Dawn of the Monsters (NS) - Review

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It's strange that there aren't more kaiju, or giant monster, video games out there. With Legendary's "MonsterVerse" in full swing, you'd think more studios would take advantage of the re-emergence of cinematic giants like Godzilla and King Kong. Even without the renaissance of movie monsters, why not make a game starring giant lizards and mechs running roughshod across the world's metropolises? It's the ultimate power fantasy in a medium known for its power fantasies. Well, perhaps the crafty developers at 13AM Games asked themselves the same question, since their latest title is Dawn of the Monsters, which pays loving homage to the world of kaiju, mecha, and Japanese tokusatsu in general.

Dawn of the Monsters takes place in the near future, after a global climate catastrophe. For 30 years, rampaging kaiju, or, in this game's parlance, Nephilim, have run amok across the world stage. To guarantee its continued existence, humanity has erected giant reinforced walls and impossibly huge settlements called "megaliths", and authorized the creation of DAWN (Defense Alliance Worldwide Network), an elite group of Nephilim-fighting champions. Included among them are superhuman fighter Aegis Prime, who can swell to 55 meters tall; Tempest Galahad, a gun-toting mech guided by a human pilot; and two deprogrammed first-generation Nephilim named Megadon and Ganira. From a space station orbiting Earth, these heroes deploy to several hot spots below in an attempt to remove the Nephilim threat once and for all.

The story in Dawn of the Monsters is a mixed bag. The plot itself suffers from a serious case of deja vu, since it shares many similarities with monster movies Pacific Rim and Godzilla: King of the Monsters. It's also fairly predictable, with a group of clichéd characters. All that said, as the story unfolds it starts to take on its own identity, thanks in no small part to "chats", completely optional, time-sensitive interludes where two or more characters talk about their background or current events. The real star of the show, though, is the game's lore. The writers at 13AM clearly put a lot of thought into the mythology underpinning the game. From the Archives, players can read biological breakdowns of the Nephilim, plus profiles on each individual monster, complete with height and weight measurements. The studio even dreamed up a series of fictional fantasy novels that exist within the game's world.

So how does Dawn of the Monsters play? Well, let's just say we've come a long way from the clunky days of Godzilla on NES and Ultraman: Towards the Future on SNES. In terms of genre, the game is a snappy side-scrolling beat-em-up in the style of Castle Crashers, Turtles in Time, and Streets of Rage. Players will move across each level, usually with several screens each, fighting monsters, dodging incoming attacks, and demolishing any man-made installations unfortunate enough to be in their way. The mechanics are simple at a glance — there are buttons for guard, dodge, and light, heavy, and dash attacks — but more involved the deeper you get. There are plenty of opportunities for combos, plus the ability to cancel out of moves to keep the string of attacks going.

Then there are Rage attacks, character-specific special moves that cost Rage to perform (you gain rage by both dealing and receiving damage). Alternatively, you could use a bar of Rage to execute an enemy, which heals you. Deploy enough Rage attacks and you'll activate a Cataclysm attack. For Megadon, it's Volcanic Ignition, a fiery vortex that pulls in enemies and engulfs them. For Tempest Galahad, it's Thunderstorm Cannon, a devastating screen-wide shot of electricity. When you combine all these combos, cancels, Rage attacks, and Cataclysm attacks, you get a pretty impressive arsenal of moves for a beat-em-up.

In the words of the late, great Ron Popeil, "but wait, there's more!" As you smash your way through levels, you'll earn DNA augments based on your performance. When equipped, these alter the heroes' attack and defense stats, plus up to two secondary attributes, e.g., critical hit percentage. Finally, they introduce a perk, for example "executions heal for twice as much". If you like the perk but not the stat changes, you can even reroll the augment to randomize its stats. It'll cost you though. Ultimately, perks provide a great canvas from which to create the monster build that's right for you. 

Thanks to surprisingly nuanced mechanics and lots of perks, the moment-to-moment gameplay in Dawn of the Monsters is reliable. But what about the overall flow of the game? That, too, is good, although diminished somewhat by repetition. Beat-em-up games are a little repetitive by nature, and Dawn of the Monsters is certainly not exempt from that. Many of the levels use recycled backgrounds and settings, and feature several of the same monstrous faces and names. 13AM mitigates this somewhat with some interesting conceits — a level in Brazil where the heroes march up a river, a sandstorm scene in Egypt, and a stage in Japan with lakes of fire — but the redundancies remain. 

Just as Dawn of the Monsters surprises with its layered fighting mechanics, it makes an unexpectedly good impression in terms of content. The game boasts 37 levels, which should take you about eight hours or so, depending on how many restarts you need (there are a handful of difficulty spikes). After you've seen the credits roll, you can replay each level for high scores and new augments and character skins. You could also experiment with the four playable characters and/or invite a friend for two-player local co-op. It would have been nice to see an arcade or boss rush mode, but even without those there are several reasons to revisit the game.

Graphics, like the game's story, are a mixed bag. The character and monster designs are excellent. And some of the renderings in the Gallery section of the home screen are spectacular. At the same time, there's a regrettable lack of detail and finesse in certain cut-scenes and backdrops. The music, by Dan Rodrigues, is good enough — not necessarily something you'd listen to on its own, but an ideal accompaniment for some rock-em-sock-em kaiju action.

Dawn of the Monsters is immediately one of the better kaiju games out there. In part, that's due to the fact that, historically, there haven't been many great games in the genre. More importantly, though, that's due to the simple fact that it's a fun game with four playable heroes, lots of layered fighting mechanics, a good amount of content, and some excellent monster designs. The story is so-so and the levels repetitive, but the developers' love for the subject matter shines through. 

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farlaff (on 25 March 2022)

Interesting read. I played both the NES and SNES games mentioned, with the addition of King of the Monsters for the Neo Geo back in the day, which kind of used to be a reference in the genre, at least for myself. I think I saw no mention to that franchise and would be interested in knowing how it fairs against SNK's monster outing. Also, it baffles me that the likes of Capcom (Monster Hunter) and From Software seem to not be interested in the genre, because with their inventiveness in monster design they could come up with something pretty nice.

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