Monolith grabbed my attention after my first hour playing which caught me by surprise as I hadn't played a game in the 'shmup' genre before and was, admittedly, intimidated by them. I found Monolith to be an increasingly enjoyable game that masterfully combined elements of both the roguelite and dungeon crawler genres to provide a tight-playing experience that was fun every time, in contrast to my experience with titles like The Binding of Isaac, which I struggled to reliably enjoy.

The gameplay of Monolith is split between decision making (with items, weapons, upgrades, etc.) that serves as downtime between the snappy shmup combat that doesn't go easy on the player. I've found that when you die, it's often clear and feels like it's your fault, partly due to stellar art direction providing contrast between bullets and the background but also in-part patterns and indicators.The 'feeling like it's your fault' thing might seem like a negative, but I found that it just makes me want to improve, due to how encouraging another part of the game is. Its soundtrack.

The game's soundtrack, composed by ArcOfDream, was often upbeat, and motivating in spite of the challenge in front of me, further helping keep me trying to improve despite my aforementioned complete lack of experience with the genre.

I can thoroughly recommend Monolith, especially with its Relics of the Past DLC.