Mail Order Monsters:Spiritual Successor? [Monster Lab - Wii]

[coopasonic]

{Note: if you are a GamingTrend reader, you've likely already seen this post}

OK, I tricked you into looking at this thread. I'll admit it, but realistically how else am I going to get you to open a thread on a year and a half old Wii game that nobody played?

http://www.metacritic.com/games/platfor ... monsterlab" target="_blank

Monster Lab is a Wii game from Christmas 2008. I'd say it's targeted at kids, but it's kind of along the lines of Pokemon in that it's a kids game with ganmeplay that can be appreciated by adults. I also think it's more tactically interesting than Pokemon. I bought it for my son, but I'm really enjoying it myself.

You fight to get ingredients,you combine ingredients to create parts, combine parts to make monsters, make monsters to fight.

Combat is simultaneous turn-based, each body part (legs, 2xarms, head) except the torso has two possible actions, each action has an energy cost, damage amount and targets various, generally multiple enemy body parts. The torso has two actions, recharge which fully recharges energy and dodge which partially recharges energy and has a high chance to dodge the incoming attack. You can destroy body parts which eliminates attacks from that body part. Destroying everything but torso, or the torso wins the match. There's a rock, paper, scissors mechanic in that the parts are categorized as mechanical, biological or alchemical. Mech is strong against Bio is strong against alch is strong against mech. The nice part is your monster can be a mix of all of the above and generally so are your enemies, making more complex than your standard
RPS mechanic.

Winning a fights gets you ingredients which you take back to the lab and combine to make new parts. There is a lab for each category of mech, bio and alch. Each lab has 4 machines each with their own minigame that is used to create, legs, arms, torsos or heads. There are 60-ish primary components and I forget how many secondary components. Getting the right combo gets you bonuses or penalties to the part's effectiveness. Doing well or poorly in the minigame determines the parts health points. You get recipes as you play and you can experiment on yor own to find good parts. You get lots of drops so there's no shortage of stuff to experiment with.

Monster building is as simple as picking parts and putting them together. There are lots of considerations, generally you want high health in all part s as that is your main defense. The higher energy your torso has the more attacks you can get off before wasting a turn recharging or dodging. The variety of attacks makes for lots of choices. Do you want to focus strogn attacks on the torso or attacks that hit everything for smaller amounts? Or different parts with strong attacks on various body parts? Say you decide your going to generally go with torso attacks. Head Butt is a very strong head and torso attack that I use often to great effect, but what happens when the enemy knocks my proverbial block off? I need other attacks available to get the job done.

Over the first two hours you are unlocking all of the various part creation tools and then as your progress through the story and various areas you get higher tier secondary pieces that ramp up the difficulty of the part creation mini-games and the quality of the resulting pieces. Completing missions, fights and minigames earns xp which earns levels which opens gates on the levels of parts you can use on your monsters. You can create parts that you can't use yet. The games warns you when doing this. The story is predictably very silly. You must stop the evil baron whatshisname by building monsters to complete quests and unlock areas and the cycle continues.

The only complaint I ahve about the game is the Field Repair minigame. After a fight you can/should fix your monster before going to find the next fight. You get 15 seconds to rotate your wii remote as past as possible while using the nunchuk control stick to select body parts. Hello RSI.

I picked this up at walmart new for $15 Saturday, great price for a great game. It's also one of the nicer looking Wii games I've played. I can't believe this never got any attention.

[GreenGoo]

I actually poked around looking for this in February but had no luck with local stores. Since I wasn't in an absolutely must have it sort of mindset, I didn't bother ordering it online.

I had heard good things about it though. I'll read your post in more detail to see what you have to say.

Edit: Ok, now I'll have another look around the city to see if I can find it. Sounds like fun.

In a similar vein, but not nearly as complex (and probably not as fun) is Spore Hero. It's not really very Spore-like, except for the ability to design/build/make all sorts of whacky critters. There are quests/tasks to accomplish, but they are simple and mostly not interesting, but the rewards are new body parts. I like the game mostly for its creative aspects. It is a great tool for sandbox play, and my son and I are having a blast designing creatures and running them around. The animation is great, the ability to morph the main body, add limbs, eyes, horns, hair etc etc and them move them around is very solid. Again, not nearly as detailed or interesting as Monster Lab sounds, but good if you have young kids and want a mess-less way for them to get creative. From a game stand point, it's not much. From an electric easel stand point, it's great.

