Разработчик: Retrocade.net
Описание
Welcome to Monstro. A fully deterministic logic game which plays like a tactical RPG but without RP, character growth or randomness. Fight the opposing army on the battlefield, which just so happens to be made up of conveniently perfect squares. Survive the onslaught and strike back to be the last one standing. Or, occasionally, do something else the evil Skygods want to be done for their own amusement.
This game takes the traditional tRPG gameplay and reconstructs it into a completely deterministic, logical experience with a twist of tactics. All of this is spiced up with ridiculous, tongue-in-cheek lore and approachable difficulty.
List of features:
- A puzzle game with completely deterministic and repeatable set of rules which still feels like playing a tRPG.
- And even though it plays like a tRPG there are no RPG elements, so it feels more like a t.
- A tongue-in-cheek plot, much better than the previous bullet point!
- No need to tediously repeat the same sequence of moves over and over if you lose, because undo is here! Undo a single move, undo all moves back to the beginning of the mission, undo if you fail the mission and even undo if you are victorious!
- Learn the rules of the enemy AI and use them for your victory. Or read them up because everything is in the in-game help!
- Real-time lighting which adds new depth to the crisp pixel art.
- Traps, pimped-up units, moving walls and breakable walls, ranged attacks and quick feedback on predicted enemy movement.
- 23 achievements including 17 which require you to complete existing levels in a more difficult way!
- 6 Trading Cards with descriptions expanding the game's weird lore.
- Skygods, hand-drawn islands, ancient terror beasts, Goos with :3 faces and the background pushed around by an artificial wind.
Поддерживаемые языки: english
Системные требования
Windows
- Memory: 2048 MB RAM
- Graphics: Pixel Shader version 2.x+
- Storage: 250 MB available space
Отзывы пользователей
an excellent tactical game with funny writing, pleasant graphics and music (don't forget to grab the free soundtrack dlc), volume sliders, speed settings, zoom in/out, and plenty of challenges in achievement form if simply completing the 4 campaigns (20 levels each, plus 8 tutorial levels) on their own isn't enough. it's possible that it will be, as there are a few really difficult levels, but no rng, everything's explained, you can see which unit can move where, how much damage they can take and deal, and what will happen at the end of the turn.
highly recommended for tactics/puzzle fans, though I wish audio got muted when the game's minimized, and there's an annoying amount of missing apostrophes and other typos all over the place. unfortunately, I haven't been able to complete it yet, I'm stuck on human++ level 19, so 2 levels and the entire monster++ campaign left to do, but since the game's practically unknown, there's not much helpful info around.
Not Bad. Not Bad. Pretty...pretty...pretty...pretty....pretty good actually.
6/10
Disclaimer: I am a friend to one of the creators and I got terrorized to write this persuaded to give it a try, given that puzzles are not my pro.
Still, that being said - spent a while playing advance wars, so if you want something akin to that, except more handcrafted to figure out a situation at hand with limited resources, that might be up your alley. If me being a puzzle pleb enjoyed it, folks who are into that stuff will even more.
tl;dr IT'S PRETTY AND HAS NEAT MUSIC GO GIVE IT A TRY IF YOU WANT TO UNRUSTLE YOUR GRAY MATTER A LITTLE~
The positive reviews don't lie.
If you're a DROD fan, Monstro is to Fire Emblem what DROD is to dungeon crawlers. It's an advanced adult-level puzzle game that doesn't sacrifice the fun factor to offer a challenge. You'll know it's very difficult to find the kind of game you like, but Retrocade delivers. I'd pay $20 or more for this game, and it's yours for only $6!
Still not convinced? There's a free demo available so you can try it out for yourself! https://www.kongregate.com/games/skellus/monstro-battle-tactics-demo
The short version first: If you're after something a bit like a Fire Emblem game, but with a focus on tactical "puzzles" over stats and experience points, this may very well be your game - but an RPG it is not.
Monstro: Battle Tactics takes the guise of a strategy game, in the vein of a Japanese-made grid-based game. The "Battle Tactics" moniker, then, is a further element of said guise. The game is not necessarily lying to us; the core element of the game is the tactical movement of your army. But rather than being able to win a fight by sheer attrition, or because your units have gained more experience or had better weapons or were carrying healing items that could be leaned upon, the average battle in Monstro tends to be won by either very careful manipulation of unit movement, or sheer manpower (when a given map even grants it to you). You'll be cleverly keeping your soldiers just out of reach of that approaching minotaur, sneaking your archer around a wall so she can snipe at angry mushrooms with near-impunity, shifting mobile walls to block off points of entry.
