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Monster Crown: Sin Eater Review
A Monstrous World of Sin and Oppression
From Dragon Quest V to Pokémon to various flavors of the Megami Tensei, monster taming has always had a special allure in an RPG. Catching, training, and controlling the world’s various beasts and demons, and becoming an arbiter of their power, creates a special bond between player and monster. Following up on 2021’s Monster Crown, Monster Crown: Sin Eater confidently encapsulates the best elements of the monster taming genre while also carving out its own distinct identity. Boosted by its robust and diverse roster of monsters, Sin Eater features outstanding presentation, excellent breeding and fusion mechanics, and solid turn-based combat, although there are some scattered issues with balance that hold it back from reaching its ceiling.
Sin Eater takes place in the Crown Nation, an island with four provinces centered on Meru Spire, a gigantic tower that looms over the surrounding country. The story starts with Asur, a young farm boy in the southern and grassy Windy Province, being woken up by Dyeus, his older brother, who hasn’t been seen for a year. As an accomplished monster tamer, Dyeus takes him outside to show him the ropes of monster taming before going out camping with him. At the campfire, he informs Asur that a great threat is upon the Crown Nation and that all its inhabitants face extermination. Not even Lord Taishakuten, who resides atop Meru Spire, and his corrupt, tyrannical, and detached Holy Order of the Four Heavenly Kings are powerful enough to stop this threat. However, before they can act together on it, tragedy strikes, and Asur sets out on a mission of vengeance.
[caption id="attachment_190272" align="aligncenter" width="640"] The arrogant Zojoten handwaves his brutality with some Orwellian doublespeak.[/caption]
Sin Eater’s plot sets itself up quite intensely, immediately establishing sky-high stakes. The game establishes a pervasive, oppressive atmosphere quite early, with Asur encountering the ruins of settlements overrun and destroyed by monsters. From the Beastman Corps to the wildlife itself, there’s relentless pressure and hostility throughout the world. The Heavenly Kings clearly care very little about governing, leaving their Inquisitors to cruelly reign over a backward, suffering society. As Asur explores, there’s plenty of mystery and lore spread throughout the provinces that effectively paint the Crown Nation as a civilization caught in cyclical violence and decay, with very few areas of progress and even fewer people looking to improve it.
The primary agents of change include Deckard, a high-roller and militia leader; Mycroft XIV, a ruthless scientist; and Sabahat, the exiled architect of the Beastmen Project and personal doctor to Lord Taishakuten. Players can choose their alliances freely, which provides interesting, divergent storytelling and lore for the world, as well as appreciable replay value. Asur is also a compelling protagonist, with a no-nonsense attitude coupled with a generally inquisitive personality. Sin Eater’s only real story drawback is that, when the game becomes non-linear after the Windy Province, the lore and story details can feel a bit choppy in their spread and pacing, though thorough exploration of the world results in all the details coming together quite nicely by the end.
Any good monster taming game should have a great roster of monsters, and Sin Eater is no slouch in this regard. Featuring over 200 base monsters to tame in the field, there are actually over 1,000 different monster variations. Each monster can be one of five types, and almost every monster in the game has a form for each. Players can either breed or fuse monsters, which combine the statistical and visual traits of the parent monsters as well as their moves and abilities. Breeding is cheaper and produces a new monster at level 1, whereas fusion is more expensive and averages the level of the two parents, producing a battle-ready monster at the cost of losing the parents. The degree of customization players have in crafting their team of monsters is truly dizzying and quite impressive, and most of the monsters are well-designed to boot.
[caption id="attachment_190273" align="aligncenter" width="640"] Sin Eater's five types and their interactions.[/caption]
Combat has Asur sending one monster from a team of up to eight at any given time, with the battle mechanics centering around monster types and their interactions. Will-type attacks are strong against Brute-type enemies, with Brute-type attacks in turn strong against Malicious-type foes, and so on. Each monster has various abilities, split into physical and magical attacks, with every move having move points (MP). A monster’s MP pool depends on the lineup of skills, with a move granting a certain number of MP, though the returns diminish by half for each additional move of the same type. Some moves can inflict various status effects, and all monsters have their own Synergy Bar. Using moves with good matchups or making timely switches against opponents will cause the bar to build faster, whereas poor moves will make it grow more slowly. Synergy can be used to “Crown” an attack, making it more powerful or granting it a new effect, and at 100 percent, monsters can shift into a powerful Crowned Transformation.
