Monster Crown

About

Monster Crown is a single player and multiplayer open world role playing game with a fantasy theme. It was developed by Studio Aurum and was released on October 12, 2021. It received mostly positive reviews from critics and neutral reviews from players.

Monster Crown - Dark Monster Catching Game with True Crossbreeds Featuring a brand new dynamic breeding system and a deep story in a world filled to the brim with optional content. Offer contracts to dangerous beasts and breed them to create new species. Travel across Crown Island with your Monsters as you work toward stopping an underground plan to revive the sadistic Philosopher Kings and retur…

+10

Skip User Reviews

59%

Audience ScoreBased on 768 reviews

story44 positive mentions

stability197 negative mentions

Extensive and creative monster breeding and fusion system that allows for a high degree of customization and unique monster teams.
Retro-style graphics and nostalgic aesthetic reminiscent of early Pokémon games, with a darker and more mature story tone.
Engaging gameplay for fans of monster taming games, with an open world to explore and a challenging combat system that rewards strategy and team building.

The game is plagued by numerous bugs and glitches including visual errors, softlocks, UI issues, and game-breaking crashes, negatively impacting the gameplay experience.
Unpolished and clunky user interface with inconsistent controls, poor menu navigation, and inadequate explanations for mechanics and features.
Poor balancing with abrupt difficulty spikes and an unintuitive type system, coupled with grindy progression that can be frustrating for players.