When combat inevitably happens, there are no random numbers, chances to critical-hit, or any semblance whatsoever of character growth. Attacks always hit and always deal the same damage. Therefore, the clever tactician must ensure that a given foe has enough accessible sides (and enough nearby men) that a given monster can be killed in a single turn, OR that enemies only have access to a small number of said men at the end of the turn, or else they'll spend the next turn watching their army be handily converted into a fine red mist. And while armies both human and monster alike are largely generic (there are no unique characters to my knowledge), they all fill different roles that all play into the great tactical puzzle that the game presents. Soldiers, archers, mobile walls - you'll need to leverage their abilities if you want anybody to survive at all...even if your average map lasts roughly two minutes and tends to end with nearly everybody dead.
That brevity may in fact be this game's greatest gameplay strength. This game is not keen to waste your precious time. The enemy turns are over in mere seconds; there are no complex character skills, and if you botch a move by accidentally double-clicking a unit, you can undo it. In fact, you can undo to the very beginning of the level if you want. Just because you've failed the map doesn't mean the game is about to force you to do it all over again, because there's an "undo last turn" button that lets you see about taking a different approach. And because the game has no randomness whatsoever, you have no need to constantly undo and redo the same action in hopes that the RNG will roll in your favor. If it didn't work the first time, try something else. And if nothing seems to work, nothing's stopping you from skipping that level and seeing what the next level's puzzle has to offer.
Having said most of what I can say about the gameplay, I feel like special mention must be made of the creativity on display. The sprite-and-tile artwork of the game is fantastic, with a nice bold choice of color, sprites that don't just sink into the background, lush grass tiles and chilly ice tiles and everything else in between. Even the interface buttons are big, bold, and clear. Simple, effective, and very pleasing to the eye. The music fits the general mood of the game quite well, and I absolutely love the writing on display at the start of every map - the sardonic narrator constantly going on about how these battles are ultimately the work of Skygods in search of cheap entertainment, while gleefully trivializing the actual fight. Each map description I read managed to elicit at least a giggle out of me, so that's certainly a major point in favor.
All this said, I would not blindly recommend this game to everybody I know. The type of gameplay on display here would not appeal to everybody; those looking for a strategy game of more substance - especially if one is after that elusive PC equivalent to a proper Fire Emblem game - would be soundly disappointed. The lack of character growth, and RPG elements in general, would probably annoy a player in search of something deep. But "depth" is not what this game aims for. It aims to be a bite-sized, play-in-short-bursts sort of strategy game, for the player that does not want to spend hours poring over their units' stats screens and buying them all pairs of boots. It boils down to the chess-like tactics of pieces meant to do very specific things, and figuring out the best way to use those specific things to clear each little situation. It's a "small" game, for the player who wants to do a lot in a little time.
Monstro: Battle Tactics is a strategy game with no RNG. The game helpfully tells you the rules for enemy priority and the same actions will always result in the same damage - no critical hits, luck rolls, or variations in AI.
This doesn't mean it's easy. What it means is that maps are more like puzzles.
As someone who played a lot of Advance Wars and tried to do fast clears that depended on specific (and sometimes rare) enemy movement, I appreciated this. You can look through the rules to see exactly what the enemy priority is, and you can undo moves, even during the enemy turn - emphasizing the puzzle aspect.
Overall, this is a really neat concept. Admittedly, the execution has a few flaws. One minor one is that there's no way to know the order enemies will move in unless you actually let the enemy move; this is something that's relevant on a few maps, as an enemy that moves first can sometimes block another enemy from attacking.
There are also a few maps that felt, frankly, unfair. It wasn't that the puzzles were too hard so much as that they do something like put you against an enemy ambush early in the map, with very few options for escaping and setting yourself up to fight back. Getting through these maps (thankfully small in number) felt less like a puzzle and more like trial-and-error. Still, they weren't that bad, and you don't have to go through the maps in linear order even though they're numbered, so if one gives you trouble you can move on and put it aside for later. And there are more than enough neat scenarios to make up for the fiddly ones.
