Game Review: Mondealy

By Al

Players: 1
Platforms: Nintendo Switch, XBox, PC

Mondealy is an adventure game with a retro 2D aesthetic that claims to be inspired by games like Undertale, Oneshot, and Stardew Valley. I know two of those games, and even though I think the inspirations from Stardew Valley are kind of light, the game borrows a lot of the vibes from Undertale. Now Mondealy isn't an RPG, but it does feature a large cast of characters that inhabit a fantasy world very different from our own. Seeing as it's now available on the Nintendo Switch, XBox, and PC, we're going to dive into the game and see if the world of Dargratt (yeah, Mondealy is the name of the human world!) is one you're going to want to visit this summer!

Mondealy drops you into the shoes of Michael, a human who finds himself in the underground kingdom of Dargratt after a rainy evening with his ex-girlfriend Dary. He eventually is allowed to leave the kingdom after a brief arrest, but soon returns to retrieve his lost cellphone. He comes back with Dary, and while her involvement from here on is somewhat secondary, it is interesting that the path between the worlds is located beneath an abandoned house on the edge of town. Michael has no luck getting his cellphone back though, it turns out that Princess Riley has broken it. Seeing as the princess is currently grounded due to bringing Michael before the king in the first place, she tasks the outsider with retrieving a potion for her from the dangerous Water District. Now the world of Dargratt is split into four districts: The main Unite District, the rural Forest District, the upper class Upper District, and the slum-like Water District. After completing this task Michael finds that he is now entangled in the world of Dargratt and helps Princess Riley, and the other animal inhabitants, in a quest to better their world which has seen a darker turn following the death of the queen. Story is the main focus in the game's twelve chapters, but I don't exactly want to spoil things for those who intend to play the game themselves.

This opening has potential.

The world of Dargratt.

Gameplay in Mondealy mainly revolves around adventure game-style mechanics. There isn't a lot of pure gameplay here, but you collect things and use them to complete missions and/or get money. There are dialogue trees to go through and some parts of the game can be completed in different ways. All roads lead to similar ends though, so it's a pretty simple journey no matter how you take it. I don't want to make it sound like I'm complaining about this though, not every game requires exciting gameplay to be seen as great; some offer a more laid-back experience and that's fine by me. The gameplay loop usually sees you get a mission from a character, attempt to complete the mission by talking to a particular character, said character give you yet another mission, and you eventually do right by a handful of characters who are now considered your friends. You have an inventory full of items, but most of them are just there for collection purposes. If an item is required to complete a specific mission it'll most likely be used automatically, so don't worry about having to deal with complicated inventory management here. Even if a particular item isn't used automatically, you'll usually see an option to do so in a dialogue tree. Lastly, since the game is separated into chapters, there are a few missable scenes and items that have small windows of opportunity to experience them. So keep your eyes open.

Mondealy really shines when it comes to the world of Dargratt itself, as well as its inhabitants. Even the most non-descript NPC has something to say, and maybe even a task for you. These characters really grow on you after a while, and you'll probably find yourself missing them once they leave the narrative or when the game ends. It's great to see them evolve even though some of the ones the game tries to shove in your way aren't the exactly my favorites by far. (I'm looking at you Rufus.) The central plot surrounding the four districts and the royal family is quite intriguing and you'll probably grow to love Princess Riley as much as I did by the end. This will help you get through the long series of simple fetch quests that make up the game. A big problem with this character-focused gameplay is that arguably you'll have to develop bonds with them in order to maximize your enjoyment of the game. If you have a Rufus-like view on most of them you'll probably not care to see the game through to the end. It's kind of a mixed bag, but the potential is there if you're able to give them the time.

Fuck fish I guess.

Eliza is the only character design I liked.