[GreenGoo]

Finally got my hands on this. I'll report back after a few days of play.

Edit: Just finished making my first monster part of the tutorial. Not enough experience yet to have an opinion. Certainly seems promising. Still not sure how the gameplay will develop beyond making parts/monsters.

[coopasonic]

Finally got my hands on this. I'll report back after a few days of play.

Edit: Just finished making my first monster part of the tutorial. Not enough experience yet to have an opinion. Certainly seems promising. Still not sure how the gameplay will develop beyond making parts/monsters.

Hopefully I didn't over sell it, but for $10 I won't feel too bad.

After a few hours you have a pretty broad array of components available to you from which to craft parts and the options start to open up. Also the combat gets interesting mostly against bosses, though I find fun in destroying trivial opponents in the fastest and/or most spectacular fashion.

[GreenGoo]

No worries if it turns out to be a dud (for me). As I said, I had some interest in this over a year ago but never got around to finding it.

Production values are extremely good, especially when you consider this isn't version 45 of a well known franchise with a big money backer.

Voice acting is great. Especially appealing to kids.

I'll play more this weekend and have my son play it too so I can report back with opinions from my perspective and his.

[GreenGoo]

More play time, but STILL unsure about it. The transition from semi-tutorial to full gameplay is so gradual that I'm not sure if I've seen everything yet.

Achievements/Badges = win for the kids.

Discovering recipes = fun.

Experiment mini-games = meh. Can handle them in small doses, but if I'm working hard on making a new monster, the games can start to wear thin.

Combat = pretty fun. Just enough strategy and variety to keep it from being too simple.

Repairing = You're right. What a pain in the ass, mostly due to the time limit and only being able to repair once per completed combat.

I haven't opened up the bio or alchemical labs yet, and not even sure I've played all mechanical mini-games (hmmm. Done arms, legs and heads. I guess I'm missing torso mini-game) so there seems to be more to do.

Quests = adds some variety to gameplay to keep things from becoming too repetitive, at least so far.

Definitely unique gameplay in multiple parts of the game. Rock solid production values for the Wii, especially the voice acting.

Seems to be a very polished game. Has my interest up enough to have me playing, which is more than I can say about most of the wii games we have. Definitely aimed at younger players though, in terms of atmosphere.

My oldest (5 going on 6yo) LOVES IT. I'm not sure what it is about the game that has him bubbling, but he's in love. I'm surprised, since the mini-games are almost all beyond his abilities, mostly due to the time limits. He just loves finding stuff and making parts from it, and then monsters from them. He has 3 now whereas I only have 1, and I'm a bit farther into the game than him. He likes the fighting too.

Any fence sitters should probably give it a chance.

[coopasonic]

He just loves finding stuff and making parts from it, and then monsters from them. He has 3 now whereas I only have 1, and I'm a bit farther into the game than him.

I just opened up the final area of the game (85 wins, 3 losses, last I remember) and I have yet to create a second monster.

[coopasonic]

I beat the final boss last night and had an end game record of 140-4, damn final boss beat me the first time! In post-game play I finally put together a second monster. I had to see what the T-Rex parts looked like. There are a few improvements I'd like to make with my Primary monster so I may do some more post-game grinding. One important thing I learned, the difficulty of any specific part depends on your level. There are some of those minigames that KILL me at L4 (bio torsos, bio arms, bio legs - screw bio!) but if you keep playing they will eventually drop to level 3 at least. Sadly your character levels aren't numeric and I can't find a list so it's hard to compare, but I'm at about 22 million xp.

If anyone wants to square off, let me know and we can try to work something out. sadly the multi is friends only.

My code: 2236 0299 6815

[Carpet_pissr]

You certainly got me with that title. I will click on anything that shows Mail Order Monsters. Freaking loved that game. As punishment for your deceipt, a slight derail.

