Genre: Adventure
Developer: Level 5
Publisher: Level 5
Price: £7.19 (EU), $7.99 (US)
Platform: exclusive to Nintendo 3DS system, eShop only
Release date: July 18, 2013
The last entry in the GUILD02 collection has finally arrived to Nintendo Eshop, right after the release of both “Bugs vs. Tanks” and “The Starship Damrey”. This time we are set to find out about the mysterious monsters that appear on Friday.
Attack of the Friday Monsters puts you in the shoes of a 10 years boy called Sohta, who has moved to one of Tokyo’s suburb just recently. All the kids in town, including Sohta, go every Friday to the high hills in order to see vicious monsters fighting each other. No one knows from where the monsters come from, and so the children start investigating that matter.
The beautiful thing about the plot is that everything is being told from a child’s perspective. Sohta sees things that don’t exist, thanks to his wide imagination, (just like we used to believe in ghosts and tooth fairies when we were young.) There is a great conflict in Sohta’s mind between what’s real and not. On one hand he likes to see those monsters and robots from TV, but on the other hand, he understands that he needs to grow up and search for the truth.
This is the strongest portion of the game, as it takes you back to such an innocent era.
As for gameplay, Attack of the Friday Monsters plays like “Rock,Paper,Scissors” combined with cards that represent each element. In order to collect those cards, you will have to search for something that called “monster glims” which appear randomly in town. Once you achieved 7 glims of the same color, you will be rewarded with one card to use in battle.
At the beginning of a battle, you will be asked to choose five cards from your decks. The problem is that you don’t know what cards your opponent chose, so the game mostly depends on luck. Afterwards, the system will tell you 2 results out of the 5, so you can swap between two cards you already chose.
If you managed to win a battle, you will be rewarded with one special monster glim and become to boss. As a boss you can either gain new information from the other kids or cast a spell on them which makes them fall. Those spells obviously aren’t real, but they help reflect the main message of the story.
Attack of the Friday Monsters spreads over 26 episodes that take roughly three-four hours to complete, which is a little bit hard to recommend for the asking price of 7£. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great game to experience, but I’ll recommend it mostly to “Japanese culture lovers” and players who wish to try something new and different.
Pros:
+Great story
+Childhood settings
+Lots to collect
Cons:
–Too short
–Gameplay doesn’t hold up
Conclusion: Attack of the Friday Monsters is all about the story and the dialogs. If you want to relive your childhood for 3 hours and a half – this game is for you.
Score: 8 out of 10