story
331 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
13%
80%
7%
The story in this game offers a darker, more mature tone compared to typical monster-taming titles, with engaging themes of conflict, politics, and war set on Crown Island. However, many players find it underwhelming, clunky, and poorly paced, often hindered by vague objectives, glitches, and an unfinished feel that disrupts immersion. While some appreciate its ambition and potential, the overall narrative and character development remain shallow and inconsistent, with storytelling flaws and bugs detracting significantly from the experience.
- “The story unfolds on crown island, a place shaped by generations of conflict, shifting power, and uneasy alliances between humans and monsters.”
- “The story unfolds through engaging dialogue and intriguing plot twists, immersing players in a world filled with political intrigue and secrets waiting to be unraveled.”
- “The game does a good job of showing what a world full of monsters would really be like: the monsters want to kill you, they aren't friendly little Pokémon; some of them are evil, some are vicious, and the plot reflects the reality of that.”
- “The story and characters feel completely uninspired and uninteresting, and it is often unclear where to go next.”
- “The game’s story also makes no sense and doesn’t tell you where to go.”
- “The storytelling is disappointingly poor, forced, and sequential events don't make sense.”
gameplay
236 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
31%
64%
5%
The gameplay of Monster Crown is praised for its deep and addictive breeding and fusion mechanics, which add strategic depth and personalize the monster-collecting experience. However, it is frequently criticized for numerous bugs, clunky UI, and pacing issues that disrupt immersion, alongside some simplistic or under-explained battle mechanics. Despite these technical and design flaws, many players find the core gameplay loop nostalgic and rewarding, with potential that could be realized through future polish and improvements.
- “This mechanic elevates the experience from simple collection to creative experimentation, and it becomes the heart of the entire journey.”
- “I need to express as well, the monster breeding mechanics in this game are the best I've seen in any monster taming game so far, which made it very enjoyable and fun for me while those mechanics can often feel like a slog in Pokémon or Temtem for example.”
- “The breeding mechanic is phenomenal and provides me with endless fun hybridizing species.”
- “This game is clearly not finished; even the first 30 minutes are an utter mess. It's not just about the bugs, but the gameplay itself is messed up.”
- “The gameplay of fighting monsters was hard to even do due to bugs hindering battles, but even when it worked, you could just mash buttons and blast through everything.”
- “The only major downsides are the large amount of dead-end regions while exploring, requiring extensive searching to find monsters; no concrete tips on story objectives beyond general areas; and many bugs, including getting stuck inside NPCs and menus, forcing restarts and loss of progress.”
stability
202 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
2%
98%
Monster Crown is widely criticized for being extremely buggy and unpolished, with frequent visual glitches, softlocks, unresponsive controls, and issues in menus and gameplay mechanics that often disrupt the experience. While some players appreciate its unique concept and potential, the abundance of technical problems—ranging from game-breaking crashes to persistent UI bugs—makes it difficult to recommend in its current state. The developers are actively patching, but as of now, stability remains a significant concern.
- “Dev is constantly putting out patches and really wants to make sure this is bug free.”
- “I do like the ideas they have in the game; I just hope they improve and make sure the core mechanics of the game aren't buggy in Monster Crown 2.”
- “Devs got a huge road ahead of them making this bug free.”
- “I got a major softlock within seconds of starting a new game, experienced multiple camera, sprite, and UI layering issues within minutes, then multiple control issues with unresponsive and buggy inputs for hours.”
- “The game is a buggy mess, from text over text, missing UI, some UI that looks like it's made from Word '98, bugs when using items, bugs when using the scout feature, bugs when buying/selling at the vendor creating a black screen.”
- “Graphic glitches and unintuitive UI are just the tip of the iceberg, and as of 6/10/2022, I have been unable to start a new game and play for more than 5 minutes without running into a game-breaking bug.”
graphics
125 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
21%
75%
4%
The graphics of the game strongly evoke nostalgic, retro 8-bit and Game Boy Color aesthetics, reminiscent of early Pokémon titles, with charming pixel art and unique monster designs that many players appreciate. However, the game suffers from numerous graphical glitches, UI bugs, inconsistent visuals, and performance issues like input lag, which detract from the overall experience. While the art style is generally praised for its nostalgic appeal and atmosphere, technical shortcomings and lack of modern graphical refinements limit its polish and accessibility.
- “The art style is great, the story is more gritty but not overly-annoying (like pokemon snakewood fangame), monsters have nice designs and the way to get evolutions is interesting.”
- “Visually, Monster Crown captures a distinct retro-inspired pixel art style that complements the game's dark atmosphere.”
- “The variety of monsters is great; the breeding mechanics are fun; the graphics are nostalgic; the soundtrack is absolutely awesome; post-game is large and has an interesting story.”
- “The game is the least graphically demanding game I own by a country mile, yet there is lag for input (very frustrating when doing time sensitive things in the overworld), lagging on dialogue and menu navigation, lagging for anything and everything.”
- “Many graphical UI issues like text not properly aligning with text boxes, UI elements staying up if you press too fast, or menus popping up that should not be there.”
- “There are tons of UI bugs and graphical glitches but nothing save breaking.”
music
77 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
39%
56%
5%
The music in the game is widely praised for its nostalgic, catchy chiptune style reminiscent of classic Pokémon and retro Game Boy titles, effectively enhancing the atmosphere and immersion. However, it suffers from repetition due to a limited number of unique tracks, occasional bugs causing music to fail switching or loop awkwardly, and some users find certain melodies grating or mismatched with the game’s tone. Overall, while the soundtrack is a standout feature beloved by many, technical issues and limited variety slightly diminish its impact.
- “The hauntingly atmospheric soundtrack further enhances the immersive experience, setting the mood and providing an eerie backdrop to the journey.”
- “The variety of monsters is great; the breeding mechanics are fun; the graphics are nostalgic; the soundtrack is absolutely awesome; post-game is large and has an interesting story.”
- “What at first drew me to this game was the solid monster designs and the fantastic music that had given me a nostalgic trip back to Pokémon Gold, Silver, and Crystal.”
- “It's your generic 8-bit music that doesn't have many tracks so they're often reused.”
- “The soundtrack is also quite ear grating - perhaps some people like it and this comment is subjective, but it doesn't really suit the pixel world being depicted.”
- “There are cases where I would move from one area to another, but the music would not change.”
grinding
68 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
3%
97%
Grinding in the game is widely seen as excessive and tedious, often requiring players to spend long periods leveling up due to difficulty spikes and overleveled bosses. While some mechanics like turning off experience share or using scouting can lessen the grind, many players find the slow progression and repetitive battles frustrating and a significant barrier to enjoyment. Overall, grinding dominates much of the gameplay, making the experience feel slow and sometimes discouraging.