Those were the days when the cover art so far surpassed the actual game art, you spent more time looking at the manual and associated content almost. Had to use a LOT of imagination to get from the actual game graphics to the kick-ass, armed T Rex on the front cover.

From the excitement of seeing this...


to this:

[GreenGoo]

Coop, I'm kind of stuck. I just opened the Alchemic zone, but have yet to unlock the bio chest builder. I have 14 power and I'm going up against things with 33 power. Not to mention my nearly 100% brick haymaker barely turns their torsos yellow on the first hit, and they stay in the orange for many hits. I just don't have the firepower or my own hp to keep up with them.

Not sure what I'm supposed to do at this point. I need a bigger torso. And the rest couldn't hurt either, as all parts are taking a beating from shrieks/shouts.

[coopasonic]

Coop, I'm kind of stuck. I just opened the Alchemic zone, but have yet to unlock the bio chest builder. I have 14 power and I'm going up against things with 33 power. Not to mention my nearly 100% brick haymaker barely turns their torsos yellow on the first hit, and they stay in the orange for many hits. I just don't have the firepower or my own hp to keep up with them.

Not sure what I'm supposed to do at this point. I need a bigger torso. And the rest couldn't hurt either, as all parts are taking a beating from shrieks/shouts.

I had a part with Headbutt that was my signature for quite a while, did head and torso damage. I'll look to see what it was and what chest I was using. I basically only upgraded when it was necessary. Except for specific bosses I've always focused on one or two parts that do torso damage and making sure everything else has relatively high health.

Now that I've sat on this point for a while, I'm pretty sure the headbutt piece I was using was based on the burlap sack. Combine it with the highest Goo you have in the bio lab (goos are Sewer Sludge, Glowing Muck, Sticky Goo, and Toxic Ooze), they improve from left to right so sewer sludge will give you the weakest head.

I'm thinking the V-6 hotrod body was what I had until I could get a bio body. Thick pipe + the best battery you can get in the mech lab (Gyro Battery, Flux Charger, Liquid Cell, Neutron Reactor). I'm trying to remember what I upgraded to from there. I ended the game with a mech body (actually the top version of the thick pipe body), so don't think bio is always better than mech or alchemical always better than bio. You might also want to see what you can do with the floodlight and gears for a mech body.

I did a lot of experimenting early on, but once I had 20+ choices for components for each part I went to gamefaqs specifically to look for parts recipes/info. the faq I linked is a recipe/parts guide only, no other spoilers.

[GreenGoo]

Yes, I'm using a hotrod V-6 as well. I don't believe I've opened up the bio head builder yet either. If I had to guess, you were probably using that flying saucer looking head, that starts with a metal platter. That thing did great damage with its headbutt. The cider block arm with haymaker (+strong modifier) only does damage to the torso. It was so strong that it could sometimes one shot some of the weaker bio-monsters.

Which just led me to an Eureka! moment. The cider block is a mechanical part. It does extra damage to bio parts. But it does reduced damage to alchemical parts. As you know, the 3 part types are set up in a rock/paper/scissors way. I should try to find a good bio arm to use. Even if it shows less damage than the cider block, it will probably do more damage in a fight against alchemical parts.

That might be enough to make me competitive. I'll try it and get back to you.

[coopasonic]

I didn't get to Monster Lab last night (Risen grabbed me and wouldn't let go). I wanted to take down an inventory of all my parts and I could figure out the progression from there, but by the time I shut down Risen I needed to go to sleep.

As far as the Rock-Paper-Alchemy mechanic, I never gave it consideration throughout the whole game. Late in the game you have 3 mini-boss fights where the game tells you explicitly what type of monster would be effective. I completely ignored their advice and used the same monster for all 3 fights with no problem. I would love to know the bonuses and penalties applied when using the right/wrong parts, but I can't imagine they are that great. It's possible I just lucked into all the right combinations as the game introduces the different options at abuot the right times, but I really didn't change my monster nearly as often as new options became available.

