Kaiju, the Japanese name for giant monsters that defend or threaten humanity, have been the stars of more than a few works of fiction, including video games. The appeal of Monster Metropolis is that it dresses them up in the trappings of a genre that’s well known to Android gamers: city management and construction simulators. And for good measure it sprinkles in some MMORPG gameplays also familiar mobile OS games.
The game, developed by Faceroll Games (Call of Duty: Heroes), sets you the task of developing a city while defending it from enemy creatures with your own collectible and upgradable monster heroes. This dichotomy makes it so that on the one hand you’re soon raising buildings and managing the resources they provide while on the other fighting in turn-based duels with your giants atop the smoldering embers of your own buildings.
The appeal of Monster Metropolis is that all parts of the gameplay segue into each other perfectly. Some of the buildings you construct provide essential raw materials for evolving your kaiju, and your likelihood of beating your opponents will hinge on their strength. Because yes, in the end, there are more cities than just yours led by other real players and you can send settlers or envoys to them to create alliances, though there’s also a one-player campaign where you’ve to eliminate other kaiju controlled by the AI. Something for all tastes.
What really makes the game interesting is that, though it’s got a wide array of gameplays, they are coherent enough to add an interesting level of depth. For example, like in any decent Sim title, if you set out to build factories alongside residential areas, the population will get annoyed and slow down your urban development. In terms of the battles themselves, the fact that you can participate in rounds of up to 3 on 3 makes the strategic possibilities quite broad, what with the positioning skills, long-distance attacks, and paper-rocks-scissors system that gives advantages to one creature over another.
For all these reasons, Monster Metropolis is an interesting alternative in one of the many super-saturated genres on Android. If there are any small drawbacks we’d have to say one is the game system itself, which requires real time to finish the buildings. But in the end the same goes for the majority of strategy and management games for mobiles.