- “A lot of grinding is required.”
- “You'll need a second life for grinding.”
- “Constant spawns make traversing obstacles to complete the story or exploring a tedious task, causing the game to implode on itself and resulting in a very painful gaming experience.”
- “Grinding for experience points is easily the worst part of the game and needs to be buffed.”
- “I found myself stuck in situations where the only solution is to endure tedious and unfun grinding to level up monsters, only to give up because reaching level 80+ is way too time-consuming and boring.”
optimization
13 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
23%
39%
38%
The game offers solid mechanics and appeal for fans of planning and lineup optimization, but its technical performance is problematic. Users report frequent framerate drops, glitches, bugs, and interface issues that disrupt gameplay and pacing. Overall, the optimization is poor and currently detracts significantly from the experience.
- “For players who enjoy planning and optimization, designing complementary lineups and exploiting matchup knowledge lends the combat system its appeal.”
- “Actually a good monster tamer game, with nice mechanics and the controls are optimized for a pixel game in my opinion.”
- “Leaning into the unique breeding system and interesting monster designs is a smart move and I can see a lot of room for deep optimization among hardcore fans.”
- “Don't recommend in its current state, the performance is abysmal.”
- “Technical performance varies, with occasional framerate issues, visual glitches, or interface hiccups that disrupt the pacing.”
- “I had invisible walls randomly pop up on route transitions, the stuttering is still pretty bad, weather and daytime transitions are so sudden, it's jarring and my monster's menu options constantly display the wrong info, making it really hard to actually discern which monster I had currently selected.”
replayability
9 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
33%
56%
11%
The game offers extensive replayability through customizable challenge modes, randomization options, and hidden secrets, allowing players to tailor their experience and keep the gameplay fresh. Its diverse features and engaging world encourage repeated play sessions, setting it apart from similar monster-catching games. Overall, the game provides great value with a high replayability-to-price ratio.
- “There are built-in options for Nuzlocke-style challenges, randomizing starter monsters, randomizing monsters found in the world, randomizing color and type, and options for permadeath "ironmon mode." All of these options are individual settings that can be toggled on or off anytime, providing extensive replayability and customization.”
- “There are plenty of hidden secrets to improve replayability and offer extra activities.”
- “This lends great replayability to the world, as you can log in for a bit, wander around, encounter a trainer, then admire the cool or bizarre random monsters on their team.”
humor
8 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
88%
13%
The humor in the game is inconsistent, with some dialogue and moments being amusing but often lacking creativity or impact. While a few players found certain instances genuinely funny, others felt the comedic elements were overshadowed by gameplay frustrations and bugs. Overall, humor is present but not a strong or reliable aspect of the experience.
- “I'm certain this has been exploited to hilarious effect.”
- “Great game, funny and well made.”
- “At first I thought this would always fail, but funny enough it succeeded when I was trying to catch a vaulter and it didn't even use one of my contracts.”
atmosphere
7 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
43%
14%
43%
The atmosphere of Monster Crown is marked by a distinct retro pixel art style and a haunting soundtrack that together create an eerie, dark mood reminiscent of classic monster-catching games. While the world can sometimes feel visually sparse and the game's unsettling tone sets it apart, design quirks and bugs occasionally detract from the immersive experience. Overall, the game’s atmospheric elements show strong promise and charm, especially as development continues.
- “Visually, Monster Crown captures a distinct retro-inspired pixel art style that complements the game's dark atmosphere.”
- “The hauntingly atmospheric soundtrack further enhances the immersive experience, setting the mood and providing an eerie backdrop to the journey.”
- “The atmosphere of the game is awesome and it shows promise with being developed throughout early access.”
- “Monster Crown is an odd monster-catching game that hearkens back to the good old days of Pokemon RBY, but due to a combination of both its deliberately eerie, slightly-off atmosphere and monumental amount of design quirks and glitches, every playthrough I’ve done so far ends up reading like a Pokemon-inspired creepypasta.”
- “Was and am charmed by the monsters and atmosphere, but it’s just too buggy.”
- “The breeding, the design of the monsters, the bit darker atmosphere, the typings which I at first found a bit boring, are well balanced.”
character development
4 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
50%
75%
The game features original and visually appealing character and monster designs, praised for their creativity and distinct art direction. However, it lacks meaningful character development and compelling personalities, resulting in characters that feel uninteresting and undeveloped.
- “The monsters have a sort of earnest originality to them that reminds me of the very first Pokemon before they went down that dark road of commercial success.”
- “Character designs, monster designs, locations, and so much more with a wonderful soundtrack as icing on the cake.”
- “There is no character development, there are no interesting or outstanding personalities, there's nothing compelling about these characters at all.”
- “The monsters have a sort of earnest originality to them that reminds me of the very first Pokemon before they went down that dark road of commercial success and turned into the heaving corpse of a dumpster fire of character design that they presently are.”
- “That said, I do think this is leagues above Temtem due to the much more original art direction it takes with character design.”
emotional
3 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The game evokes nostalgia and delivers a heartfelt homage to classic monster-catching titles, creating a genuine emotional connection despite its unfinished story and modest production values. While not deeply groundbreaking or profoundly emotional, it effectively ties gameplay elements together and rekindles childhood memories for fans of the genre.
- “While it may not rival the production values of big-budget titles, it succeeds in delivering a heartfelt homage to its inspirations while introducing mechanics that genuinely expand the genre’s possibilities.”
- “I grew up playing Monster Rancher, Pokemon, Digimon World, etc. Monster Crown is unfinished, its story is bare-bones, but even still it made me feel like a little kid again catching and breeding monsters to see what new ones I'll get.”
monetization
2 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
Monster Crown's $15 price is seen as steep compared to older AAA games, but its monetization is generally viewed as fair and driven by genuine passion rather than exploitative cash grabs. Users appreciate that it offers value when it delivers, distinguishing it from less sincere, money-driven titles.
- “Monster Crown has a cash grab price of $15 USD, for which you could easily get any number of older AAA games.”
- “At least you can tell that it has some genuine passion and love for the genre; it isn't a plagiarizing cash grab banking off the growing anger towards modern-day Pokémon made by people who just want your money like Palworld.”