Monster Prom Review

Should I vouch for this guy or ruin their chances for a Prom date? Oh, what the heck, I’ll vouch for ya dude! +2 Charm

Ah Prom, an event that is constantly talked about as the single most important event that can happen to you. An event that I didn’t even go to as it was not something I personally cared about and I hold zero regrets for not going. Yet, having the chance to go to Prom with a monster, while being a monster myself, was something I could not pass. There’s a few weeks till Prom is here and luckily, six of the best classmates don’t have a date! Just go in there and try to win their affection and perhaps, you’ll be Prom dates for life…or be rejected. Just choose whether you want a short or long game, pick your character out of the four options, and get right into it!

To start off, you are given a quiz with three randomly given questions that decides your beginning stats and which love interest you share an answer with. Of course, once you know which character likes what, and knowing how the stats correspond with the answers, you can answer in what you want to have. With the quiz done, it’s time to go to school!

During each class turn, you have six areas to go to that will grant you a stat boost in the corresponding one. Need more charm? Go to the gym! The shopkeeper will also do her rounds, so make sure you know where she is so you don’t accidently pick that location (unless you meant to of course). You will be given some text telling you what happened at that location and afterwards run into one, or a couple, of the love interests. Which love interest you run into depends on who shared the answer you picked in the quiz and later, who you have the most affection points with. These encounters, which can also include side characters, vary greatly and towards the end you will be faced with two choices. These choices correspond with a stat and while there are no wrong answers, you can fail it if you that stat is too low. If you succeed, you will get a positive reaction out of your choice and gain some stat boosts, but if you don’t they will hate what you did and get stat decreases. It can be hard to determine what choice corresponds with what stat, but once you get more acquainted with the game and how it works (or happen to remember what stat it requires), you can predict it better.

You will also have lunch turns once per week, in which you can sit with your love interest, a side character, or the shopkeeper. Sitting with your love interest and choosing a choice that they like will increase their affection to you. While sitting with a side character will give you a chance to increase one of your stats double the normal amount or sitting with the shopkeeper will let you buy an item during lunch so you don’t have to use a school turn to.

At the end of each game, and as Prom draws ever so nearer, you will be able to ask who you were going for or you can just go alone. There is a catch though, the main six characters will not just say yes to you. Their own interest in you is based on how much affection points you managed to get and also the stats that they like. The stat requirement can be a bit hard, like Vera I just want to date you, but Monster Prom isn’t just any traditional dating sim as the love interests will say no if they don’t like you and your choices that you made. You can also choose to go alone and if you have high enough stats, you will have a fun time by yourself. As the game ends, the credits have many polaroids of scenes the characters got into out of or in school. If you achieved an ending, you will have a possibility of also being graced with a special polaroid with writing on it.

There are 22 secret endings (in addition with just a lot of events and outcomes), in which vanilla endings do not count towards, that range from main six specific endings that will randomly pop up, event item endings, and unlockable endings. Most of the event items do have to be unlocked, so all you have to do is play and get more dates, but don’t forget to also get vanilla endings as they do count towards unlocking more. Let me just tell you, these endings are totally worth going after, especially the super secret ending.

But how are the characters? The characters are fantastic and unique between each other. Everyone has their own personality, specific things they will talk about, and is more than what their first impressions showed. Even the side characters have personality than what you might think. Everyone has some likability to them and there is at least one character that you will love even if you don’t love all of them. Paired wit the great and hilarious writing makes Monster Prom a great game to read and try to fully complete.

On this, the art style is fantastic and certainly captures how this is a light hearted and hilarious game. Everyone is just too cute despite all of them being monsters. The music does also screams how this game is full of monsters. The ending credits song, though, has to be my favorite and certainly is a surprise and a great way to end a run.

Multiplayer plays the same as singleplayer, but this time you have other people with you. Instead of being able to go anywhere you wanted or needed, the other players are also competing to get where they want to as well. Once someone picks the bathroom for example, it becomes closed off to the other players. This also happens during lunch as well and with two main interests per table, well someone may sit where you want to because their interest is there. From this, it may seem that the last person is severely disadvantaged during the whole game, but it is circumvented. After each turn, everyone switches places either letting the game randomize places or selecting the challenge option. The challenge option gives you half a prompt and once everyone gives an answer the rest of the prompt will be revealed, which will give how the order will be organized. Thus, whoever has the best answer will have a higher placement.

In addition to the regular gameplay, there are also extra events that only happens in multiplayer games called weekend events. As one happens, a player is randomly chosen and an event happens to them. But how different is it from the regular events? Well, these events include the other players and will affect them if they are picked. The event can call for picking someone with the highest stat, but have to remember who has the highest as stats are hidden from you, to join in which will give them a stat boost as well. Or you will be confronted with another player’s interest and ask if they go along what they find interesting or romantic, thus making them closer or further away to successfully asking them to Prom. As you can guess, this can be quite awkward as the other players see each event, especially if you chose to ruin their chances with their romantic interest. Unless you two are going for the same person, in that case, just hope they don’t get a chance to ruin your chances as well.

The best thing about multiplayer is that you get everyone talking during their parts (either just during their turn or voice acting specific characters) and reacting to what happens or someone’s name that weirdly fits perfectly in the situation they’re in. For what is a competitive game, you can even get games where others will actually help you in picking the choice you have the stats for. In this way, the multiplayer can be even better than playing alone, even if you have a chance at coming across a bug.

Verdict

Monster Prom has to be my favorite game of the year so far. I just couldn’t stop playing it or thinking about it till I at least saw all the endings. I was so enamored that this was the main source of fueling my procrastination of both my finals essay (don’t worry I turned it in on time!) and this review. The writing, humor, art, and the characters just sucked me in and that was all that I was hoping after I saw the trailer. Definitely pick this up, Monster Prom is beyond worth it even if you’ll most likely play it by yourself.