Mythmon: Mythic Monsters Review – Creature Battle Gauntlet

When a demon invasion threatens your borders and you have no manpower, it’s a dire situation. Fortunately, your discovery of new creatures gives humanity a fighting chance. Mythmon: Mythic Monsters, developed by MachHabaneroGames and published by Kodansha,  is a tactical creature-collector that adds random chance in every aspect of gameplay as you slowly fight back against the demons with your creature army.

The premise of Mythmon is simple: humanity is facing a losing battle against the demons. With few able bodies to replenish the army, things look bleak. Fortunately, you are a head researcher who managed to summon the titular Mythmon. You quickly propose that the Mythmon can fight on the front lines to assist humanity. This results in the formation of a Mythmon army that adapts to the dangers on the battlefield.

There isn’t much of a story, but it provides enough exposition to set the stage. Soldiers walk you through the tutorial. You are constantly pushing through new locations to reach the demons’ stronghold. The demons have powerful equipment that you can loot after every victory. I found the premise to be typical but good enough to motivate me to continue, and every victory or felt weighted knowing it was humanity’s last hope.

Gameplay is divided into two parts. The first consists of hatching Mythmon from eggs, forming your army, and equipping them. You can also start expeditions to gain access to new Mythmon. The second involves sending your Mythmon to locations on a map, fighting three waves of enemies without a break. You don’t control your Mythmon, and must hope that your equipment set-up allows them to triumph in battle. Mythmon do not heal between waves, so you need to consider whether you want to push forward or retreat. If your Mythmon fall in battle, you lose any equipment they had at the time. Thankfully, you never lose any Mythmon, letting you keep your valuable soldiers.

Randomness is the key gameplay mechanic throughout Mythmon. Except for your first Mythmon, you don’t control what Mythmon hatch from eggs. And while you decide which locations you want to tackle, you obviously can’t control the enemies that show up. You simply equip armor and weapons to your Mythmon with certain effects and hope they trigger on the battlefield. Loot dropped from enemies is also random, though limited by the level of the area.

Due to said randomness, you must be deliberate with your setups and deployment. Every weapon has effects that trigger randomly. Effects synergize with each other, like one weapon inflicting poison and another creating a new status effect from poisoned targets. Mythmon also have varied abilities that can develop into several playstyles depending on your choices. You must carefully configure your Mythmon to ensure they are properly battle-ready.

Dealing with many random elements is a fun tactical challenge; I found myself trying to anticipate what enemies I would face and which Mythmon were appropriate, and carefully checking my equipment setups to ensure the desired effects would trigger correctly made me feel like a real tactician. I couldn’t control every variable on the battlefield, which meant I just had to plan for the best scenario. If my tactics failed, I could always try again.

However, dealing with many random elements also meant two big problems. The first is that the lack of control can feel frustrating since you must simply hope for the best. You are often working with percentages, meaning your best strategies/synergies may never activate. I often felt like controlling my Mythmon directly would have had better results. Enemies also don’t have consistent drops, meaning you are often repeating runs to harvest equipment.

The second problem is that the difficulty can rapidly increase because of said randomness. While the first few areas aren’t too challenging, subsequent areas often require stricter setups. This means powerful equipment and Mythmon that can deal with said battles. As you don’t know when you get said equipment/Mythmon, that means repeated grinding until you get what you need.

Both problems come together to create a frustrating set of circumstances where you can only hope for the best. While I did find this reflected actual strategy on the battlefield, I often felt helpless. My time was often spent grinding until I got the perfect result and sometimes I lost my hard-earned efforts in the process. Gameplay became frustrating and I often wondered if there was a better way.

Mythmon: Mythic Monsters is a game that demands patience due to the mechanics. You collect Mythmon and equipment, carefully configuring them to battle your enemies. However, there’s a lot of chance-based gameplay involved that, while makes it fun to strategize, can also become frustrating as you must repeatedly grind to progress while the difficulty quickly grows. Mythmon is worth a look, but it’s not recommended if you want a more relaxing experience.

Victor reviewed Mythmon: Mythic Monsters on PC with a provided review code. This review is based on the version of the game available at the time of writing and our score will not be changed.