Growing up as a monster isn’t easy. When you are just starting out, other monsters look at you as a potential snack. If you are lucky enough to grow up, you are press-ganged into alliances or eaten by larger monsters. Getting to your adolescent or teenage years introduces you to “survival of the fittest”, trying to find a group that keeps you alive while you grow. Becoming an adult lets you sit at the top of the pecking order but it doesn’t last forever. It sounds like a horrible life that doesn’t get better unless someone does something. But is this a system you can change or are your efforts futile?
Monster Loves You Too! tells a story about a young monster trying to find their way in the world. You decide how the monster reacts and responds to the events that occur. Unlike the previous title, you spend more time with the monster’s story and flesh them out as an actual character. This allows you to empathize with the monster’s decisions and react to situations accordingly. It’s immersive to watch your monster adapt to the environment based on your choices. The story also gives you plenty of room to change your mind, simulating how it is to learn information and adapt accordingly. Unfortunately, this does mean the story’s pacing is slow at times, dragging out the story more than necessary. But if you stick with it, there’s a good lesson to be learned somewhere, and seeing the consequences of your choices is nice.
Monster Loves You Too! starts with your monster starting as a Morsel and working their way up to adulthood. Just like the previous title, you oversee their adventure from conception to death. But it turns out that there’s an entire monster community near the Vats where you are born. Newborn monsters run around trying to survive, avoiding gangs or getting recruited by them. Food is somewhat scarce and your surroundings look like a dump. Civilization is barely existent and whatever order there is depends on who’s bigger and stronger. It’s a powerful setting whose stakes are quickly revealed to you.
The exposition and lore in this game are slowly given to you. This helps immerse you because you feel just like the newborn monster. Confused, unaware, and struggling to make sense of your surroundings. This also ties into the tutorial for Monster Loves You Too!, where you decide how you want your monster to act. You can be kind, a jerk, or look out for #1 the entire time. It’s also possible to be a mix of the three thanks to the game’s version of willpower. A monster’s willpower is split into three areas: Brains, Flesh, and Guts. Brains is your mental strength, Flesh is your physical well-being, and Guts is your courage.
You don’t have infinite amounts of willpower; some events will cause you to expend them. Recovering willpower often means getting food and rest but numerous events test you. If you don’t have enough Brains, Flesh, or Guts, you are forced to make monstrous choices that forgo altruism. It’s a great way of forcing you to be pragmatic with your choices or be a little monstrous. Is it worth using up your Brains to keep the peace? Should you help another monster out or should you be selfish? Knowing that present choices can drastically change your personality makes you more cautious before helping other monsters.
This is backed up by your inability to reload after bad decisions. You only have one save and the game frequently autosaves. You can unintentionally ruin another monster’s life, be selfish, or be a coward. Sometimes you don’t have a choice because you ran out of willpower and you must live with the consequences. This makes you consider saving your resources for another time and being cruel early on. Or maybe you hope your compassionate nature will shine through even when you are a jerk. Thankfully, there are several opportunities to shape your personality and pull yourself back from anything you regret.
The downside to the number of opportunities is that the story moves slowly at times. You are often moving through several conversations that don’t advance the story. While this provides several opportunities to shape your personality, it also means you spend lots of time doing repetitive tasks. If you are trying to settle into one personality trait, you likely have decided to do so at the start. Changing your mind mid-way through the story and having an escape route is nice, but it feels impractical. While your ultimate fate is affected by your choices, you must replay the game to see every possibility.
This means that by the time you start the story, you have largely decided how you will play. There’s no benefit to changing your personality mid-way because you end up taking the middle ground. The middle ground often defaults to being a decent monster anyway, meaning you were likely better off staying good or making altruistic choices. Even if the numerous opportunities to solidify your personality resemble real life, it slows the story down too much. The story would be easier to digest if it wasn’t slowed down by the high number of events.
The artwork in Monster Loves You Too! gets more opportunities to shine as you progress through the story. The various monster types, events, and combat show just how terrible the world is. You progress through the story similar to a visual novel, letting you appreciate the visuals and sound. The background audio isn’t loud but it fits the situations you find yourself in. While the story immerses you more than any other aspect, the sights and sounds also highlight the danger. You are almost never safe as a monster, there are few established structure, and almost everything is makeshift.
Monster Loves You Too! tells a great story about monster adolescence and how difficult it is to survive in a dog-eat-dog world. The visual novel format is great for giving you lots of choices on how you want to shape your monster. There might be too many opportunities to shape your monster which slows the story down considerably. Having only one autosave forces you to stick to your choices but it can feel limiting. But if are willing to play the story to its end, you will find a great narrative about growing up and how your actions influence others.
Victor reviewed Monster Loves You Too! on PC with a review code.
