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Playstation > PlayStation Game Cheats > PlayStation Reviews > Staff Review | |
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| Playability: You may be asking yourself about now, how I could forgive the poor graphics and sounds present in the game. How I could overlook the fact that those lazy developers probably just ported the graphics and sound over from the Genesis version and left it at that. You're also asking yourself how I could ignore the fact that in the day of 30fps, spinning texture mapped and real-time light sourcing, that MoM uses none of these fancy effects. Well, the simple answer is that I don't care because the gamplay makes up for it all and more. The main idea of the game is to control as much real estate on each map as you can. Each map is filled with summoning Towers. The more towers you control the more summoning power you have and the more monsters you can summon at a time. As your power grows and the number of monsters you control increases, you send your army out to do battle with the enemy forces, and eventually their Master, to win the map. There is a choice of three Classes which your Master (and monsters) can belong to, Law, Neutral and Chaos. The class of your master and monsters mainly effects how they fight at certain times of the day. Law fights best during the light of day while Chaos fights most effectively during the night hours, the Neutral class is unaffected by the time of day so are more balanced but generally less powerful at their best. The game is split up into three main modes, Story Mode, Map Mode and vs Mode. In Story Mode you pick from one of six masters who you will control throughout the game. Your master is capable of summoning monsters and commanding them around the battlefield and casting spells against your enemies. The tale in story mode is told through a series of captioned, still frame animations and tells the story of each battle you must fight in order to save the world. As you play through Story Mode you learn of how Gaia and his evil Minions have been rampaging around the land destroying all in their path. It quickly becomes obvious that it's all up to you and your army to stop them. One great feature of Story mode is the Tutorial level you must complete before qualifying to progress. This level is relatively easy and is only intended for instructional purposes, so you can become familiar with the controls and layout of the game. There are many helpful hints and tips in the Tutorial mode and overall it is most useful for people who can't be bothered reading the manual. In Map Mode you can take a Master and their saved army on a rampage over a series of pre-defined maps. This is for no other reason than a bit of harmless fun and wild carnage on a global scale. Vs Mode is the multi- player component. You can pit your saved army against up to three MoM playing friends, in an attempt to see who has the best army. I am usually a great exponent of multi-player games. However, in this case the multi-player component falls a little short. The main problem with MoMs' vs Mode is that each player must have a saved army. This can be a little unfair unless each army is at the same stage of the game. It's likely that one army will walk all over the others, thus, making it a boring game for the lower levels players. This problem is alleviated a little with the ability to load the SAME army twice, thus pitting identical armies against each other but this also gets a little boring. Overall the vs Mode is a bit of a disappointment, it could have been saved by some kind of random army generator but alas, this is missing. The range and power of monsters changes as the level of your master increases. As your power grows the lethality of your spells also increases, so obviously the first priority is to get your Master as much experience as possible. As you send your creatures around the map to do battle, they can also take possession of summoning towers, which not only give you more summoning power but can also contain special powerful magical items. The magic items in the game are extremely useful and become an integral part of any winning strategy. The most valuable item I have found is Gaia's Stone, an item that increase the level of one of your creatures by 10, it can be quite handy being able to progress your creatures quickly in order to create some very powerful allies. Some items are permanent while others are temporary. The permanent items usually increase one of the attributes of your monsters. For example, a Sword of Gaia greatly increases the close combat skill of the monster you give it to. Each monster can only hold one permanent item and they can not be transferred between creatures, so distribute them wisely. Other items have a more mundane purpose, such as healing or increasing the movement of your allies for one turn. Combat is a simply matter of having your master (or monster) move into the same hex as an enemy monster (or master). When attacking you must decide on which form of attack to use against your enemy. There are three modes to choose from: Close Combat, Missile Attack and Magical Attack. Not all monsters can use all three modes, although the most powerful generally have all three to choose from. You must choose which mode to use based on the chance to hit with each mode, the amount of damage it will cause and whether the enemy can strike back at you. The ability to strike back is based on the enemies attack modes. If you attack with a mode that the enemy also possess they will be able to strike back. However if you attack with a mode they do not possess you can strike them without fear of retaliation. This also works when you are defending, so it is always advantageous to use creatures with all three attack modes. Terrain on the maps is another major factor in deciding on your battle plan. Certain monsters perform better in some terrain and worse in others. For example an Elf fights best in the forest, where a Mermaid fights best in the water. While most monsters can fight and move over most terrain types their effectiveness is hampered or helped depending on which terrain they currently occupy during a battle. The maps are also spotted with towers and fortresses. Towers are useful because while a monster occupies a tower they recover lost hit points at the end of each turn, so fighting from a tower is a good idea. Fortresses also provide some degree of cover when defending and attack from one. The most appealing aspect of MoM is the ability to build up your army and nurture your monsters over time. As you summon your monsters, they go out and fight for you. The more enemies they destroy, the more experience they gain, and the more levels they gain, thus making them better fighters. When a monster reaches the 5th level they 'evolve' into a more powerful form of monster. For example a Dragon can evolve into a Wyvern of Salamander at 5th Level (you get to choose which evolution they take). Evolution effects the monsters attacks, movement and magical ability, an the type of evolution effects how much teach of these factors is increased. There is a small problem with this nurturing of monsters. As your master increases in experience and moves through the levels, so does his ability to summon new and more powerful creatures. As your masters level increases, his summoning ability may overtake the monsters currently in his army. This effectively negates the fun of nurturing your orginal creatures and is my one major complaint with the game. However, on the positive side, with the use of items you can abnormally increase a monsters abilities, thus making them more valuable than a stock summoned monster of the same type. Another great element of the game is the ability to 'fuse' monsters. If you find a monastery on the map you can use it to merge two of your weaker creatures into a more powerful one. The success rate of the 'fuse' is dependant more on luck than anything else and the result of a failed 'fuse' is a blue slime creature, however, the results of a successful 'fuse' can range from raised stats for the fused creature to a completely new and powerful creature. The combinations are unlimited and the results are unpredictable, a little like breeding chocobos... fun and rewarding when it works. Here's a hint. Try fusing a Troll and a Banshee to see what pops out. So, the bottom line on playability. Dazzling, great, brilliant, effulgent, immense, grand, ample, unreal, fantastic (I sure gave the thesaurus a work out on that one). Enough said. Game Options: This is a 1 disk game for 1 - 4 Players. It is compatible with the standard (digital) joypad and the digital controls of the dual shock joypad. Games can be saved via memory card (1 block per save). |
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