The Haunted Hoard: Monster in My Pocket (NES)

Monster in My Pocket is one of the bigger names from the fad in the 1980s and 1990s where a toy brand would sell hundreds of different little plastic or rubber figures for kids to collect. Monster in My Pocket fashioned its particular tiny toys on creatures and monsters pulled from mythology and cryptozoology, but perhaps its greater legacy was helping to influence the massively successful Pokémon franchise to trim their name down from Pocket Monsters to avoid brand confusion. During its time in the sun though, Monster in My Pocket had a tie-in video game developed, and while having an exclusive Blemmyae figure included with the game could have been its only noteworthy feature if it had been developed by a lesser company, Konami happened to be the ones adapting the license, and the creators of hits like Castlevania put more thought than you might expect into this little title.

 

Monster in My Pocket’s video game kicks off with two of its most recognizable characters, Vampire and Frankenstein’s creation The Monster, both sitting in front of a comparatively massive television set. A man known only as Warlock is responsible for reducing the size of all monsters after a bid to shrink anyone who didn’t obey him backfired, but despite them all being only a few inches tall now, Warlock still enacts his plan to seize control of all monsterkind and the world. Vampire and The Monster quickly get to action to stop Warlock and all the monsters loyal to him, running through a set of levels that could have been mundane if they were human sized but are turned into deadly gauntlets filled with strange creatures thanks to their unique situation. Running across the kitchen counters and making your way through a house’s many rooms definitely fit the theme and integrate the concept well, with even scaling up a chair proving to be a monumental task for the little monsters. However, there are certainly some stages that feel like they would have worked with larger characters as well, most elements in the sewer stage, construction site, and the oddly named Oriental Illusion nearly able to pass for basic action platformer levels. The game never fully forgets the fact you are meant to be tiny though, even when levels begin to be just underground caves, so you can still find things like a chain-link fence you climb by standing on its links, a can you use to float across the sewer water, and golf balls that threaten to squish the little heroes.

The two heroes of Monster in My Pocket play identically despite their visual differences, and if you want to play it in two player co-op, you can have a friend tag along as the one you didn’t pick in a two player adventure where the enemies aren’t made any tougher. This doesn’t make the game too easy though, as Monster in My Pocket is a surprisingly fair but challenging action platformer. Vampire and The Monster have fairly simple but incredibly useful abilities, both able to swing their fists to make a small arc of energy appear in front of them, giving their attack a small bit of range for its constant use in dispatching enemy monsters. Some foes and especially the bosses require multiple attacks to take them down completely and your punch is rapid enough to dish a good amount of damage provided they don’t close in before you’ve dealt with them. Sometimes you might find an item laying around like a large screw you can pick up and hurl about, but its immense killing power comes with the price of being slow and dependent on its bounces. Your only other consistent ability though is a double jump that needs to be timed properly, because if you delay your midair leap, you won’t be able to use it. It may take a few attempts to get the timing down right, but the early levels don’t have any deadly drops to punish mistimed double jumps so you have the opportunity to get used to them before they’re needed. In fact, level layouts are often pretty fair, there being some open pits but the game is very smart about putting health after or before rough areas and making it a frequent reward if you’re a bit more adventurous than going for the easiest path forward.

 

Dying in Monster in My Pocket really helps the action stay fluid and fast as well. So long as you have lives remaining, your monster will appear pretty close to where they perished, meaning that if you need to, you can brute force a more annoying monster type or overcome a boss whose pattern you just aren’t gelling with. While there are platforming challenges to grapple with along your adventure, most of the challenge comes from the opposition you face, the others monsters providing the interesting encounters that give this game it’s appeal. You need to progress forward cautiously to ensure you can handle the creatures that lie ahead, because each new beast fighting for the enemy team approaches you in a different way.