Overall, combat is engaging and effective, with plenty of diverse situations to consider, especially early on. To tackle these, players will need to constantly consider new monsters and breed and fuse them for different situations. Knowing how to balance genes, traits, and especially combining different moves, makes a huge difference in combat. This is especially apparent when fighting the game’s premier bosses, especially some of the Heavenly Kings and Inquisitors, who have some standout and thrilling fights that will fully test the player's knowledge of its systems and reflect the combat in its best, most challenging form. Despite its general relentlessness, Sin Eater feels very responsive, and the more that players put into the system, the more they’ll get out of it, meaning every challenge can be overcome with enough effort and determination.
That said, Sin Eater has one fundamental flaw in its combat: its balancing. Once players conquer the Windy Province, the game opens most of the rest of the world map, giving a non-linear experience. While this does wonders for its atmosphere and the feel of its world, and is appreciable in its design intent, it’s less kind to gameplay balance. It’s quite easy to quickly become overleveled for most wild monster encounters, and for some boss fights as well, especially if players have a decently competent understanding of fusion and breeding. While the Monster Crown difficulty — the toughest of the three available — ameliorates this to a degree, and ultimately feels like the intended experience, wild encounters would have benefited from some degree of level scaling, like the already level-scaled (and far too uncommon) tamer battles.
[caption id="attachment_190275" align="aligncenter" width="640"] Note the prominence of Meru Spire in the background.[/caption]
Sin Eater’s overworld is filled with monsters that skulk and traverse the field. There’s noticeable attention to detail in monster behavior, with herbivore prey animals having wider fields of vision and fleeing the player. On the other hand, predators not only move quicker, but will also actively stalk the player. There’s a neat interactive system with monsters too, which lets players use different items to bait them depending on whether they’re a carnivore, herbivore, or omnivore. It helps keep the world feeling alive, although it’s very rare that the bait system feels necessary, especially after the Windy Province. As players defeat each Heavenly King, they also gain new abilities that unlock some interesting traversal methods for Asur that allow him to access new areas of the world or dungeons.
Aside from its functional aspects, the overworld is quite pretty, and Sin Eater excels visually not just here, but across the board. With graphics reminiscent of the Game Boy Color, the game features some truly excellent, thorough, and colorful spritework. Environments are lush with detail, be it the creeping vines and vegetation in dungeons or the varying lived-in details inside of a town’s houses, while the day-night cycle and weather help make Sin Eater’s world feel dynamic and alive. Monster sprites come in a wide variety of wild and harrowing designs, and while a small few sometimes suffer from some incomprehensible details, it’s just so impressive how high-quality most are, considering the sheer quantity. As a testament to the game’s details, the variety of battlefield graphics provides some nice immersion as well, with the omnipresent Meru Spire towering in the background of many overworld battles.
[caption id="attachment_190277" align="aligncenter" width="640"] Environments are absolutely teeming with detail.[/caption]
Sin Eater’s sound is its strongest element, with some great and punchy sound effects, but, more importantly, an atmospheric and terrific soundtrack. The battle themes are fast-paced and well-composed, elevating the excitement of every encounter. Overworld and town themes are rife with fitting and remarkable instrumental choices, making each of the Crown Nation’s four provinces and towns distinct and memorable. For example, Hewston, an isolated island of scientists, has a lovely regal-sounding waltz with flutes, harpsichords, and strings that really help establish its high status and technological superiority over the rest of the Crown Nation. One other fascinating element is how town music is a neat variation on a province’s theme. For example, the Desperado Province features guitars, heavy slap bass, and harmonica, but the marshy town of Siltstone has the drums and bass take a backseat to a mellower tune that incorporates the harmonica with a more acoustic guitar and some Hammond organ flourishes.
On the whole, Monster Crown: Sin Eater is a shining addition to the monster taming genre. With its diverse array of monsters at the forefront, it features a truly harrowing, cruelly immersive world full of violence and sin. While its scope and non-linear design can sometimes lead to some odd pacing and gameplay imbalance, it largely remains engaging due to its atmospheric, well-designed world, strong writing and lore, and excellent audiovisual experience. From Asur’s humble farm beginnings all the way to the heights of Meru Spire, Sin Eater provides a monstrously oppressive adventure, top-to-bottom.
Disclosure: This review is based on a free copy of the game provided by the publisher.
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