What is Mondealy? Think Undertale, but without any of the RPG elements. That means you're left with not much else other than a walking simulator. This wouldn't necessarily be a problem if Mondealy made up for its simplistic 'gameplay' by telling a riveting tale, but it doesn't. It is ultimately hindered by an ATROCIOUS translation. One that honestly feels like it was fed through an A.I. program. There are grammatical errors everywhere. Characters don't converse in a natural way. Prose is stilted, awkward and flat throughout. Any attempt at telling an intriguing story flops right out of the gate because this awful writing is immediately noticeable and it never gets any better.

Mondealy has a short running time of six hours, but it felt like double that at least. Backtracking and fetch quests are the name of the game here. One particularly favourite moment of mine was when you have to meet a gang leader, but the path forward is blocked by a burst pipe. The character tasked with fixing it wants you to get his toolbox, but you can't because a gang member is using it as a chair. So you have to run all the way back to the one of the earliest areas of the game, grab a chair, give the chair to the gang member and then get the toolbox and give it to the plumber so that they can fix the pipe and you can go through the door. I am not making this up. That's how shit the overall design is.

Oddly enough, it's very nice to look at. The pixel art is crisp, colourful and the animation can be quite expressive. The production values are clearly a step up above Undertale. It also has consistently great music. These aren't enough to save Mondealy from being a complete waste of time, but hey, at least it could have been worse.