Baba Yagas fly back and forth in one area where you need to ride a crane to get over a stretch of spikes, the player needing to time jumps and attacks perfectly to catch them when they’re near and not let their numbers get so great you can’t hit them in time. The Tyrannosaurus Rex, strangely enough, breathes fire and uses its high defenses to crowd you out of the cramped caves. The Roc drops enormous eggs from above, Tengus swoop in and try to smack you, Goblins chuck what look like sugar cubes at you from their perches, and Harpies use team tactics to fly in towards you in a line that has to be dealt with to prevent them from pestering you. Most enemy designs bring some small but unique twist to the regular combat, foes starting off as the kind that just walk towards you but later becoming ones who will deal their damage easily if you underestimate their abilities. A few foes sort of stretch what feels fair though. The Great Beast is a flying hydra like monster who shoots lightning from above and is clustered with others of its kind so it’s difficult to attack it safely, and the Coatlicues with their body made of blocks will charge you if you’re facing away and retreat when you look at them in a way that makes it hard to land even a single strike. These can be overcome and the health in the area can help you weather them if you struggle though, so for the most part these monsters add the spice to the levels that make them an enjoyable challenge to overcome.

 

Bosses cap off the stages, and these mostly come from the mold where you must learn what attacks they will do and then consistently perform the same pattern of dodges and attacks to overcome them. Once you learn their moves you can handle them without getting hurt, and while the learning process isn’t easy, it is effective enough that, so long as you don’t just push through at the cost of lives and health, you can handle the unfortunate boss rush the game tacks on before the final boss. Some battles are certainly slow going if you try to focus on safety and attacks in equal measure, the fight with Warlock itself really demanding a level of mobility where you can barely get a strike in during each attack cycle, and the battle with the Kraken has tentacles that can be difficult to avoid if you want to really land a good amount of hits before it retreats back down into temporary safety. The slowness of some of these fights means they’re less an awesome capstone to a level and more like facing off with one of the enemy designs for extended periods, but some like the first boss, the knife-throwing Spring-Heeled Jack, achieve a good balance between an attack pattern you need to focus on dodging and the opportunities needed to deal damage. Medusa similarly has a decent boss concept in that you need to suss out the real one to deal damage and avoid her stunning blast, so in a similar manner to the basic monsters, there are some that succeed in their role and others that could use a little improvement to make them more enjoyable to deal with.

THE VERDICT: The tiny terrors of Monster in My Pocket are the main appeal of both the toy line and the game based on them. The enemies you face in the surprisingly good NES adaptation test your reflexes and approach to danger well, with many contextualized in interesting ways and their number allowing a consistent fresh supply of foes to face across the 7 levels. Challenging but not unfair, Monster in My Pocket is a solid action platformer with only a few duds in the enemy and boss design, meaning most of your adventure achieves a good balance between difficulty and game flow.

 

And so, I give Monster in My Pocket for the Nintendo Entertainment System…

A GOOD rating. While the NES was certainly part of an era where shockingly good games came from unexpected brands and Konami was no slouch when it came to action platformers, it’s still a bit of a surprise how enjoyable this little game based on rigid plastic figures turned out to be. The spirit of the toys is carried on as the enemy’s forces are built up of all sorts of creatures from legend and folklore, but the variety isn’t just superficial, a new monster type usually meaning you’ll face some new tactic. Progressing through the game provides plenty of diversity in what you face despite the relative simplicity of the attack methods, and Monster in My Pocket keeps concocting little areas that allow some foes to find their footing when they’d otherwise be fairly straightforward enemies to deal with. Just like some of the bosses, a few could have used a bit more polishing up, but the bosses with problems mostly hit on the issue where your window to hit them is a little too small. The boss rush at the end of the game can be troublesome because of that, but having your character pop right back into the action where they died is a surprisingly smart touch, and having the option to bring along a friend for penalty free back-up can lessen the difficulty if needed.

 

While it’s not as good as Konami’s main game full of interesting monsters blocking your path, Monster in My Pocket certainly benefited from being under the same umbrella as Castlevania. Similar sensibilities but a distinct identity make this a surprisingly enjoyable retro title that doesn’t get much mention and one that can stand on its own independent of a toy brand that’s likely to evoke nostalgia in only a select few. The little plastic monster that came in the original packaging is hardly the main reason someone should want to own this enjoyably challenging action platformer.