Master of Monsters: Disciples of Gaia (PlayStation, 1998)

I bought this game because my wife and I absolutely loved the Genesis, Master of Monsters game. It played like a good game of chess and required a lot of strategy. An unheralded gem of a game. This game however is not that game.

The good:

It is recognizably a graphic update from the Genesis version though with more of a Anime feel. The controls are more clunky and less intuitive than the original but not a deal breaker.

It has more options than the original and you can turn off the fight animations and other time wasters to speed up the game play.

Has potential has a multi-player game.

The bad:

There is a bug that will prevent your monsters from hitting even if they have 90% chance to hit. The only thing you can do is move your monsters and not bother to fight as they will do that the whole turn. Then the problem becomes the AIs.

The AI is very stupid and simply heads straight for your summoner. No flanking, no trying to take out your more strategic and leveled monsters. Hopefully it gets better the higher your level.

As far as I can tell you do not keep monsters from one level to another instead the game gives you different choices depending on the level. One of the great things about the original was that you leveled monsters over the course of the game and tried to "nurse" them along because you had so much time invested in leveling them.

Conclusion:

Over all a good title for strategy buffs who like a challenging game of chess with fantasy elements. If you are expecting the tight game play of the original, then move along fanboy, there is nothing to see here.

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The gameplay of MOM is actually really good if you like the turn based strategy type games. There are many different types of creatures to play around with and an option to "mix" creatures although I was never able to make anything useful except the golem.

The story, voice acting and grammer in the game are just plain horrendous. (There is a pretty cool opening cinema. No one speaks, thank goodness.) If you can avoid letting these problems grate on your nerves, there's some fun to be had.