An often misunderstood game. Brightly colored and deceptively simple.
1) Severe lack of customization options out of the box.
2) Mini-games difficult enough to send Wing Commander fans into fits.
Addressing the first issue; when you start a new game, you have nothing.
your ability to create monsters is limited and the items you are given to customize with a only a token hand full of those available later. The shops that open as you progress through the game only offer a slightly better look at customization. The vast majority of the items come from the mini games themselves. Girl characters start off with mostly cat themed items and boys start with dog themed items. As you progress through the game, the ability to draw your own monsters is slowly unlocked. Once fully opened the monster creation abilities are robust but effectively simple. Now the Second issue. Anyone who has played the original Pokemon with only a Charmander as a starter can tell you how tough that game can be on the outset. And anyone who has played Animal Crossing knows the best rewards come from that game only after alot of interacting with the townfolk and experimentation. Harvest Moon is similar as well, you have to make that little guy work his tail off before you can really enjoy the game. This is not a game you can just load and play. This is a full rpg with a mini-game themed battle system.
What I love about this game is the fact it weeds out the casual player and appeals to gamers who become true fans. This game is NOT Mario Party meets Pokemon. This game is a player centric rpg where you create your partner and lead them into mini-game themed battle. You won't be walking around in a 3x3 space picking flowers, you won't be crawling through some monster filled dungeon and you definitely won't be looking for your princess in another castle. You will be fighting a 3 on 1 match in a Battle Royal, you will fall through the sky trying to shoot everything on the way, and you will hurl your monster across water to skip along its surface and smash any and all obstacles.
This game is only for those who want a challenge. If the cartoon like graphics put you off, don't worry. You will be too busy trying to keep your monster in the game to worry about it. The biggest challenge in this game presents itself in the gameboy advanced connectivity. When you upload a set of monsters to your GBA you then face sets of monsters in a team vs team styled game called monster card. Between monster card and the actual obstacle-course mini-games you can get nearly all accessories for creating monsters. Only a rather small batch you can get from the shops. This game is unapologetic and will gladly hand you your *** on a platter if you take it too lightly. For those who don't want to make their own monsters there is a simple solution. By playing through the courses and doing some monster card rounds you can pick up a good supply of pre-made monsters that are quite powerful.