Unlike many strategy games, you won't find much of a story here. There's an excuse plot for why these monsters are humans are fighting each other, and it's not taken seriously at all. There are no cutscenes, except for still pictures with narration during the ending sequences for each campaign; all the text is single dialogue boxes before each level, often poking fun at the whole concept. It's entertaining and I chuckled at several of them, but if you're looking for an engaging storyline with deep characterization, this isn't it.
On the whole, this is a game that's definitely worth looking at if you like strategy and puzzles. I had fun with it.
Monstro is to tactical RPGs as a chess problem is to chess: a handcrafted setup in the grid-based squad language with a single specific solution to be found. It's not exactly a pretty game, but then it's not priced as one either.
Definitely worth a play by those who enjoy both puzzle and strategy games; if you're not in that crowd, it's not likely to win you over with charm, but there's nothing wrong with being a niche game.
This is a fun puzzle game, and I use the word puzzle because this is not an RPG and it's also not a classic a turned base strategy game like the King's Bounty series - you cannot upgrade any skills or learn new ones, which means the scenario is very predetermined and it becomes more of a puzzle. The game contains 80 puzzles/levels, 40 playing as the humans fighting the beasts and 40 more as the beasts fighting the humans. The majority of the human puzzles can be won without losing any units, which is a fun optional challenge if you like that sort of stuff. Overall it's a nicely balanced game that's fun to play in short bursts between doing other things.
I have barely scratched the surface, but I am loving it so far. The tutorial / intro experience is well done; not too wordy. It surprised me to find that it was more of a puzzle game then anything, and I liked that. Totally worth the price.
The game is well designed, even when some rules are kinda tricky to understand, the misions are fun to do, specially trying to get the achievements. The art is great and imo one of the strongest points. the music is nice, but kinda distracting if you end turns fast. overall is a good game.
First things first: This is not a clasic turn-based rpg, let's just get that clear (I have no idea what that other review is talking about). This is styled very much like those games but there is no character progression, no army/party building, no skills, etc. TBS game maybe, rpg definitely not.
This is really a puzzle game using some mechanics from tactics style games. Think of it like playing challenge mode in chess games. There is a board setup and you basically have to figure out a strategy to solve it.
General graphics/audio: Very barebones, you basically get to toggle fullscreen, lighting & shadows (I have no idea why in the hell anybody would turn off lighting and shadows unless they were trying to run this on a rig from 20 years ago), music and sfx. The game is locked to 60fps but I'm not even sure 60 is necessary considering what is happening.
Story: Somewhat amusing story which I did not expect at all. I don't mean an actual plot because there is barely a story, there aren't really characters and stuff but the overarching narrative basically makes fun of tactics style games. Every couple of centuries sky-people who aren't really sky people go into a world where everybody is getting along and just makes them all fight on these square floating islands for their amusement. It's accompanied with little bits of text at the start of every level that are somewhat amusing.
Gameplay: Very straightforward tactics-style mechanics thrown into a puzzle. Units move on a grid, they have basic stats and attack stuff, enemies have movement preferences and if you mouse over them it shows exactly where the enemy will go. Some boards have a very specific way to beat and is basically trial and error. Most of the time a wrong move will ruin everything and you gotta restart or hit the turn back button. One mechanic I'd definitely recommend turning off is the one where when enemies attack your units it pauses the game and you have to click for the attack to go through. Since you can't press the turn back button this serves no real purpose, units move quickly and there's no actual need to see when the enemy attacks, if it does and you didn't know it was coming odds are you f*cked up.
My main complaint would be the weird difficulty curve(?). With most puzzle games you expect it to start easy and then slowly and consistently ramp up until it is ridiculously hard. With Monstro the difficulty goes up and down, every once in a while you hit a hard level but in between them are levels that are not only much easier but also don't require a specific way to solve (a lot of the easier ones just require you to gather your guys up and wait for the enemy to walk in and get slaughtered).
Overall: Would recommend as a casual strategy/puzzle game. If you are looking for a new Tactics Ogre/Final Fantasy Tactics then this is definitely not for you unfortunately. There is decent enough value for the money, The first Human wing took me about an hour and there is a monster wing and a ++ wing for both races.
Игры похожие на Monstro: Battle Tactics
Дополнительная информация
| Разработчик | Retrocade.net |
| Платформы | Windows |
| Ограничение возраста | Нет |
| Дата релиза | 21.01.2025 |
| Отзывы пользователей | 100% положительных (11) |