The Haunted Hoard: Monster Party (NES)

Monster Party’s boxart does not do it justice. Looking at the game’s cover, you might expect the typical cast of cartoon monsters to serve as your opposition, but the monsters you actually meet in this game are so much more interesting and creative. You don’t fight Dracula or the Creature from the Black Lagoon in this game, you fight things like a haunted well, the giant upper half of a punk rocker, a three course meal of fried food, a giant cat poking out of a box… there are even two “battles” with bosses that stick out for being absurd even in this already ridiculous cast, with one being a boss who is not only dead when you find it, but it apologizes for being dead! Another boss is just a drum that wants you to watch its zombies dance! This game isn’t your typical monster mash, it’s one that’s going outside the box for some truly absurd monsters.

 

The creatures of the game are inspired in just how out there they are in concept, and the set-up is a bit strange as well. While there is no actual “monster party” occurring, monsters are overrunning the home world of a dragon-like character named Bert. Looking for assistance in his quest to retake it, Bert drops by Earth and spots a kid named Mark with a baseball bat. Reasoning that this kid’s blunt weapon alone makes him the perfect fighter to reclaim his homeland, Bert fuses with Mark, the two heading off together in this ill-advised attempt at beating back evil forces with just a bat. Mark is the default character you play as in Monster Party, and his only attacking method is that overestimated bat, one that quickly proves that Bert’s evaluation of it was a bit misplaced. The swing of the bat has very little range, and since even regular enemies usually require multiple hits to defeat, Mark will often get in so close to hit with it that his well-being is at risk. Boss fights especially pose a huge threat not because they are given a challenging design or have unique moves to counter, but mostly because Mark has to throw himself at the boss to even land hits with his simple weapon. You can build up your health with heart pick-ups dropped by weaker enemies before challenging a boss, which is an important consideration because of how poorly Mark fights with his wimpy bat. It’s a slow process, but packing enough health can often be the difference between a stressful battle and one were you don’t even need to worry about self-preservation, with Mark’s health bar starting pretty empty on each new life but able to be packed to the brim if you have the patience to grind for life.

There is a way to make combat much easier though, but it comes with some caveats. If Mark finds a pill or gets lucky when picking up a question mark, he can transform into Bert for a short amount of time. Bert is the much more capable fighter of the two, able to fly around with ease and fire long range attacks that seem just as strong as the bat but without the annoying requirement of putting yourself right at the feet of a boss. Your time as Bert is temporary though, but if you can get him into a boss fight he can make it much simpler, especially since a few bosses go down quickly if pressure is constantly applied. Bert’s also much better at the regular platforming found in the level portions of stages and he can of course kill regular enemies much easier, so any time you can get the chance to play as Bert, he’s more than welcome, as he makes up for the flaws in the gameplay by breaking the rules that make it feel so stiff and uninviting.

 

Levels in Monster Party are long side-scrolling stages with many doors to enter, but these doors, outside a special labyrinthine level late in the game that is more different than it is good, only have the purpose of getting to boss rooms. While there are some challenging enemies and moderately interesting platforming designs in the main area of the stage, these side rooms are where the bosses make their appearance, and the game even knows they are the highlight of the experience because beating a level requires clearing out all the bosses to earn a key to unlock the exit. There is some of Monster Party’s interesting weirdness in the regular enemy design, with a few things like reverse mermaids in the sewers, pairs of legs sticking out of the dirt, and men with elephant heads filling out the stages as your weaker opposition, but there are certainly some basic and typical enemies here too like witches, sewer gators, and sea monsters. Those are still kind of unusual in their own way, but compared to things like a minotaur that shoots cartoon cows at you, they don’t quite measure up. Not every boss is of course a winner in the weirdness department either, with the game having some baseline stuff too like a giant spider, but you never know what’s going to be behind the door during your boss hunt, especially since sometimes, the room is just empty!

Seeing what weird and wacky boss awaits you is unfortunately undone a little by the weak fight designs associated with them. A lot of the bosses hop around or fire things at you, and while you can use your bat to hit projectiles back at bosses for some damage, the angle needed is hard to set up deliberately and safely. Only the javelin throwing boss seems to encourage the projectile reflection method by staying still and giving you platforms to stand on during the fight. Most boss battles are in flat square rooms where things descend into chaos as your movement and attacking skills aren’t a good fit for the fight you have to pick. The bosses’ aesthetics are what makes them interesting rather than the battles, and the same could probably be said of the game as a whole. Even when the broader level is intriguing, it’s not because of what you’re doing in it, it’s because of the imagery associated with it. You aren’t really given much time to soak in the graphical work, as so many of your enemies are quick, erratic, and focused on hurting you. Playing as Bert makes basking in the bizarre easier, but his time limitation brings with it a need to speed forward to where he can be useful. The balance of power between the two is just too heavily skewed towards him that it makes the already weak Mark feel even worse to play as when he’s forced back into your hands.

THE VERDICT: Monster Party is such a wonderful playground of absurd boss concepts and kooky enemy design that its painful to see the format they ended up in. Hilariously odd enemies are fun to look at and the game continues delivering on them right up until the end, but the gameplay tied to them is unfortunately limited, with most enemies bouncing around and launching objects at the player that can’t be adequately dealt with. The player spends most their time as Mark, whose bat has too little range and his attacks with it are too weak to make for good battles. The more interesting transformation into the capable monster Bert comes with flight and laser blasts, but it’s set to a timer, meaning that the more enjoyable battle type is all too quick to disappear. The strangeness of the experience is endearing, but the activities keeping you from seeing more of it just aren’t well designed.

 

And so, I give Monster Party for the Nintendo Entertainment System…

A BAD rating. It pains me to say that Monster Party is bad, and I did try to convince myself for a while that its visual creativity at least made it average, but the process of getting from boss to boss is drawn out by the bad battle designs and constant deaths associated with Mark’s weakness. If Mark had just a bit more range or power it could quite easily bump up this game up to passable, and if Bert was instead a more permanent power-up or just the main character, then the poor design could be easier to ignore as you could easily maneuver around the frantic hopping and projectile spamming of most enemies. Bert would have to likely take a hit to his power to accommodate it, but Mark’s limited jumps and limited reach ruin even a basic level of potential to most fights. With mostly unexceptional platforming stages connecting the boss battles, the game doesn’t really have anything from its gameplay side to support the experience and instead it mostly hinders access to moments of interest.

 

Monster Party ends up being much less fun than a real party, but a lot more interesting to look in on from the outside. Monster Party is definitely a game better enjoyed as a viewer rather than a player, as you can then just take in the bizarre sights without having to dirty your hands with poorly designed battle mechanics. It is a video game where it would work better as a video to watch than a game to play, and its creativity is better appreciated when its not bogged down by play that only undermines the developer’s visual imagination.