Monster Kingdom: Jewel Summoner

"Great Addition to the PSP RPG Library!"

Monster Kingdom: Jewel Summoner

Atlus is one of the leading companies for RPG's, most of which are outstanding. Even for those few RPG's that were not so great, all the games they make have the same great things in common. These attributes being: sound, charming graphics, great voice overs, and superb translation. Monster Kingdom: Jewel Summoner has all of that stuff and more, but this game does have it drawbacks that really hurt the over all feel.

The story centers around Vice, a young man in search of a winged “abomination”. His mother was killed while he was young by this winged monster, leaving him alone with the only thing left of his mother, a jewel which contained a dark monster. He vowed he would hunt down the winged monster and kill it. From that day forth he traveled from town to town to rid each town of its monsters, hoping that one may be the one that killed his mother. When you first start the quest, Vise is just finishing up a job in town when he is confronted by a man dressed in red, warning Vice that he has actually not killed a single monster, and that he is not strong enough to kill monsters. Vice shrugs the man off and follows the advice of the village elder to go to the nearby city and ask “The Order” about the monster he seeks. The Order is a school and home to the Jewel Summoners. The Jewel Summoners are the only ones who can summon the monsters out of the Jewels, as well as kill monsters. The Order is shocked that Vice can summon without prior training, and his black jewel is accidentally absorbed by an ancient monument. The Order recommends that he trains as a Jewel Summoner until they figure out how to extract his black Jewel. The story runs deep, and the twists really pack a punch.

The battle system and overall setup reminds me of Pokemon. You gain Jewel's throughout the game with a corresponding element. As you fight monsters in battles, you can weaken them and use the Jewel that is the same element of the monster to catch it. Each character can hold up to three Jewels, and can switch them out in battle during their turn. The turns in battles can be viewed at the bottom of the screen. Pictures of the characters and the enemy are in order in which they will attack (Like the FFX battle system). If a monsters Life Points are brought to 0 then that monster and character are removed from battle, so it is important to heal that monster or switch it out before it dies. A monster is also removed if it has inefficient Job Points to execute an attack. Unlike LP, the monster is automatically exchanged for the next monster in the characters inventory. After the battle you received AP with is stored to give to your monsters as experience whenever you like, experience, money, and items. Just like Pokemon, as the monster levels it up, it learns new abilities. Monsters can have up to four abilities (Eventually 5), so you must choose to toss the new abilities or to exchange it with one that you already have.

Another thing that is neat but not as deep as it should have been was augmentation. You can fuse your monster Jewels, buff them up with quarts, give them experience from AP, and change their starts around to a degree. I rarely use it, and most of it was near the end of the game when I had tons off materials. Augmentation is a tricky business, so save often when you attempt something new.

The characters in dialog are all traditional animation. They are very detailed, especially the females. The battle models for the monsters are great for the PSP. They used many of the models over and over and just changed the colors, but that is fine. Dungeon graphics are equally as good. At some times I was like “Ugh, they could have done this.”, but I remembered that it was on the PSP and then I was like “It is actually really good”.

The sound has to be the highlight of this game. First off let me talk about the voice actors and dialog. The dialog is high quality that you would expect in a really high profile game or anime series. Add in the professional voice actors and you are sucked into the story even further. The humor is abundant and I had a few laugh out loud moments. There has to be an old pervert in every good game, and Monster Kingdom does not disappoint, let's leave it at that. With this kind of talent I almost did not care that I had to wait an hour and a half to actually PLAY the game. The music reminds me of Final Fantasy Tactics/Valkyrie Profile/Star Ocean 2 in a way. The background sounds and monster sounds are also impressive.

Monster Kingdom also supports Network modes via Ad-hoc. You can trade your monsters or battle them. I would give my comments on this, but it is a full month before the actual release so know one has it yet to play with. I am going to go by what I do know about what I could see in network mode and by what other games have done. You get AP for winning battles also, so it is worth the effort to find others. They cannot screw it up. It is strait forward so I am confident that it is good. I want to test it out so you people better go get it!

Overall, the game is one of the best RPG's for the PSP, and would actually tie for first in my case. Some things in the game are annoying, such as slowdowns in battle, the split screen in battles, easy battles, and the hour and a half reading at the beginning. With that said, the voice acting was amazing, and the music was almost as impressive. The graphics were detailed for characters and the graphics in battle were more than passable. The game is pretty short gameplay wise, and there is not much else to do after you beat the game except to buff up your monsters and take them online.

+ Great voice actors
+ Detailed character models
- Slowdown in battles
- Too easy
? Will Monster Kingdom 2 come to PSP?

Gameplay: 7
Graphics: 8
Audio: 9
Worth: 8
Overall: 8

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 01/22/07, Updated 02/09/07