Too much time spent in Mist filled environments can increase a character’s madness level which can happen both during real world exploration and during battle. Pactbearers are more resistant to Mist than regular students but aren’t immune. Phantom pains, passing out, losing their minds are some of the afflictions that are observed. Mist is one of the hazards that seeps into the Academy from the Otherworld and has a myriad of ill effects on students exposed to it. It didn’t absolve their evil deeds or make you regret going into battle against them but did offer some understanding as to how trauma may have created the monster you had to slay. One thing that was particularly satisfying about the sequences where the player traveled here to battle an enemy is that it would give a window into their psyche, sometimes humanizing them in a sympathetic light. The Otherworld is where all the battle are fought when the player isn’t exploring Shin Mikado Academy and where enemy Pactbearers have their Authorities destroyed. Monark takes place in a two different worlds, the real word and the Otherworld which is home to daemons, which can be entered via cellphone in appropriate locations where the daemonic energy strong or in proximity to Vanitas. The question of how accurate this analysis is can be debated but it is a nice take on character development. Sometimes a student NPC will ask the player a multiple choice question and their answer will determine which attribute will raise or Vanitas will give a more involved series of questions where the answers will provide some sort of insight into the personality of the protagonist. These attributes can be raised in battle, but it’s more interesting when the player has to to take a psychology test. The Ego is divided into different attributes that are linked to each of the seven deadly sins: Lust, Pride, Wrath, Sloth, Gluttony, Envy and Greed. One of the more interesting approaches Monark takes to character development is the emphasis on each character’s Ego and the different aspects of their personality. He is the a stuffed black rabbit that speaks in rhyme, alive like the Velveteen Rabbit but covered in grime. Vanitas is one of the more entertaining characters. The different personalities can lead to some entertaining banter but the characters are less memorable as individuals but more so as specific JRPG character archetypes. We get the incredibly intelligent but socially clueless character, the one that goes on about being a bad boy rebel tough guy but still joins forces to help and the one that hates Pactbearers but decides to join up the protagonist and his party. The player ends up meeting other characters as they explore more of Shin Mikado Academy, which end up feeling like familiar tropes more than fully actualized characters. The president of the True Student Council, Nozomi Hinata, is one of the first people he meets and first initial party member member. Soon after the realization he remembers nothing, the protagonist ends up meeting some of the characters who will be involved his adventures. Oh, and a bunch of students keep ending up dead. Back in the real world things aren’t running so smoothly, as Shin Mikado Academy is surrounded by a mysterious barrier while a mist that leads to madness engulfs several of the floors of academic buildings. Unfortunately, one of the side effects of going to the Otherworld and becoming a Pactbearer (at least in the protagonist’s case) is amnesia so he has no idea what’s going on. He recently went to the Otherworld with his sister Chiyo where he encountered a daemon who granted him a power called the Authority of Vanity. The player begins as a second year student at the Shin Mikado Academy. Though in Monark ego seems to be the real entity that needs to be conquered. Monark is the latest game to feature and academy setting where the student extracurricular activities include meddling in the affairs of daemons through some interdimensional travel. Persona and Blue Reflection are just some examples every day students getting to travel into a world beyond our own do some daemon fighting while most of us considered a trip to the box factory an exciting fieldtrip. If video games are a reflection of reality educational institutions are much more exciting in Japan than in America.
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