Volzerk Review

 Volzerk Vanishes                        

Tame and collect a wide range of monsters to help restore peace to the island of Fort Lemuria. Volzerk is an Action RPG with Monster Breeding elements developed by COLOPL, Inc. The dragon Volzerk who reigned supreme on the island disappeared after a battle defending the island. With the absence of Volzerk, the ecosystem was left broken and left the monsters on the brink of extinction. The Research Commission is determined to uncover the island’s mysteries and find a way to save the monsters from going extinct.

Ten years ago, a little girl named Fina was the only one to witness the injured Volzerk disappear. Fina’s love of monsters leads her to join the Research Commission as a Ranger, hoping to see Volzerk again. Play as Fina to help other members of the Commision to fight and capture monsters. As your adventure advances, Fina discovers that certain Monsters contain orbs of light connected to Volzerk that she must collect to bring back Volzerk and save the island.

Island Imagery 

The island of Fort Lemuria is beautifully animate and filled with lush open fields, dense forests, and ancient temples, all ripe for exploring. Each environment is accompanied by music that will immerse the player in the world. The fields are accompanied by light, upbeat music reading the player for adventure and battle. The ancient temples have an ethereal tone that amplifies the more profound mysteries. While the world looks beautiful, it tries to be seen as an open world, but the player will find that sections are very linear. The larger the environments get, the more repetitive the scenery becomes, with little standing out.

Fina & Friends

As you explore the world, you can have up to two other companions in your party to help you. The game is filled with lively characters that have decent chemistry. Fina has the most personality and adds charm to the cast, while everyone else reacts to her obsession with monsters. Her best friend, Lize, a very disciplined member of the Research Commission, is an excellent counterpart to Fina’s happy, carefree attitude that leads to many funny interactions. Each party member can be of a different class; sword, axe, staff, or spear. Swords focus on dealing fast damage. Axes have strong defense and offense but are slow. Staffs focus on magical element attacks. And spears can attack multiple enemies at once.

However, when on a quest with your party, only one party member is active during gameplay, and the others are only there to swap into depending on the enemies you are facing. The battle mechanics are simple, where you tap for a normal attack. However, each character also has Flick Skills depending on the Monster they are equipped with. Flick Skills are special attacks where the player swipes the screen in a specific direction that can break enemies’ defenses. Performing successful Flick Skills will charge up the Omega Drive bar then you can unleash a powerful attack.

More & More Mou-Mon

 Every party member can also initiate a bond with a monster classified as a Mou-Mon. They ride these Mou-Mons while exploring and in battle. The Mou-Mon are the backbone of Volzerk’s gameplay. Once the player defeats a Mou-Mon in the wild, they can bond with it and add it to their collection. Every Monster has its own type that correlates with one of the classes.

On top of that, monsters also have an element. These elements work like many other RPGs where water beats fire, lighting beats water, etc. In addition, characters can perform an Initiation of Hearts to power up specific skills on their Mou-Mon.

 The game’s main mechanic is to breed the different Mou-Mon you collect to create new and more powerful monsters you can use. Volzerk has a deep breeding mechanic where depending on the parents, the offspring will be a completely different monster with unique skills. Two parents with the same element will make offspring with that element. A simple explanation of how the breeding between two Mou-Mons goes as follows:

• If they have conflicting elements, the dominant will win
• Unrelated elements will produce at random
• Same type will produce the same type (weapon)
• Different type will be random
• Offspring will inherit a specific number of hearts from parents/ each new gen gains two heart slots
• Parents pass down flick skills of the same type

Breeding the strongest Mou-Mon with the perfect stats can be complicated and take a long process, but you will be greatly rewarded with the time you put in. Although breeding is essential, you do not have to spend time trying to get suitable monsters to advance in the game. If the player can breed monsters with decent stats, there is no need to worry about breeding the perfect Mou-Mon.