I almost wish I hadn’t played the demos, because now I really want both full games but I don’t want to pay $49.99 (Oninaki) and $59.99 (Monark). They were nice but not that nice, and I’ll kick myself if they go on sale later.
Oninaki – Dark and dreary game about Watchers who guide the souls of lost dead people. Seems to be heavily influenced by Hindu beliefs, but it’s not clear what direction the writers are going in. On one hand there’s a blithe attitude towards death, on the other hand unauthorized suicide is a crime? The worldview and story are a bit confusing, but I just started out so it’s too soon to say.
The combat is action RPG-ish, with skills that can be used off cooldown. There’s also stuff about Daemon possession, which is basically a switchable party member kind of thing. Think Pokemon or personae except not as easily switchable. I’m really liking the solo nature of my party so far, and I’d like to keep it that way if possible. The enemy density is high too, which I always enjoy in an ARPG.
In keeping with the theme of living and dead, you can switch between the Living World and the Beyond at set points (or at random if you like Game Overs) to cross roadblocks, solve mysteries, kill bosses, etc. I thought it would be an annoying gimmick, but it’s pretty clear when and where you’re supposed to switch. I hope they do more with the two worlds later, otherwise it’s going to feel very tacked on and “trying too hard to be different.”
TL;DR – I’m enjoying the combat and the story is vaguely interesting, but the mood and colors are too dreary for me to pay full price for this. Luckily I noticed that it occasionally goes on sale and even went as low as $19.99 recently.
Monark – Now this one I’m really tempted by. It’s a modern high-school occult RPG in the vein of the Persona games or Tokyo Xanadu eX+. The combat is a free-moving SRPG like… hmm, Shining Force Feather? Where there’s a circular range you can move in instead of a grid, but really it boils down to the same thing. And you have back attacks, side attacks, counter attacks, etc. Same as typical SRPGs. I thought I was done with SRPGs, but this ain’t half bad. Maybe because it doesn’t come with the typical grid format so it doesn’t trigger bad memories.
In the early game I’m playing, the main character and his companion have to venture into a spooky mist to rescue people and defeat monsters. There’s a lot of walking and talking and not much fighting, so at this stage I consider it more of a Tokyo Majin-like. I hope the ratio improves significantly as the game moves along, though. Balance is important in this kind of game. (BTW it turns out there’s a semi-official term for “majin-like” coined by the developer of the Tokyo Majin series. He calls them “gakuen juvenile denki” but it’s a mouthful so I’ll call them what I want).
Why I want it – I like the Majin-like / high school occult RPG genre a lot, actually. There are only so many Persona games out there, so any game “inspired” by the series is likely to get played by me. The characters aren’t annoying, the story is moving along at a pretty fast pace and the Madness gimmick isn’t as frustrating as I’d expected.
Plus Monark was developed by Lancarse, who also developed WiZman’s World, a game I have fond but bittersweet memories of. Also it’s published by Furyu, which has made a lot of games I really enjoyed.
Unlike Oninaki, I’m quite tempted to buy Monark straight up regardless of the price, because I’m about 80% sure I’ll like the whole thing. Plus since it just came out two months ago vs. 3 years ago for Oninaki, it will take some time for the price to drop significantly. Still I’m nothing if not patient when it comes to new releases that aren’t called Xenoblade 3, so I’ll find other things to play while waiting for the inevitable drop.
Important finding
What I realized from this demo-playing experience is that I can still enjoy JRPGs. They just need to be handheld so I can start them on my bed. Starting is the hurdle, after that it’s not hard to keep playing if I like the game. That means I should give some thought to getting a Steam Deck or other handheld PC if I really want to make a dent in my gaming backlog. And I should get the Switch version of more games instead of the PC version. Food for thought, for sure.
On the topic of demos, it seems the Nintendo EU eShop has a lot of demos that other regions don’t have. I wonder why? EU gamers are a harder sell? Stingier? Broker? Hmm, so curious. I’m not complaining though, since I’ll be trying the demos for Shining Resonance Refrain (really hope I like it) and Labyrinth of Refrain: Coven of Dusk next. 11 more weeks to Xenoblade 3!
