Slimer! Monster Quest

Intro

"Slimer! Monster Quest" is a short, turn-based RPG that was developed by primodori using RPG Maker VX Ace that contains a few questionable design decisions to say the least. And the bulk of these decisions really hurt combat in this game since most enemies aren't a threat to the player. So much so that combat is basically a snooze fest. I suppose the player could restrain themselves in order to change that, but if your game requires me to avoid using tools you provided than I'd say your combat balance is pretty messed up. Though, I suppose I'll get into the nitty gritty on why combat in this game isn't enjoyable in the gameplay section. For now I'd like to focus on the narrative.

Story
Summary

You play as Slimer, an orange slime, whose village was destroyed by a group of heroic adventurers. So you decide to set out on a quest to get revenge and bring justice down upon the heroes for killing your friends and family for being slimes. A plot line that feels like it's ripped straight out of the conditions for setting up the fight with the secret super boss in "Atelier Iris 3". At any rate after you catch up to the heroes and get easily crushed. Thankfully, your nursed back to health by an Ogre named Ogrus whose willing to lend a helping hand to your quest for vengeance.

Of course before he can leave his own village in order to help you'll out Ogrus needs Slimer to help him hunt down some game in the forest. After all, Ogrus is the strongest hunter in the village and they would starve without him providing for them, but as fate would have it we would be jumped by an adventurer shortly after hunting down a chimera. I guess, these guys really do want to make enemies of all of the monsters in the world. After dealing with him and dropping off the chimera's meet we try to cross a bridge to the next dungeon, but in order to cross the bridge we'll need to find a shiny thing dropped by will-o-wisps that pop up as a random encounter in this game. Yeah, this is part of the questionable design choices at the heart of this game, but if your persistent enough you'll eventually get lucky and find a shiny thing for the imp.

Of course after getting his shiny thing the imp, Fishura, joins the party in hopes of finding additional shiny things. Why this character is so obsessed with shiny things is beyond me. I guess the developer thinks imps operate like crows or ravens. At any rate after acquiring Fishura it's time to cross the mountain where we eventually run into another adventurer that wields magic. Though her fire spells are no match for our crew.

After that were forced to play a game with the next boss and next member of our party by climbing her tower. A task that is more annoying than difficult since you need to defeat death in a few areas in order to advance. And the sprite representing this character randomly walks around and can walk into areas that are inaccessible to the player. So you'll sometimes have to wait for death to come to you, but with enough patience we can climb to the top of the tower and challenge the sexy succubus waiting for us at the top in order to earn our 'price'.



And with Miria now in our party we can charm the guards guarding the pathway to the next area and enter the forest where we'll have our next encounter with the heroes. Sadly the heroes are little to busy to deal with us personally and decide to send in their understudy. A decision that will cost said understudy her life. After all, how is one grappler going to deal with four powerful monsters at the same time?

After that we enter the castle using a side tunnel and make our way through the sewers under the castle in order to search for the heroes. Oddly enough we find them waiting for us part way through and surrounded by additional guards. An issue we'll worry about later since it seems the hero and his companions think they are match for this dream team. A decision they soon come to regret, but during the fight we were boxed in by even more guards. So all we have left to do is try and smash our way through. And even if we do fall our actions are sure to inspire other monsters to get revenge on those that would dare to hunt us.

Spelling and Grammar

The game contains a few notable spelling and grammar errors, but considering the developer isn't a native English speaker. These errors aren't that big of a deal in my opinion. And it's not like any of the errors make it impossible to understand what the developer meant. Though it did lead to some funny errors like the hero proclaiming Slimer and his friends to be a 'torn' in his side.



Greatest Strength/Weakness

I'll admit the idea of presenting a game like this from the perspective of the monsters isn't a new idea, but it isn't done that often. As a result this game feels a bit fresh even if it centers around a very basic story about getting revenge on a group of people for destroying your village. On the other hand the playable cast in this game really need more development or characterization to help them stand out. About the only character that feels like they go on a journey is Slimer which makes sense considering he's the main character, but I'd hard pressed to tell you anything about the other party members beyond them obsessing over a single thing such as brawn, shiny objects, or having fun.

Gameplay

Combat wise this game is a bit of a hot mess. For starters this game features both random encounters and touch encounters, but it does split these encounter types between the world map and dungeons. So this aspect of the game is just odd. Albeit the touch encounter system seems a bit off since you can sometimes run through enemies in this game without triggering a fight. A factoid that can be rather annoying in Miria's tower when your trying to challenge death to a fight.

Another issue is that a lot of characters in this game have redundant skills. A good example of this early on is Slimer who has both a magic spell and a free TP skill that allows him to cast poison all on his enemies. A factoid that is really weird since you'd expect him to have one version of this skill or the other. And I don't know why you'd ever cast the magic spell version if it does the same thing as skill you can cast for free.

Another issue with combat in this game is that all of the TP skills that inflict status conditions and target all enemies on the field can be cast for free which means you can spam things like sleep, paralysis, blind, confusion, and poison as much as you want. And since some of those skills can be used to lock down enemies. You can turn every fight in this game into an absolute joke since you can render enemies entirely helpless for several turns with paralysis and two of your characters are able to utilize this ability. So your almost guaranteed to lock down all enemies on the field on your first turn. In fact, I had this happen during the final fight with the heroes and even slapped additional status effects like poison on them as well. At that point the fight was effectively over since I was easily able to tear through them with my magic spells well before they broke free of paralysis.

The game also features stat boosters that can be bought on the cheap as well, but these stat boosters aren't as bad as they could be because of how overpowered status effect spells are in this game. Otherwise I'd say the ability to buy two stat boosters for the price of defeating a group of ghosts would be absolutely broken. After all, you can find groups of ghosts that infinitely respawn whenever you enter a room in Miria's Tower and one of them pops up near a point that can be used to fully restore your HP and MP. So you can easily farm as many ghosts as you want for stat boosters. So much so you can make it impossible for enemies to even hurt your characters in this game.

Graphics

As far as I'm aware the game relies entirely on the RTP for this aspect of the game. At least if we ignore the title screen that appears to use 3D renditions of the playable cast. And these models are rather rough around the edges in my opinion, but I suppose their serviceable even if they are ugly. Outside of the title screen the rest of the game is pretty standard fare as far as maps go. Though I do wish enemy encounters in this game were a bit more diverse since most enemies come in groups of the same enemy. The only exception to this rule are enemies that appear by themselves or the fights with the hero's party that feature the hero, a knight, and a cleric.

Sound

On the sound side of things the game appears to use a mix of the RTP and songs ripped from other sources such as "Full Metal Panic". And the game also plays an audio recording when you defeat the fire witch in this game, but this only pops up during the after math of this one fight. So it kind of feels out of place. Outside of that oddity though the game's background music and sound effects are pretty forgettable in my opinion.

Conclusion

"Slimer! Monster Quest" is held back by being way too easy in my opinion. And while it's better a game suffer from being mind numbingly boring to play than so hard it's infuriating. It's hard to deny that your game is failing if I find one of the biggest aspects of your game a tedious task to get through. Add in some odd choices like giving Miria two free TP skills that can inflict confusion on all of your enemies at the same time and your left with a game that needs more polishing in my opinion. So unless your desperately looking for another game where you get to play as the monster. I'd suggest giving this game a pass.