Mon-Yu, a new blobber from Experience Inc. coming in 2023

[Adenocaulon]

Localized by AKSYS GAMES (same publisher in the west for Undernauts).

According to their video description it will be more related to Wizardry than Undernauts. Though they are using a more "cute" character design. It would be available for PC and the Nintendo Switch in 2023.



Undernauts was probably overpriced on Steam, but at least the publisher will continue localizing Experience Inc. games in the west for PC.

EDIT: It was already advertised in the forum: https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads...next-dungeon-rpg-with-cutesy-graphics.137799/

 

[Jermu]

 

[Jermu]

released

 

[Jermu]

still 0 reviews at steam that price is pretty spicy

 

[Grauken]

the forum has a couple of impressions

https://steamcommunity.com/app/2238430/discussions/0/3878218563596508990/

this one seemed the most informed

I played Mon Yu a year ago(so some stuff is from the relatively distant memory)
It's overall a very 'NEW' experience among the games. Unusually so for experience inc games.
I will only comment on differences from other experience inc games.

1) Difficulty - First of all game by default has 3 difficulty settings, the easiest is pretty easy and has a lot of QoL available without the need to unlock it.
The other 2 difficulties remove said QoL until you get certain something from a dungeon.
On top of that difficulties instead of massively upgrading enemy instead nerf 'you'. More details in level cap below.

The game itself is pretty difficult if you pick the hardest setting. Unlike other experience inc game it's harder to just 'overkill' the dungeons by getting better gear and more levels.
It's much more about strategy and skill choices(you can freely reassign stats)

Final difficulty outright removes minimap until you obtain it in the dungeon.

2) Level cap - the game's limitation and big part of difficulty.
Each 'map'/'dungeon' raises level cap.

The level cap is from 7(3 on hardest difficulty) at game start to 38(32 on hardest difficulty)

Basically keep in mind that you will finish the game ~level 30-32... and that's it, no postgame or anything.

Beating game and getting all 50 'collectibles' unlocks 99 levels... but yet again there is no content so it's kinda pointless.

3) Character creation has the annoying 'random starting stat bonus' mechanic. With how limited level cap is it's important to get good amount of points for each character but be ready to reach for eternity.

Bonus stat point cap is 30(according to devs) but I have never seen a stat over 21.

Even 21+ chances are something like 0.0001% or something.

You could probably spend your entire life rolling for a 30 stat point start but you would likely die of old age before you finish a party of 6.

4) Evaluation system - you are ranked from D to S when beating boss of each dungeon.
Based on your evaluation you get extra reward and improvement to treasure chests in next dungeon.
It sounds like a cool concept but it sucks on practice.

There are basically 15 'stars' for 3 'evaluations', 1 to 5 star each and S rating requires 12+ stars:
1. Level - the lower average party level the more stars you get. Probably the most annoying one. It kinda works well with the lower level cap of the higher difficulties. If you play on highest difficulty then you always get at least 4 stars and only need to lower level by 1 at most.
Not a problem to get 3-4 stars here by playing normally. You can lower your levels if you want to get more stars for this.
Getting 1 star is only possible on lowest difficulty I think.
2. Turns used to beat boss - getting 5 can be kinda challenging unless you overkill levels on lower difficulties. But 3-4 should not be a big problem.
3. Map exploration.
This one you SHOULD get 5 stars if you care about the rating. A 'freebie' if you will which rewards the people addicted to exploring each tile of the map.

Generally getting S rank is not overly hard but it's an annoyance, especially the level evaluation.
The reason it's not too hard is because ORIGINALLY the S rank required 15 stars but people were complaining and they nerfed it to 12+ stars.
It also had 'death count' instead of the 'map exploration'... so you could permanently cripple yourself.

Big problem of this 'evaluation' system is the 'snowball effect'.
If you get S rank then you will usually keep having S ranks in the future as long as you bother to fully explore. That's due to equip reward randomness changing massively in your favor as part of reward for the period of next dungeon.

This kinda results into 'strong get stronger' kind of system.

5) Length - very short(compared to usual exp inc game), around 40 hours at most to 100% it. Main problem is that there is no postgame or any other extra content. You beat the game and... that's it. Underwhelming.

