Monster in My Pocket

So this is the 4th in an excessively pointless series of reviews wherein I see if a game lives up to being a Castlevania-clone or not. Monster In My Pocket, a name that is dangerously close to being sexual innuendo, is a game I heard about all throughout my life but didn't play until now. So it's the first game in this series of reviews that I went into completely blind. It is also the first game to be called a Castlevania clone made by Konami themselves. One thing I do have to say about this game, is I remember it being mentioned all the time on Nick Arcade, a show on Nickelodeon where they played arcade games 10% of the time. I also remember it being a game that the kids would never choose to play... I hope that isn't an ominous warning from on high, that I made a very bad decision choosing this game to talk about next.
So even though I grew up in the '90s and I have always been a fan of horror shit, to the point that I would have Halloween decorations in my room all year round even as a young child, I had never known what I'm about to say until I went to review this. This game is based on a toy line of monster figurines. The type that is small enough to fit into a quarter machine and about as generic as those kinds of toys. That is why it is called "Monster In My Pocket," because the toys are small enough to literally fit in your pocket. I'm not too sad I didn't know these existed as a child because the toys look like shit and there was much better horror-themed merchandise back then like Might Max, Blurb/Madballs, and Monster Face. Not to mention Creepy Crawlers... I think I saw that commercial five million times. "You can be a little creep without being bad..." Alright, let's move on from this already.

First things first, the graphics in this game are incredible for an NES title, the backgrounds, the character/enemy sprites, and the animations all of it looks really fucking good. Some of the backgrounds look good enough to be a SNES game. This did come pretty late in the NES library coming out in 1992, but I think this game shows Konami's mastery over the NES's game palette before the system's unfortunate termination. Playing this even after an obvious classic like the third Castlevania, feels like a world apart graphically. There is also a lot of enemy variety and almost nothing is repeated or a recolor. The Dracula and Frankenstein's Monster characters you play are extremely well animated and well-colored sprites. I will say that the vampire sprite is better and I feel like the power the characters both share fit him better. In fact, I think the monster was an afterthought and I find it weird that he shares a double jump power with the vampire. I would assume these two characters exist to differentiate the play experience, but no they're basically just stylized first and second player selections.
This game has two themes, it's about monsters and because they're small it's about running through rooms and areas the way a tiny person would. Both of these aesthetic themes and concepts are nailed and adhered to for the entire duration of the game. I'm gonna say this multiple times in this review for good and bad reasons, but I think given those themes and that this was part of a marketing push from a toy company illustrate that this particular game was made with extremely young kids in mind. Like almost as young as I was at its release which was about six years old. So the game doesn't really push the horror envelope that much even in comparison to just other 8-bit titles.

The music in this game is lower-tier Konami fair. This means it's better than most companies' music, but it isn't particularly memorable even for just their oeuvre up to this point. I can't really think of any particular low points of the game musically or in sound design. It's just a slightly above average experience, but I wouldn't be surprised if I have quickly forgotten these tunes in a month or so.

Usually, I would save the story for last, but this game was based on fucking toys, so the story is basically nothing. There is some guy who hates your monster characters and he wants them to die for no reason. It's just extremely basic shit and nothing of real note or interest happens aside from that.

Two out of three of the "clones" I played before this were pretty easy games and even among a series of easy NES games in my wake, this one has been the easiest by far. Now I think in this game's case, as a design choice the easiness of the game is a little... Easier to swallow because it was clearly made for young children, so I won't berate it for being too easy. I will say however that it would be a stretch to call this a "platformer" because there aren't a whole lot of areas where you actually have to jump over anything. Environmental hazards are few and far between and enemies generally move in really easy to discern paths and patterns. But even more easy than most games of this time. Like I think it would be less apt to compare this game to Castlevania difficulty-wise than it would be to compare this to Kirby's Adventure [星のカービィ 夢の泉の物語]. Yeah, the game is that tier of easy, which I guess makes sense given the audience it was aiming for.
Bosses in this game including the final one are so easy it's laughable. The reason this review is coming so quickly on the heels of the last one is I beat this game four times in two hours and it only took that long because I was doing other random shit in between.

Ironically given that this was made by Konami I actually think this is the least like the Castlevania games of all the games I have played in this series of reviews. Even less than the last game which I also think was mistakenly called a clone but for entirely different reasons. This game lacks the real horror aesthetics, platforming, difficulty, sense of progression and I would say the "fun" of Castlevania games. So this is another game that I'm giving the verdict of "not a clone." So far we're two for two on that count.
Now I think this game has some merits to it and I don't think it was wholly a wasted experience. If I had played this game at the intended age when it came out I could see looking back on this with a lot of fondness. I think it's one of those solid six out of ten games, that if you play at the right age and the right time never leaves your psyche. That game is Abadox [アバドックス] for me BTW. So I wouldn't begrudge someone who likes this particular title more than me. I can see a lot of good in it despite how easy it is and how unremarkable that makes the game for me now as an old busted ass man.