TL;DR: 8/10 game, 10/10 fun.

Imagine if Pokémon had actual QoL. This game:

• Shares EXP with all party members, not just those who battle.
• Hatched monsters are always a level or two behind your team. Much less grinding.
• You can assemble different teams and label them, allowing you to change strategies on the fly.
• Items to level up new monsters are stupidly easy to get.
• Using and switching abilities on the overworld is very easy.
• No vendor trash that I can find. Every item has its uses.
• Infinitely replayable bosses.
• Fun platforming.

So far I unlocked about 15% of the map and am having tons of fun, much more than I expected. For the asking price, this is a steal.

The game isn't AMAZING, but its FUN. Remember, it's a GAME.

However, I'm gonna keep an eye on this studio, they have the stuff to make deeper and better games I'm sure.

I recommend this game to those who enjoy the ability to synergize their teams.
Contrary to Pokemon, this game heavily relies on stacking a ton of passives onto assigned roles for their monsters.
A good example is one attacker, one combo builder, one healer/shielder/buffer.

It can be frustrating in late game when boss fights, the legendary keeper fights, or 6 starring champion monster fights, where they each have their own unique team recommendation, spending money into upgrading different equipment for each individual team for each individual purpose. I came out with one team for specialising in defeating champions, another for the legendary keepers, another for story, and another for the infinity arena.

The most challenging aspect I found when playing is not knowing if a team will reliably work or not, due to the RNG of the buffs/debuffs. For the legendary keeper fights, it felt like they stacked one too many debuffs enough for me to survive long enough to dispel them all, and yet somehow I could never reliably apply that many onto them myself. So I had to change my teams, spend more hours into figuring out who is good with what. I didn't like when the team would work out after redoing the same fight multiple times, taking out different monsters, due to the RNG aspect.

Overall 7/10 game, the 3 points are for how specific the fights must be. I wish they were a little more laxed. You either demolish a team, or get demolished and have to adapt to that fight, just to adapt somewhere else down the line, unless the team was built for that purpose.

This game is just great. It does both Metroidvania and the creature collecting aspects really well. Only downsides that i can think of is that audiomixing is just all over the place. Some songs are really quiet and some are really loud. Difficulty was also kinda wacky, but it makes sense considering how many different setups players could have at different points of the game.