There are certain pairings that go well in life. Wine and cheese. Milk and cookies. Chocolate and custard creams (screw you M&S for that unholy abomination and its effect on my blood sugars). With Montabi, Akupara Games brings another pairing to the table. Pokemon and Slay the Spire.
Montabi is listed as a creature collecting roguelike deckbuilding game. This abomination of a word salad is sadly an incredibly apt description of the gameplay loop. Select a trainer, start the run, choose a starter Montabi, try and fight through three levels. If you make it to the end, advance the overarching progression. If you don’t, you’ll still earn exp for any critters and the trainer you used.
Oh yes, that’s right, not only do the three potential trainer choices have unlock paths, so do every evolutionary line of Montabi you could potentially use. These paths will of course unlock other trainers and Montabi, but also new “supply” (consumables), “charms” (findable upgrades), “equipment” (I’m not explaining this one), and stickers that you can find in your runs. If you want to see bars fill and numbers go up, this is definitely the game for you.
The most original idea here is combat. Yes, like a lot of other monster tamer RPGs, you have a party of up to five Montabi (and you, so six units), but in combat you work on a three by three grid, set opposite the opposing teams grid, and maneuver your trainer and two Montabi. If your Montabi get knocked out, you can swap or revive them. If your trainer is knocked out, that’s the run over.
Literally every action on the game board is done through the use of cards. Your trainer and each Montabi have their own decks, you add cards to the deck each time you level them up, and each unit has its own theming and specialisation (though thankfully no type match ups) that the game helpfully explains as you recruit them and use them for the first time. At the end of a successful match, you can apply some level ups and, if you have a biscuit, recruit one of the defeated Montabi. Worth noting here is that if you defeat an evolved form (of course there’s evolution), you recruit the base form. However, recruits on maps two and three get a level bonus applied so they aren’t too far behind the curve.
Along the overworld map you’ll find the usual assortment of enemies (both Montabi on their own and those accompanied by trainers), elites, shops, random event spaces. If you’ve played Slay the Spire or any other rougelike, you know what to expect here. Montabi definitely takes the mantra of “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” to heart.
Honestly though, at this point, I don’t know why you wouldn’t? I do not want to make this sound like Montabi has no original ideas. What it does with the parts it has borrowed is wholly unique and an absolute joy to play. The story and art style is cutesy and adorable. The music is a joy to listen to, even if I probably won’t be clamouring to listen to it outside of a play session. Above all though, the game is satisfying as all hells.
Very early in, those explanations on what a Montabi is “built” for come in handy. For example, I ended up with a main pair that took me to my first victory pretty quickly. One enjoyed applying bleed, which causes additional damage every time an enemy is moved, and the other focused on area attacks and manipulating enemy placements. You can see where this is going, right? Low level enemies could be fed to the mulcher and shredded in a turn if I drew my cards right, but the bosses were a different story.
There’s an evil organisation of bad trainers stealing Montabi here, and they make up the end of level bosses for the three areas you need to run through. Selected from a random pool, each has their own “Ancient”, a powerful boss Montabi, and their own mechanics that had me dashing around the field, balancing consumables, and desperately trying to find my opening. The recommended difficulty is spot on here, giving my brain a workout and making victory satisfying without making me want to pull my little remaining hair out.
Montabi is a good game. I can’t put it any simpler than that. It doesn’t just know when to borrow winning mechanics, it knows exactly how and when to use and combine them. Gameplay is satisfying and snappy, and the overarching loop keeps you coming back over the long term. Go back, look at the word salad description at the start of the review. If even one of those genre descriptors takes your fancy, I beg of you to give Montabi a chance.
Montabi was reviewed on Xbox Series X, but is also available on Nintendo Switch and PC.