Tensura: King of Monsters - Fun game for Slime fans, but tries too hard to be like FGO

I am a huge fan of That Time I Got Reincarnated As A Slime, both the anime and the manga. And as the second season ended, I wanted more Slime goodness, so I decided to play Tensura: King of Monsters. 

[b]First Impressions

[/b]The gameplay was very familiar, as it reminded me of Fate/Grand Order (FGO). It very much follows FGO’s formula of turn-based JRPG-style battles coupled with getting powerful characters through a Gacha or lottery system. It starts off with the climax of Shizu’s arc, with Rimuru facing off against Ifrit. It would then continue with a tutorial stage that is based on the Oni arc, where Rimuru meets Shion, Shuna, and the other Ogres. 

Unfortunately, I felt that starting off the game’s story here might just confuse some people unfamiliar with the Slime series, as it literally starts its story midway through the story of Season One of the anime. So if you’re a new player and have not watched the anime yet, better start with that instead of the game.

That being said, the tutorial was indeed fun, with Rimuru basically just mowing through the ogres who will soon be Rimuru’s most trusted subordinates. 

The story mostly follows what happened in the TV anime, including some of the events that happened in the second season. However, I was glad that it added a few scenarios not from the anime.

Meanwhile, the music is pretty standard, but does have a calming tune. It also opens up with the anime’s first Opening theme song, which is always welcome.

Visually, the game looks beautiful, and looks much better than many of the other games with the same type, including Fate/Grand Order itself. However, its battles suffer from plenty of bugs which we will discuss later.

[b]Gacha lacking the depth of Fate/Grand Order

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As I mentioned earlier, the game also adopts a gacha system where you spend contracts to try and summon a rare S-Ranked character. The first one was free, and the second one was discounted for the sake of tutorials.

 However, much like all gacha games, Tensura King Of Monsters also requires a ton of grinding in order to gain enough contracts to summon for characters. Of course, you can always spend money to buy the contracts needed to try and get a character, but the odds of getting an S-Ranked are very low, much like FGO. However, I did get an S-Ranked Gabiru on my second try, but did not get any more after hours of grinding.

And while the odds of getting S-ranked characters are low like FGO, the depth of the Gacha isn’t as good. While Fate/Grand Order has a huge pool of characters to add into their gacha mechanics, I find Tensura to be quite lacking. While the original light novels, manga, and anime does indeed have lots of named characters, it does not show in the game that much. Mostly, you will get different versions of the characters, such as the Ogre version of Shion and the S-Ranked Kijin version of the character. If you try to summon, you would mostly just get B-Ranked unnamed generic characters such as “Goblin,” “Orc,” “Lizardman,” or “Adventurer,” along with the occasional A-ranked named characters like Ogre Hakuro and even villains like Gelmund. And like most Gacha-type games, getting a ton of nameless generic characters instead of the ones you came to love in the anime is quite frustrating.

There is a more premium gacha though, but trying to get some premium characters such as Hinata Sakaguchi would require tons of grinding and buying premium items with real money. Yes, there’s a chance you might get her without spending any real world money, but those chances are pretty low. Would I spend my actual cash on this game just for a chance to get a rare character? Probably not.

[b]Feeding Rimuru is unique, but feels lacking

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King of Monsters does have a unique mechanic where you gain items to feed Rimuru and make him stronger. These items can change how he does in battle, including his normal and special attacks. This is called the Devour option, which you can access with Rimuru’s menu option.

Now, Rimuru himself is the core of your party, so building him up is important. This makes feeding him unique items a must. However, even if this mechanic is unique, it’s quite… meh. You can only feed Rimuru items that are for “feeding” and the changes they bring to Rimuru are limited. 

Basically, Rimuru’s character behaves differently from the rest, and is upgraded differently. But that being said, those upgrades are limited in their scope entirely.

[b]Battles have plenty of bugs

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The game also copies some of FGO’s battle mechanics, where your party tends to act independently. However, players can choose which characters do their special attacks, and which enemies they can use it on. 

Unfortunately, this game suffers from a few bugs. These mainly happen during battles, with some character sprites often not loading when the battle commences, or having them frozen in front of an enemy after making an attack. Enemy models often also stay on screen after they have been eliminated. 

Of course, these are just some minor animation bugs, but it often affects the gameplay when choosing which characters to do a special attack, and which enemies they should target.

[b]Final Verdict

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Overall, the game tries hard at being “FGO but with Tensura Characters.” The battles can get a bit buggy, and some mechanics are quite mediocre. However, it is still quite a fun game, especially if you’re a fan of the anime, manga, or light novels. Despite many of its flaws, I find myself having fun. I actually lost track of the time many times while playing the game. However, others might find the immense amounts of grinding troublesome and grow bored because of how repetitive it could get. While I myself do not mind all that grinding, others might grow tired after a few hours, and that is quite understandable. 

As for the Gacha part, its rates are certainly like FGO, though its roster, variety, and excitement are certainly lacking.

If you’re a huge Slime fan and want more Rimuru in your lives, then this game would certainly be for you. You may even find yourself spending copious amounts of real world money in the game just to get your hands on a waifu character like Hinata. 

In the end, despite its many flaws, it’s a fun game made for Slime fans, and it looks good. I would not spend my money on the gacha, but I will certainly play it for a few hours when I get bored.