Here's the rough pitch on Monster Sanctuary:

• Take the general framework of a monster collecting game (Shin Megami Tensei V is a good comp).
• Plug in a very lightweight Metroidvania framework (open world, but only kinda; monsters let you access certain levels and items, but it's fairly railroaded) and the aesthetics + plotting of a Saturday morning cartoon.
• Tune the gameplay perfectly, such that the game is never a cakewalk but never a chore.

That's it. Does tuning a squad of six cute pixel art monsters (each one of them with a unique and interesting skill tree) sound like fun to you? If so, Monster Sanctuary is for you. It is intensely designed for a specific kind of pleasure: there is very little "work" to be done (hatching eggs is instantaneous; respeccing is trivial; grinding or replaying rare encounters is easy). The plot is very akin to Crystal Project — almost self-parodic in its homage to its forebears, but never in a grating or cloying way.

The game was a delight, and feels like a Saturday morning as an eleven-year-old. I have never been more tempted to finish a game and immediately start playing it again on a randomizer.

(For those truly in the weeds: I finally blazed through the last third of the game on a Water-themed team that revolved around mass-application of Chill, damaging through Congeal, and out-lasting through shields + regeneration. If that's the kind of sentence that makes part of your brain light up, download the game immediately.)

★★★★★