6) New 'gear' system - instead of + enchants your gear becomes stronger the more you wear it.
I would say it's another change 'for the worse' ultimately. But opinions on this varied from person to person in JP audience fanbase.
The main problem is when you get new gear piece and it's kinda potentially better but with boss being up next you are kinda forced to use old gear and with game being so short I felt that it's kinda... weird design choice.

7) Atmosphere - still dark atmosphere as far as story goes BUT with those crappy 'cute' designs it kinda throws off the dark fantasy vibe.

Everything else is the same as usual experience inc. titles.
All classes are same with a bit difference to a few class names.
It has similar system to undernauts where you either get a 'specialized' advanced job or the 'quirky' one.

The advanced jobs are unlocked ~2/3rd into the game.

The 'party skill' mechanic is identical to the undernauts.
0 mana cost/half damage/more speed and better treasure for finishing.

 

[Grauken]

To add some infos to what I posted above (the info wasn't from me but is alright), while difficulty is all about levels caps, to alleviate this you have two other progression systems, items and skill points. All items you find have also level caps and items of the same type can have different caps, so you'll always seek out either the same items with a higher level cap (levelling up items increase their usefulness obviously, like attack for weapons or defense for armor stuff) or items with better base stats. The other progression path and even more important one is skills which isn't completelly capped by levels. That said, you only unlock certain skills at certain levels, but once you have unlocked them you can farm skill points and level up the skills as you want to (though most skills only level up (so far) to 2 or 3 upgrades). These skills are also basically the key to defeating the bosses on the highest difficulty as the level cap makes sure you can't just hit the bosses blindly (most garden variety monsters though you can).

Difficulty also informs how the map works, on the easiest difficulty you have the mini-map on the movement screen and the big map from the get go, on the second difficulty level you only have the mini-map in every level and have to unlock the full map (or full mapping tool) and on the highest difficulty you have to unlock both mini-map and mapping tool in every new dungeon. Important to remember is that you can only switch to lower difficulties during gameplay and can't switch back up, so if you start at the highest and switch down to either easiest or normal you can't go back to hardest, same with switching from normal to easiest.

There are no random encounters, you see encounters either as fixed floating items on certain spots or monster groups (same item different color) that either flee from you or follow you, but since they can't open doors they are usually limited to the rooms they are in.

Overall, the game feels like an attempt to make a dungeon crawler for beginners though I'm not sure how I feel about the whole level cap thing. Level design even for an Experience game so far is rather simplistic but the game does have a certain addictive factor to it. The visual design is super kawai weeb stuff, so if you're not into that I would stay far away.

That said, if you are interested in getting it, really wait for a sale, at the current price the game is hilariously overpriced and you will regret getting it. Wait until it's at least down to 20$ or € or go for other options.

 

[lvl 2 Blue Slime]

God I hate the scaling in Experience games. I remember playing Stranger of Sword City and I returned to the starting area and all the snakes were now lvl. 99 and had thousands of hitpoints.

 

[Grauken]

God I hate the scaling in Experience games. I remember playing Stranger of Sword City and I returned to the starting area and all the snakes were now lvl. 99 and had thousands of hitpoints.

Experience is kinda weird, they have the technology in place to make really superior dungeon crawlers (theoretically they could even escape the Wiz 1-5 mold) but they never quite manage it, there's always something that's holding them back in one way or another.

 

[Kuruwin]

I agree it feeling like newbie crawler. I don't know how advance classes change thing's but the first tier classes don't have much skills to choose from and the highest skills unlock around 9-10th level. I'm at the start of the third dungeon and my party is level 7.

So far the dungeons have been 1 floor only so the game is probably around 20-25 hour's long on normal (which isn't a bad thing) if there's only seven dungeons.

 

[Kuruwin]

Just a little tip for the fifth dungeon, If someone keep's fucking up like I do. The answer isn't just

Spoiler

fate, it's Godess of fate in all caps.

Anyways. After the fifth dungeon you finally get more skills. You don't technically have advance classes and instead you just get more skills and option to switch between multiclass type of configuration. Mage can get healing skills and vice versa (I think)

It's nice that you can switch between these options without any cost (outisde battle)