monster looks your way when you're in the middle of your animation you'll get caught and then sometimes the animation loop is so short that when you're sure to be able to go to another monsters' back, they already looked at your animation as you entered theirs and it's game over. A bit frustrating and I wish they could've toned it down a little bit for some of those last levels that do require you to do the same task over and over again if you fail, other than that the game is worth the time if you own the console, as it might never get out sadly.
a bit to simple and short but not bad