Life is full of choices, things that can affect us in the most interesting ways and it’s these decisions that define how we live our lives. Always Sometimes Monsters, an indie title from developers Vagabond Dog, is a game about life and it’s completely based around our normal lives and the choices we make in them. A sprite based game, ASM was made using the popular RPG Maker engine but unlike a lot of games made using this program, the sprites here are artfully crafted and look a lot higher quality than anything I have seen come out of RPG Maker in sometime. Every one of the sprites have a great amount of detail given to them, even though they are pretty small. It was nice to see this level of detail in the sprite work as it made the game look unique and really stand out.
The game starts with you choosing your character and your significant other. I noticed a lot of variety in the characters you could pick as no two choices seemed similar. I would however, have liked to have been able to chose from the whole pool of choices when picking my characters, rather from the unique choices that there were for the protagonist and the love interest. I want to note that the protagonist as well as the love interest can be both male or female, so it’s up to the player to decide who they want. The characters you don’t choose to use also show up in the story as well, making nice use of all the unique character designs.
As for the story, it’s based around you as the protagonist trying to win back the love interest before he/she gets married to another at the end of the current month of the game. In order to do this you have to travel across the country, from city to city making choices along the way that will affect how the story ends. I have to hand it to the developers, the choices here are not simple good and bad choices but very grey area ones that make you really consider what you should do. 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. It mimics life really well and is one of the best choice systems I have seen in a modern video game to date.
Unfortunately, not everything is perfect in this game about life. You have to collect money in the game in order to buy food, which you need for your stamina meter otherwise you can starve. You also have to pay for your apartment, and almost anything you want to do, just like in real life! Sadly, these jobs are mini games that become repetitive and boring amazingly fast. 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. They do try and switch up the jobs between the different cities though, so at least it isn’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.
There is also another problem with ASM’s pacing and direction. The game tries to tell you a narrative story but halfway through it I found myself wondering what I was supposed to be doing. For example, one of the characters tells you he will drive you to the next town but never states when and where, and you can never find him anytime during the day. Assuming that the game wouldn’t lie to me and this is how the narrative was supposed to go, I spent a good 10 days out of my 30 doing the same job mini game to earn money, thinking that I might need it for setting up in the next town. I was tempted to just quit the game altogether because without any kind of direction, ASM lost everything that was appealing to it. 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.
Grievances aside, Always Sometimes Monsters is truly a thought provoking and interesting game. The characters are interesting and the story keeps you wanting more until the end. The choices are hard to make and it never feels like there are obviously right and wrong answers, which makes your decisions purely based on you. The story also really makes you think about real life and how your choices can often affect more than you. I thought ASM was worth a playthrough and although the game wasn’t clear sometimes about what choices were an option, I think that anyone who enjoys strong stories and real moral choices in their video games, can find something to enjoy here.
