Choose Wisely | Always Sometimes Monsters Review

<p>Life is full of choices&comma; things that can affect us in the most interesting ways and it&&num;8217&semi;s these decisions that define how we live our lives&period; <em>Always Sometimes Monsters&comma; <&sol;em>an indie title from developers Vagabond Dog&comma; is a game about life and it&&num;8217&semi;s completely based around our normal lives and the choices we make in them&period; A sprite based game&comma; <em>ASM<&sol;em> was made using the popular RPG Maker engine but unlike a lot of games made using this program&comma; the sprites here are artfully crafted and look a lot higher quality than anything I have seen come out of RPG Maker in sometime&period; Every one of the sprites have a great amount of detail given to them&comma; even though they are pretty small&period; It was nice to see this level of detail in the sprite work as it made the game look unique and really stand out&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2014&sol;06&sol;05095254&sol;alwayssometimesmonsters&lowbar;3&period;png"><img class&equals;"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-62700" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2014&sol;06&sol;05095254&sol;alwayssometimesmonsters&lowbar;3&period;png" alt&equals;"alwayssometimesmonsters&lowbar;3" width&equals;"300" height&equals;"229" &sol;><&sol;a><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The game starts with you choosing your character and your significant other&period; I noticed a lot of variety in the characters you could pick as no two choices seemed similar&period; I would however&comma; have liked to have been able to chose from the whole pool of choices when picking my characters&comma; rather from the unique choices that there were for the protagonist and the love interest&period; I want to note that the protagonist as well as the love interest can be both male or female&comma; so it&&num;8217&semi;s up to the player to decide who they want&period; The characters you don&&num;8217&semi;t choose to use also show up in the story as well&comma; making nice use of all the unique character designs&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>As for the story&comma; it&&num;8217&semi;s based around you as the protagonist trying to win back the love interest before he&sol;she gets married to another at the end of the current month of the game&period; In order to do this you have to travel across the country&comma; from city to city making choices along the way that will affect how the story ends&period; I have to hand it to the developers&comma; the choices here are not simple good and bad choices but very grey area ones that make you really consider what you should do&period; They also all impact the story in a good and meaningful way later by showing you the consequences for some of your actions and making you question if you should have made those decisions&period; It mimics life really well and is one of the best choice systems I have seen in a modern video game to date&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2014&sol;06&sol;05095239&sol;always-sometimes-monsters-533ec6385e5ee&period;jpg"><img class&equals;"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-62701" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2014&sol;06&sol;05095239&sol;always-sometimes-monsters-533ec6385e5ee-300x229&period;jpg" alt&equals;"always-sometimes-monsters-533ec6385e5ee" width&equals;"300" height&equals;"229" &sol;><&sol;a><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Unfortunately&comma; not everything is perfect in this game about life&period; You have to collect money in the game in order to buy food&comma; which you need for your stamina meter otherwise you can starve&period; You also have to pay for your apartment&comma; and almost anything you want to do&comma; just like in real life&excl; Sadly&comma; these jobs are mini games that become repetitive and boring amazingly fast&period; I understand that the game is trying to imitate life but in order to progress you have to go through several days of the same thing over and over again&period; They do try and switch up the jobs between the different cities though&comma; so at least it isn&&num;8217&semi;t the same mini game every time but it really slows the game down to a crawl and makes it hard to slog through it&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2014&sol;06&sol;05095230&sol;asm-screen-3&period;png"><img class&equals;"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-62702" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2014&sol;06&sol;05095230&sol;asm-screen-3&period;png" alt&equals;"asm-screen-3" width&equals;"300" height&equals;"171" &sol;><&sol;a><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>There is also another problem with <em>ASM&&num;8217&semi;s<&sol;em> pacing and direction&period; The game tries to tell you a narrative story but halfway through it I found myself wondering what I was supposed to be doing&period; For example&comma; one of the characters tells you he will drive you to the next town but never states when and where&comma; and you can never find him anytime during the day&period; Assuming that the game wouldn&&num;8217&semi;t lie to me and this is how the narrative was supposed to go&comma; I spent a good 10 days out of my 30 doing the same job mini game to earn money&comma; thinking that I might need it for setting up in the next town&period; I was tempted to just quit the game altogether because without any kind of direction&comma; <em>ASM<&sol;em> lost everything that was appealing to it&period; Eventually though I purchased a bus pass to take me to the next town but it nearly left me bankrupt and I am still pretty sure there was a way to have got there without spending any money like every other town&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Grievances aside&comma; <em>Always Sometimes Monsters<&sol;em> is truly a thought provoking and interesting game&period; The characters are interesting and the story keeps you wanting more until the end&period; The choices are hard to make and it never feels like there are obviously right and wrong answers&comma; which makes your decisions purely based on you&period; The story also really makes you think about real life and how your choices can often affect more than you&period; I thought <em>ASM<&sol;em> was worth a playthrough and although the game wasn&&num;8217&semi;t clear sometimes about what choices were an option&comma; I think that anyone who enjoys strong stories and real moral choices in their video games&comma; can find something to enjoy here&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2014&sol;06&sol;05095223&sol;Capture-610x335&period;jpg"><img class&equals;"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-62703" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2014&sol;06&sol;Capture-610x335-300x164&period;jpg" alt&equals;"Capture-610x335" width&equals;"300" height&equals;"164" &sol;><&sol;a><&sol;p>&NewLine;