I don't think I've ever had to devote a section of a review to a game's translation before, but here we go. I'm not exactly sure of Mondealy's country of origin, but it's pretty clear that the developers don't speak English natively. There are a lot of wonky translations, stilted dialogue, and more. And what makes this worse is that it's most obvious in the game's prologue sections and gets "better" as the game goes on. I noticed while researching the game that a "Day One" version of the game released two years ago. I'm not sure if this means that two different translators worked on the game, but it sure feels that way. I first thought that maybe I was simply getting used to the poorly written dialogue, but I went back to the intro and confirmed that it's extremely prevalent in the first chapters. While some could argue that this is a matter of preference, having to re-organize English sentences in my head to actually understand them does not lend well to game immersion. Also, having all the bad translation front-loaded like this meant that I was looking for the occasional mistake far more than I would have otherwise. I can only imagine what casual players will think of the game's dialogue coming in cold. I really hope that the developer/publisher fix these translation issues in a future update. It will do so much to help the game's overall presentation.

So deep, so emo.

Seriously, I groaned when I saw this.

Mondealy's story is an odd one. Eventually a central plot does surface it's not exactly the most epic of tales. Much of the game comes off like filler episodes in a slice of life anime. I bet that's what they were actually going for, so I'm not sure if this is something I should complain about. With that said, I couldn't help but feel that once again the opening chapters were the weakest part of the game by far. Michael seems to just be dragged around as the plot need him to be, and there's nothing in terms of character motivation for quite a while. Add in the already mentioned translation issues and it feels like this section needed a complete re-write before a full release. Unfortunately they didn't go for that so I guess we have to take what we can get. My big point in mentioning all these negatives with the intro is to come to this piece of advice: Stick with the game if you think you'll like it, it does get better.

I really hate Rufus.

His house has a labyrinth in it by the way.

I think Mondealy's art style and graphics are something of an acquired taste. There is no nice way to put this, but I found all the characters extremely ugly. Like they were all drawn... weird. I can't describe it any better. The art style might work for some, but I really never got past it. I thought things fared better with the human characters, but Michael and Dary were oddly the exceptions to this. You never see Michael’s eyes behind his emo haircut  (except in the game's key art), and speaking of hair, all his selectable hairstyles look equally unkempt. Also, even though is eyes are rarely visible to the player, I cringed whenever characters mentioned he had two different eye colors. Of course he has heterochromia! The designs, the hair, the eye color thing, and the general furry-ness of the world all added up to something that felt like it was created by a Tumblr-using Undertale fan fiction writer. Now I don't want to go too much into the negative, as the game did grow on me after a while, but it was more that I got used to seeing these characters rather than me eventually found them at all pleasant to look at.

That's not all to say when it comes to graphics either. The entire game is played in an "old-school" fullscreen format and this feels like the most useless choice graphically in general. You can mess with it a bit in the options, but I'm going to describe how it is by default. So much screen real estate is wasted by a motionless border, and this is made more annoying when you take the tiny font and characters into account. So much more detail could've been added if they'd just used a standard widescreen format. It feels so needlessly vain that it annoyed me more than the heterochromia thing did. Also, the screen borders disappear during the game's cutscenes and that means that these dramatic moments take place in a mostly plain black field. I'm not sure if it was because I was playing this game on the Nintendo Switch, but the backgrounds also freaked out a lot whenever they would disappear and reappear like this. I actually thought the game was going to crash the first time it happened. While I can agree that the art style issues I had were probably just a me thing, the screen format and performance issues are pretty inexcusable all things considered.

How it began...

How it's going...

If the in-game collectable soundtrack records are any indication, Mondealy features the music of several composers. While this in and of itself isn't exactly something I'd knock the game on, it can mean that there might be a lack of cohesion in the soundtrack's music styles. How do you think Mondealy fared in this regard? In my opinion the music is all over the place. There are some songs I loved, several I didn't even notice, and still more that I didn't like at all. It's such an eclectic mix that it took me out of the game more than once with its drastic changes. This mixed bag of variety also carries over to the characters' "voices" sometimes too. There isn't any voice acting at all here, but the characters do "speak" in sounds that are (I think only sometimes) unique to each character. Think a simplified version of the animalese found in the Animal Crossing series. Some of these dialogue sounds sound like nails on chalkboard to me, and I actively avoided characters who had ones I could not stand. Sound is probably the hardest thing to talk about as I have a lot to say about it, and also practically nothing at all. It's like it always has to be two varying extremes at all times no matter what, but I can say that I feel it's the game's biggest issue.

