Monster Kingdom Jewel Summoner
PSP Review
by Fredrick Guese
Monster Kingdom: Jewel Summoner is a monster capture RPG created by Kouji Okada, the mastermind behind Shin Megami Tensei Series. The game may be a year old in Japan, but has now recently showed up on shores courtesy of niche publishing house Atlus. Many of the PSP RPG's are merely ports of older PlayStation titles or Action/RPG Games. What separates Monster Kingdom is that it borrows pages from the monster catching subgenre of Role Playing Games which include Nintendo's Pokemon and Tecmo's Monster Rancher.
The first thing you'll notice the game when you boot it up are the quick load times. From the title screen to the battle transition the loading is about five seconds. For the impatient it's a must, but it's a nice touch considering other games on the platform where loading can last up to 30 seconds.
The start of the game entrusts you into the control of Vice, a Jewel Summoner, whose chosen path in life is to summon monsters that have been transformed into jewel form. He has not been formally trained to be one, though his late mother has passed down a special charm. What players may notice from him off the bat is he is not the most social person out there. His attitude makes the Grinch look like George Bailey (Merry Christmas Mr. Potter!). At the beginning of his journey, he runs into several students just starting their field experience in fighting monsters. After reluctantly following them back to the academy, he is introduced to a giant monolith that sucks his jewel away. Though he is extremely upset over losing his only memento of his departed mother, he decides to join the students in training while the professors figure out what happened.
The game is composed of three main modes which are typical of any RPG: field, battle, and town/world map. The field is made up small dungeons which are pretty bite size and have the portable mentality in mind. These maps don't drag on nor does it feel like you're getting lost. A mini map shows with an arrow direct you to the next destination. Battles are random much like Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest.
Through the game you will capture up to 100 monsters. The monsters are based on several classes, and catching them requires special prisms of the same class. From a glance, it may just seem like a Pokemon clone with a limited amount of attacks and lacking in depth. A lot like Okada's previous entries in RPGs, mainly SMT: Digital Devil Saga, the player can look for weak spots of enemies. If successful, you can get more turns and as a result get in more hits to the enemy. This mixes up the typical elemental weaknesses seen in Monster Kingdom's elk.
Another difference is that the monsters themselves do not lose health points, but the player characters do. Whenever necessary, you can 'tag' out the three playable characters at any time. The final difference is the skill progression system which instead of leveling up you can fuse your monsters with jewels to evolve into new forms and get skills. This sort of irons out the necessary evil in RPGs which is power leveling and as a result makes it less a chore and more enjoyable.
Now comes the one of the game's main problems which is the Town/World Map. This screen is merely a map menu with not much interaction between the Player Characters and NPCs besides the same canned dialog boxes. This hurts the immersion factor by not allowing the player to explore is surroundings or making it feel like an actual world. It merely feels a screen that serves the purpose of going to the next plot point or dungeon. Whether this design choice was to cater to a portable console remain to see be seen, but the town graphics and battle graphics need to have more consistency.
Speaking of which, the battle and dungeon graphics are well done albeit a bit repetitive. The battle models are well detailed with excellent texturing and each spell exhibits colorful particle effects which you'd probably be me accustomed to the recent Final Fantasy titles. It gives a great wow, and the dungeons have the same level of detail, but textures are reused far too frequently. It is an isometric perspective so that technical issues like frame rate drop or obvious clipping. Animation meanwhile is smooth and doesn't feel stiff or robotic.
The graphics for the town/world map tie in with the problems of that element of the game. The character designs and art is colorful, but lacking in any life. The only thing you will see animated are the character portrait's mouths moving. It's pretty basic and does the job done, but as stated before it never gives the player an escape from reality.
Sound meanwhile is a mish mash between average music/sound effects and solid voice acting. The voice acting is well done which each character suiting each of the characters. The amount of it is also surprising considering it is portable games were battery life and media capacity are considerations. Sound effects and music are average with the same slashes, clangs, and battle ballads we've seen previous role playing games. Nothing stands out when it comes to that department.
The average RPG player should be able to get through it in around 30 to 40 hours, and the sheer length of it warrants a purchase. The game play and inherent premise of capturing monsters will keep this UMD in its slot for a few weeks or even months. Despite having a mixed presentation and lacking in interactivity in towns, Monster Kingdom: Jewel Hunter is a solid add on to your PSP library.
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