Meg's Monster is a short retro-inspired narrative indie game developed and published by the small Japanese Studio "Odencat". It's a bit hard to classify the game's genre, personally I would call it a "
linear narrative adventure game with JRPG-style turn-based combat". The primary focus of the game is on narrative potency and each game element serves a purpose to enrich the story.
The story takes place in a location called the "Underworld", a place inhabited by monsters. The humans from above dispose things into this huge underground hole that they want to get rid of. In this location 2 monsters, Roy and Golan find a small girl named Meg. They learn that if the girl starts crying a calamity is triggered which could destroy the world. So they adopt the girl and Roy decides to become Meg's protector and find her mother, while making sure that other monsters from the Underworld won't hurt her. The initial premise might sound a bit simple, but the game has satisfying emotional depth, the characters especially Roy and Golan are well thought-out, the relationship between Roy and Meg grows fast and there are interesting plot twists. The story is definitely the strong suit of the game, but I don't want to spoil too much.
As mentioned in the introduction the gameplay is hard to classify. It's fairly linear with a lot of conversations displayed in speech-bubbles moving the story forward. The locations you visit are very small so there is no incentive to "go exploring" since there is nothing to explore & find. The Underworld seems like a fairly interesting place offering some quirky characters to meet, but the game is too linear and limited. Personally I think this is the major weak-point of the game, having no satisfying exploration and no additional ways to learn more about the environment and the characters. Throughout the story you will have combat encounters with other characters. The game offers turn-based combat similar to classic JRPGs, where Roy and the opponent take turns to attack or guard. Since the game is linear, you will always be strong enough to defeat the next enemy, but the interesting aspect is, that many of the encounters have some form of puzzle to solve. Sometimes you need to learn an attack pattern of the opponent, sometimes there is a button sequence to solve. It keeps the combat interesting and avoids it feeling it stale. Also Roy is a tank, he can take an insane amount of damage, but Meg is also present in the fight and she would start crying if Roy takes too much damage, so you have to watch out for her and heal Meg with "toys".
Personally I like the audio and visual presentation. I'm a sucker for good retro-inspired 8-bit & 16-bit 2D graphics and Meg's Monster looks quite nice. The style is very cozy and colorful, the designers put a lot of love into the visuals. Same with the beautiful soundtrack composed by Capcom veteran Reo Uratani, who also worked on the soundtracks of Monster Hunter, Final Fantasy and Hi-Fi Rush. It features some really cool piano tunes and it's definitely one of my personal highlights of the game.
The game is around 4-7 hours long, depending on how much time you spend reading. There are a few achievements tied to a handful of side-quests but they are fairly easy to get. Alternatively there is helpful walkthrough here:
Meg's Monster WalkthroughIn summary I enjoyed Meg's Monster quite a lot. It's not too long and it focuses on delivering an emotional story with some clever turn-based combat. It us truly a hidden gem.
4.0