I need to check the stats, but I'm fairly sure this is mymost played Wii game ever (not that that's a great accomplishment )

[GreenGoo]

So I did some experimenting, and found the Dirk Arm bio recipe. it's 6 power for 72(!) damage to torso only (although very weak, hp-wise). For reference, my super +strong cider block haymaker arm used 6 power to do 20 damage, and this was my go-to attack all through the n'everglade zone. Once I had that equipped, things turned around for me. And immediately after finishing my very next quest I was allowed access to the Bio torso maker, which also helped immensely.

So I'm mostly Bio for now, going up against Alchem monsters. Bio (rock) to Alchem (scissors), which has made all the difference.

I took a loss against the Alchem teacher guy, since his monster was just crazy powerful. Given that another quest was immediately available and referenced how tough his monster was and the quest text itself assumes you've lost to him, I can only assume that we were never intended to defeat him the first time.

Next I'm going back to the n'everglades, to find the 'secret area'.

Game is still fun, although I am playing it only about an hour at a time, usually with days in between sessions. It's getting a little hard for my 5 yo though. Some of the monster part builders are nearly beyond him and frustration is starting to rear its ugly head.

Thanks Coop, for recommending it. I'm enjoying it and so is my son.

[coopasonic]

I took a loss against the Alchem teacher guy, since his monster was just crazy powerful. Given that another quest was immediately available and referenced how tough his monster was and the quest text itself assumes you've lost to him, I can only assume that we were never intended to defeat him the first time.

Yup and I'm pretty sure it doesn't even count as a loss on your win-loss record. I remember each of my losses specifically. *grumble*

12 damage/energy is like tier 3 power, so that's pretty damn awesome. I think at the end I was using a primary attack that did 126 dmg to head and torso for 16 energy which is roughly 16 dmg/energy, but later on the ratio isn't as important as the raw damage number. With 71 energy, I rarely had to recharge before the other guy was spare parts.

Glad you're enjoying it. It's a shame this game didn't get better marketing. I would love to see a sequel (with local multi and online matchmaking).

[GreenGoo]

I haven't been paying attention except in a general way as to the hierarchy of recipes and which ones are more or less powerful. Well, obviously I can tell the difference between stats that are good and stats that are better. I just haven't looked at it very methodically. I certainly haven't done a damage/energy ratio specifically. Interesting.

I haven't even gotten the Alchemy guy in his lab yet, so I still have all those parts to learn how to make.

The 72 dam/6 energy arm is about 1/2 the health of other bio arms, so I think that's the trade off for the damage at this stage. it's been knocked off a few times, just from multi-limb targeting attacks.

I should probably look at the FAQ at some point, I would definitely benefit from more efficient use of my parts. Still, with recipe discovery being part of the game, it feels more like cheating than usual. I'll probably take a look as I near the end of the game.

[coopasonic]

I should probably look at the FAQ at some point, I would definitely benefit from more efficient use of my parts. Still, with recipe discovery being part of the game, it feels more like cheating than usual. I'll probably take a look as I near the end of the game.

I think I first looked when I got my first wolf's blood. I only had one and I think it was from a boss or a quest reward and I didn't want to waste it. When there are 16 different things you'd like to try with a part (4 diff body parts, each with 4 diff secondary coponent sets) and only have one of the primary components, I wasn't willing to take the risk. I never did get another wolf's blood.

One thing I did notive that you will find useful if you haven't figured it out, and I don't think it's even spelled out in the FAQ. If you find the secondary component that gives the bonus for a part, I'm pretty sure that same secondary component gives the bonus for that primary component for all 4 machines in a particular lab.

[GreenGoo]

No, I did not notice that. I wasn't even sure that penalties were tied to component combinations. I thought it might be some random factor associated with the making of the part, rather than the components.

I should probably do some reading so I have a better idea what I'm doing.

[GreenGoo]

My oldest (5 going on 6yo) LOVES IT. I'm not sure what it is about the game that has him bubbling, but he's in love. I'm surprised, since the mini-games are almost all beyond his abilities, mostly due to the time limits. He just loves finding stuff and making parts from it, and then monsters from them. He has 3 now whereas I only have 1, and I'm a bit farther into the game than him. He likes the fighting too.

My oldest is now almost 19 and has finished his first year of University. Time flies.