Monark review — unleash your inner Ego

Welcome to the next Shin Megami Tensei game. Except, not really. It’s more like… a Persona game? Except it’s not quite that either. Monark is a game that takes inspiration from both, with a radically different combat system, but mostly succeeds in maintaining the spirit of the games that inspired it. As a massive fan of the Shin Megami Tensei series, this new tactical role-playing game from veteran SMT developers naturally caught my attention. I’ll take anything I can get that’s even remotely related to the Shin Megami Tensei universe, even if it’s by six degrees of separation. Indeed, Monark is likely not a part of the SMT multiverse, a confusing conundrum of different timelines and franchises that fans love to fight over. But we’re not here to talk about Shin Megami Tensei or Persona. (I know how that irritates a lot of you fans out there.) This is Monark, the mysterious project that slid under the radar of the Megaten fanbase, despite sim…