This looked more impressive in-game.

A lot of things changed after the queen died.

Controls are simple, you move, you interact, and you can check inventory and menus. There are some negatives to talk about though. First of all, and I feel the most annoying, is that Michael comes with a run button (which you can toggle to be on or off by default), but no character will ever run with him. This means that whenever you're travelling with a second person, which unfortunately is a lot of the game, you can only use the game's extremely slow walk cycle. I'm not sure why they programmed it like this as the characters you're escorting clearly have run animations, they just get upset when you do it. It's almost like that meme where programmers make an escort character's movement contrary to the player's. Except here they "fix" that by making everyone just walk at all times. Also, there's a function to see Michael’s thoughts, and these act as a reminder as to what your current mission is. I'm not sure what triggers these, but there are times I wanted to see it and the option just wasn't there. Speaking of options that aren't there, I already mentioned that inventory management is very simplified, but the sheer lack of interaction with your inventory is weird. You collect a wide variety of items, but most of them are the epitome of useless. It made me wish that I could hold an item and give it to a character myself, rather than it being used automatically, so it felt like I was doing something. Lastly, the dialogue trees are some of the clunkiest I've ever seen and feel as if the developers haven't played many games before with the constant use of "Let's change the subject" as opposed to just looping back on its own. This is really annoying too as you'll do a lot of talking in this game. None of these are deal-breakers, except maybe that escort thing, but it speaks a lot of possible inexperience on the developer's part.

The graphical glitches and the poor translation make Mondealy a bit hard to recommend, but I can say that the game is a bit longer than I expected. If you can get beyond the general lack of plot focus and play the game to completion, you're looking at about 6-8 hours of gameplay. There's a lot of missables and collectable items though, so you might want to give it another playthrough if you're a completionist. Despite the presence of plot-heavy in-game choices, there aren't multiple endings to the game. This means that there's very little reason to come back to the game after you complete it. Thankfully the game comes in at a low price of $11.99, and that feels right considering the amount of content provided.

Why does this scene exist?

Did I mention you can sit almost anywhere?

Mondealy really grew on me, and it was an experience that I ultimately enjoyed. The problem is that I only pushed through the rough beginning parts because I was writing a review, I imagine that many casual players would've dropped off the game within the first hour. With that said, it definitely wears its Undertale influences on its sleeve and you'll probably enjoy it if you're a fan of that game. If you're not, it might be worth skipping unless you're looking for a chill, cozy experience. Or maybe if you're a furry. I imagine furries would love this game, especially with that Riley bathing scene... Anyway, check it out if those apply to you and have fun exploring Dargratt!

Check Out Mondealy on The Nintendo Switch:
https://www.nintendo.com/store/products/mondealy-switch/

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Story: B+
Gameplay: B-
Graphics: B-
Music/Sound: C
Value: B-

Overall: B-

Pros:
+ Simplified adventure-style gameplay make this an easy game to get into.
+ The world of Mondealy grows on you after a while, and you'll come to care about the varied cast of characters.
+ Collectables, misseable items, and achievements add a lot of potential replayability.
+ Some of the music can be quite good.
+ Overall a very "chill" experience with funny, quirky moments. This isn't really a game where you can die and be forced to restart. (Though...)

+/- Feels a bit too derivative of games like Undertale.

Cons:
- Character designs and graphics might not be for everyone. (Namely me.)
- While some of the music is awesome, just as much of it is forgettable or just outright bad.
- The story takes a while to get off the ground and the general plot never really stays fully focused.
- Translation and dialogue can be hit or miss at times with some parts being well-written and witty, and other parts near indecipherable.

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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