Maroc - 3RD-STRIKE.COM - A La Une - Hier 02:33

Doki Monsters Quest – Review

So you’ve completed Pokémon Legends Z-A. With the game’s upcoming DLC expansion still over a week away, what’s a monster-catching fan to do? Sure, you could check out the latest Digimon game, but if your wallet is looking a little too tight for that, RedDeer.Games may have you covered with Doki Monsters Quest. Harkening back to a very different era of Pokémon games, Quest is the latest in a long line of Poké-clones. Can the game step out of Pikachu’s shadow though? Story In Quest’s story, the titular monsters have only started appearing in the world just over a decade ago. Their arrival appears to be tied to a meteorite crash, as is the disappearance of the protagonist’s childhood friend, Maiko. With the monsters being a relatively recent addition to the world’s ecosystem, there is still a lot of distrust and misunderstanding towards them. Nevertheless, there are people called Rangers who have started catching and training the critters. When the protagonist -whose name and appearance you choose for yourself- comes of age, they become a Ranger themselves and set out on a quest to find Maiko. With no idea as to her whereabouts, they have to seek out the fabled Elite Rangers, who may have clues. However, the search for Maiko unwittingly interferes with the plans of the villainous Team Xer, who are on the hunt for Mythical Monsters. Don’t overthink Quest’s overarching story too much, as it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense and feels disjointed. Many of the story elements are just there because they’re what players would expect from a Pokémon clone. The dialogue often comes across as forced, especially when the game throws in pop culture references or outdated memes in a half-hearted attempt to be funny. Graphics What Saga of the Moon Priestess was to Oracle of Ages/Seasons, Quest is to Pokémon Gold and Silver. The game clearly wants to emulate the visual style of the GBC-era Pokémon games, with mixed results. The overworld visuals in particular feel very reminiscent of those games, occasionally even able to capture that nostalgic feeling of lengthy backseat car rides where your biggest worry was running out of AAA batteries. The battle screens miss the mark, mostly because the backgrounds are overly detailed, featuring a lot of visual clutter, and the monsters themselves do not have back sprites. Speaking of monster sprites, these are very hit or miss. Some of them outright resemble Pokémon designs (Fennekin, is that you?), whereas others are the pixel art equivalent of a child’s scribbles. Sound While none of Quest’s tunes are as memorable as Junichi Masuda’s compositions for Pokémon Gold and Silver, the game’s music is still a dead ringer for the kind of music you’d expect from a GBC title. Likewise, sound effects, including monster cries and attack noises, mimic the GBC soundfont to a tee. There is no ambience or voice acting present here, but since those weren’t exactly a thing in the originals, we’re more than fine with that. Gameplay Where Game Freak was actively trying something new with Legends Z-A, its copycats tend to return to the roots of the Pokémon formula. Yes, we are going to outright call Quest a Pokémon copycat rather than a standalone entry in the monster-catching genre à la Digimon, although that’s not a bad thing per se. We’ve played quite a few monster-catching games in recent years, and some of the most fun we’ve had was with Coromon, a game that mimicked Pokémon’s GBA-era, just to name an example. We’d say that Quest copied roughly 80% of Pokémon’s homework, so we estimate that you already know what to expect. In fact, if you’ve gotten to this point in the review without having played a Pokémon game, then we’d go as far as questioning what you’re even doing here. So what of the remaining 20% then? Where does Quest’s gameplay stray from Game Freak’s tried and trusted gameplay formula? Well, most of the differences come from minor QoL changes. You can speed up battles by holding down the A-button, for example, and many NPCs can be fought over and over, with their team’s levels scaling to match yours, alleviating much of the grind. Battle screens indicate which moves are super effective or not very effective against enemies. Experience points your critters gain are manually distributed and can be readjusted to your liking. On the other hand, the game’s UI is a nightmare when it comes to managing monster storage and stat screens. You win some, you lose some, we suppose. Developer RedDeer.Games claims that you’re looking at a 15-20 hour adventure with Quest. From our own experience, that’s a very optimistic estimate, and we’re going to assume that that includes completing the game’s 140-creature encyclopedia. The story took us around 10 hours to finish. Still, that’s a fairly sizable chunk of retro monster-catching goodness, even for the RRP of €12.99. Knowing RedDeer.Games’ habit of discounting their games, you can probably get it a lot cheaper too. In fact, during the game’s first month launch window, it’s already been reduced by a whopping 77%, coming in at a mere €2.99. Despite some rough edges, that makes picking up Quest a no-brainer if you’re a genre aficionado. Conclusion It’s often said that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and this certainly applies to Doki Monsters Quest. It’s impossible to look at this game and not feel Game Freak’s shadow hovering over it. From the overall aesthetics to some of the monster designs to the majority of the gameplay, this is a game that desperately wants to be Pokémon, more so than any other “copycat” we’ve played. While Quest never fully captures the magic of early 2000s Pokémon titles, there are enough moments where it almost shimmers through. As a palette (town) cleanser between Legends Z-A and its DLC, Quest will be more than adequate for the scores of Pika-fans out there.