DLC Review: My Time at Sandrock: Monster Whisperer

By J.D.

Players: 1
Platforms: Nintendo Switch, XBox, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5

It’s time to return to My Time at Sandrock with the Monster Whisperer DLC. You can see my thoughts on the base game’s Switch version HERE. In coming back to it after nearly a year, I haven’t experienced any of the big visual/animation glitches I pointed out in my original review, and the slowdowns also seem to be less frequent. Those aren’t really part of the DLC but it’s nice to see that the game has gotten better since I last played it.

I decided to start a new save file for this to check out this DLC. As soon as I started the game, I was given a letter with an introduction to the mechanics of monster capturing. Enclosed were about a dozen basic capture meatballs and great meatballs. As an alternative to regular combat, they can be aimed and thrown at monsters like any other thrown weapon but instead of depleting the monster’s health, the meatballs slowly tame the monsters until they become your friend. For early game enemies like yakmel and honey ants, the capture meatball tamed them quickly enough but for tougher enemies, more powerful meatballs would definitely be necessary.  

Wait?  Throwing balls at creatures to capture them so they become your friends? Why does that sound familiar. Next, you’ll say I can keep the monsters in my pocket. It’ll never catch on. (Pun intended)

After taming the creatures, they started following me around basically everywhere I went. They even followed me into the Blue Moon Saloon which I think is a health code violation. I guess we’re just lucky the health inspector wasn’t visiting that day.  

While they’re following you around, they also assist in combat against other monsters and can even be sent out to automate tasks like collecting water or other materials. With just a yakmel and an ant, I was able to collect more than enough water to keep my basic workshop with multiple machines more than full without having to search for any myself. This eased a lot of the grind of the early game and gave me more time to go looking for rarer materials in the ruins.

Other than that, there doesn’t seem to be much to do with your tamed monsters. You can give them gifts, build housing for them and level them up but it all seems to boil down to helping in combat and resource gathering.

All in all, it’s probably not enough to chance anyone’s mind about the main game, but I think people who already like it will find more to love in here. Those going through a new playthrough will find the strain for supplies alleviated with their new allies, and I think everyone can find joy in collecting a small army of all the critters found across Sandrock.

For More Information My Time at Sandrock:
https://sandrock.pathea.net/

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DLC Rating: B

Pros:
+ You can create an army of ants, yakmel or whatever you’d like.
+ Catching and raising creatures fits neatly into the base game.
+ Pets make combat and resource gathering easier.

Cons:
- Not really going to change your mind about the main game.

A copy of this game was provided to us free-of-charge by the publisher for the purpose of this review. This did not affect our review in any way.

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