Montabi

Montabi is a pretty good creature battler. The monsters themselves are varied and a bit wild in their designs - I mean, one of them seems to be a washing machine, and they mostly handle differently to each other. With some more synergies between creatures and some rebalancing tfor some of the weaker ones would help a bit, but what's here is good if you're looking for some tactical creature combat.

Gotta catch 'em all... over and over and over again!

Mankibo has threaded the needle to make Montabi competent in its worst moments and very nearly great in its best.

A melding of concepts and styles from monster trainers, deckbuilders, and tactical strategy titles packed into a new package that works well overall

The story, music and characters aren't anything to write home about. Yet in the end I still had a pretty great time with Montabi. Its gameplay loop feels like the right fit for a Roguelike game. While I still stand by the fact that I'm over these types of games, Montabi deserves its spot among some of the best this genre has to offer.

Even with a more traditional roguelike foundation, Montabi stands out for its creative approach to combat and world-building, adding a strategic layer to monster-battling. While it may not be the most elaborate experience—and can feel a bit repetitive at times—Montabi proves to be a solid alternative for fans of the genre, largely thanks to how well it tailors its difficulty for different types of players.

Now comes the big question: do I recommend Montabi? While it offers plenty of interesting strategies and synergies, it doesn’t do all that much to bring anything new to the genre of roguelike deckbuilders. But what’s there is so solidly made that it’s hard to ignore and hard to put down once you’ve spent some time with it. My suggestion would be to stick with it until you do find yourself breaking the game. And then you come back here and tell me how to do it. Deal? Deal.

There is a lot to like about Montabi, as it does a great job of pulling the player in and hooking them into the game’s very addictive game loop. It’s just a shame that this creature-collector roguelite has such a bare-bones story and performance issues on the Nintendo Switch that prevent it from true greatness.