Archview #28: War of the Monsters

 I took no notes while playing this(GG) so I hope I remember everything....

 War of the Monsters is an arena-based fighting game for up to four monsters at the same time. As your monster of choice, you are placed on a large arena, filled with climbable buildings and loads of throwables, ranging from cars to statues, heck, you can impale other monsters on antennas! As previously stated, monsters can impact the environment on many ways, almost every structure is destructible, almost every medium-sized object can be grabbed and thrown or hit the enemy with. The object of the game is to defeat the other monsters, no matter the mode you are in.
 Speaking of modes, there's not a whole lot of them, in singleplayer you have Adventure, Endurance and Free for all, while on multiplayer you have three unlockable minigames and versus. Still, the game itself is very entertaining, so the lack of modes is not a huge deal. Excepting the mini-games, the game plays the same on every mode. Each monster has a projectile attack, weak and strong attacks, jump, block, strafing, a  close-range special attack and a long range special attack. Each of them plays very different from each other as well, with different combo strings, attack speeds and damages. The only real similarity is the close/range special move which always turns into some enveloping-kind of explosion.

 Besides the interactive objects, there are power-ups spread across the stage. Some may be hidden behind buildings, some lurk at plain sight, and they respawn frequently. These range from health-restoring pick ups(In 5%, 25% and 100% varieties), stamina restoring pick ups, Special Attacks and cloaking devices. Regarding Stamina, each monster has a blue-bar that depletes as it attacks(Projectile attacks usually consume a lot of Stamina), and you can restore it by not attacking for a while, grabbing the stamina power up, throwing or attacking with items or by killing monsters. You can actually go beyond the 100% with pick ups, and if you do so, you are granted an Special attack for free.
 It has to be said, while the game itself is very fast, and feels very arcadey(Which I love), the CPU is a bit of a bastard.... frustratingly so. During Adventure Mode, whenever it gets below half HP, it will run directly towards the healing items, if it's a faster monster than you, have fun taking it's life away. Again. Even worse, on battle with more than 2 monsters, the CPU will always gang up on you, and when one goes to grab the health pick ups, the other one will do it's darnedest to hold you in place, very annoying. It's in your best interest to take the 100% and 25% health restores as soon as possible(Take some damage so as to be able to use them) so that they may not take them.

 Visually, it has an almost cartoonish look. Each monster is very different from the others, and they look fantastic. Each of them has 3 unlockable costumes, for a total of 4, and the fourth ones go crazy, some are almost entire redesigns. There's also little details, like small pedestrians running away, and if you step on them, tiny blood splatters will appear on the ground. The music pays homage to the Kaijuu genre, even the monsters shrieks and roars are very fitting. The game is a big love letter towards the Kaijuu genre, from the looks to the sounds to the monster backstories!
 There really are few bad things to be said about the game. Maybe 10 monsters is a bit small for a roster, but they are very distinct. Maybe the fact that the AI is a bastard, but on Multiplayer, the game is a blast. Maybe it could've used more modes? Sure, but the game is so much fun that you won't need more modes. All in all, War of the Monsters is a great game, criminally forgotten.
 It's an 8 out of 10.