Ever since the beginning of gaming, licensed games have been something of a joke. No matter how good or bad (which is normally the trend), they are typically cut and paste projects imitating successful gaming franchises. Following suit is Monkey King: Hero is Back, based upon the Chinese animated feature of the same name, which plays like Baby’s First God of War.
As you can probably gather from my description of the game, it’s a beat–‘em-up in which you take control of Dasheng, the monkey king who has recently been awakened from 500 years to combat the forces of evil that have been terrorizing the local village. It’s a paint by numbers narrative, pitting our hero against insurmountable odds. It feels like the target audience is much younger than me.
Since this opts for solo play only, I made it a point to take my son along on my journey trading off the controller regularly – not only to keep him engaged, but as a break from the monotony. You will mash the same two face buttons repeatedly to bust out the same chain of combos from start to finish, with the difficulty rarely exceeding the harder side of “easy” in comparison to similar gaming experiences. While I was struggling to stay awake during these breaks, I did notice that my son was gleefully bashing in the reptilian heads of enemy forces, making the omission of co-op play that much more frustrating since I would’ve managed to stay engaged a little more had we been able to work as a team.
The level design and gameplay remains largely unchanged from start to finish. You’ll work your way through linear levels, collecting the occasional item that can be used to barter for health pickups and the like, stopping to make quick work of enemy wave, and repeating the action until one of the many boss battles. While I didn’t find any of these challenges to be extremely taxing, my son struggled during his attempts. They follow the standard “observe the pattern and react” process; I breezed through them, each feeling like a simple reskin of the same boss, with only minimal changes to their attacks. This cycle remained constant throughout the short campaign up until the final level, which is essentially a boss rush that posed a bit more of a challenge – not just for me, but my young grasshopper as well.
The randomness of the difficulty puts this game in a strange place; it’s too difficult for some of the younger audience, yet too basic for seasoned players. Once our initial play through was done, the thought of revisiting the game at my son’s request has haunted me as well as my nightmares. It’s not that this is a terrible game by any means (I have played far worse), it’s just how mediocre it is on every level. The visuals are on par with the middle of the road PS3 offerings, which this late into the PS4’s lifespan should be a crime in itself. Adding insult to injury is Dasheng’s young companion Liuer, who manages to make me want to gouge my ears out with a spork every time an enemy enters the screen with his high pitched scream that became obnoxious before the end of the first level. Aside from awakening Dasheng from his slumber, Liuer serves little purpose outside of being the token victim who is constantly in need of being saved. At the end of the day, he’s just another unlikable character that I felt no emotional attachment to and at points, wished I could shove him face-first off of a cliff.
Monkey King: Hero is Back isn’t the worst licensed game I’ve ever played, but nothing about it will change the collective mindset that licensed games equate to a dumpster fire 99% of the time. With the complete lack of co-op play, the mindless button mashing tactics, and the short campaign, I find it hard to recommend this unless you’re looking to get your kiddo into the action-adventure genre, but be prepared to step in here and there due to the difficulty of the boss battles.
5 out of 10
Pros
- An Accessible Beat-‘Em-Up for the Youngins
Cons
- Difficulty Spikes During Boss Encounters
- Dated Visuals
- Liuer
- Lack of Co-Op Play
Monkey King: Hero is Back was developed by Oct Animation Studio and published by THQ Nordic. It is available on PC and PS4. The game was provided to us for review on PS4. If you’d like to see more of Monkey King: Hero is Back, check out the publisher’s site.
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