Dawn of the Monsters [Xbox]
13AM Games’ Dawn of the Monsters is a side-scrolling kaiju beat ‘em up able to be played alone or with a friend, done in the vein of movies such as Pacific Rim, where you take on the role of various gigantic titans in order to defend Earth from the invading monsters. The world has been infested by giant monsters known as Nephilim, in three distinct attacks decades apart. Some of the earlier Nephilim were captured as part of Project Raven, and trained to fight on the side of the humans, with their Sheol power being infused with man-made kaijus in order to beef up our defences and give us more chance against the enemy. There are two Nephilim characters to play as, Megadon and Ganira, who have designs reminiscent of Toho’s classic monsters Godzilla and Gamera; and two human-piloted/controlled characters, Aegis Prime and Tempest Galahad, who look to be more inspired by the likes of Ultraman, and Evangelion.
With a variety of moves for you to utilise, across heavy, light and dash attacks, as well as more powerful moves such as Executions and Rage Attacks, which use up portions of your Rage meter. Different kaijus have different execution styles and moves, which makes it well worth trying them all out. Some will be able to pull off high-strength attacks, with others being able to summon helpers. Being able to utilise your surroundings, using broken building-pieces in battle, breathing fire across the level, as well as ripping enemies’ heads off in order to toss at your foes, all feels satisfying and fun - especially when teaming up with a friend. You also have Cataclysm attacks, which are the most powerful attacks at your disposal, and these can be used when you’ve filled the Cataclysm meter (which can be built up by dispensing your rage) such as Aegis Prime’s Right Hand of Doom, or Tempest Galahad’s Proton Cannon. There’s a training area onboard The Sunrise, allowing you to test out different characters and get yourself familiarised with their moves, and you can upgrade skills in order to make them even more devastating.
With an absolutely gorgeous art style, both in terms of the levels themselves and the playable characters, but the comic-styled cutscenes are fantastic too - not to mention the animated intro that straight up looks like a cartoon that we’d definitely check out, so we’d have liked to have seen the cutscenes done this way also. There’s super cute little pixel kaijus for the loading screen, and these were a nice touch. The visuals are said to be inspired by Japanese manga as well as Mike Mignola’s works - and we can definitely see that, with the graphic outlines and 2D look, whilst being able to move around the 3D plane. Level environments are littered with defeated Nephilim skeletons, and destroyed buildings. Buildings get damaged further upon walking into them, with parts collapsing, and you being able to lift some bits from the ground to throw. Electrical pylons can be walked between, snapping the wires in the process, and this gives the world - and your destruction of it - a really tangible feel. The soundtrack by Dan Rodrigues is great, with high-energy tracks that perfectly complement the gameplay, emphasising just how powerful you are, and more relaxed beats for when you’re on the ship.
The main menu has different sections, such as Mission Select, self-explanatory; Research & Development, where you can view the Inventory and Workshop, where DNA Augments can be applied to give your characters new abilities and attributes to make them more powerful in battle. Each character can use three augments, with up to 300 in total being able to be held at any one time across the three slots (100 in each slot). There’s also Chat, to converse with the other team members on Sunrise; and Archives, where you can read up on all of the lore and the backstory, with a wide range of info about the Nephilim. Additionally, you’ve got the Options screen, where you can tweak the volumes for different things - which we found to be necessary as the voices seem quite low in comparison to the music and SFX, when all at the same level.
Levels are ranked at the end, with S+ being the best - and Augments can be gained through this too. With countless unlockables, ranging from the Augments you can use to upgrade your characters, stat upgrades that you can use to improve your team, to the alternate skins that can be purchased - allowing you to customise their look, there’s plenty of stuff to keep you going. There’s a Gallery accessible via the Main Menu that has various art for you to see upon completing things and gaining S+ ranks, and these are gorgeous - though we wish these could all easily be used for the Xbox background, as some of them are truly phenomenal looking.
Overall we really enjoyed our time with Dawn of the Monsters, and found it to be an interesting game that’s fantastic to play both alone or with a friend - and we are partial to kaiju games and movies! The kids had a great time playing alongside each other, and getting to see the different skills available from each player keeps things feeling fresh and entertaining. Priced at £24.99 on the Xbox Store, it’s a little on the high side, coming in at somewhere between 5-7 hours to complete, but it’s still a lot of fun to play - so we’d recommend at least trying to pick this up whilst on sale - and we hope to see another from the developer in the future - especially if we get a jump button added!
In the end, we decided to give Dawn of the Monsters the Collecting Asylum rating of 8.5/10.
Are you interested in Dawn of the Monsters? What do you think of it?
Let us know in the comments below!
- V x
Thank you to WayForward for the Dawn of the Monsters Xbox review code!
