Retro Replay Review

Gameplay

Monster Party delivers a fast-paced side-scrolling adventure that recalls the precision platforming of classic titles like Super Mario Bros., but with a delightfully macabre twist. You step into the sneakers of Mark, a young boy armed only with a baseball bat, and you’ll spend most of the journey bashing grotesque critters and dodging their projectiles. The controls are tight, with a satisfying responsiveness to each jump, swing, and transformation that keeps the action feeling immediate and engaging.

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One of the game’s signature mechanics is the ability to fuse with your monster ally, Bert, to become a gargoyle-like powerhouse. This fusion is not just visual flair—it temporarily grants you enhanced strength and defensive capabilities, making it essential for tackling tougher boss encounters and volleying back streams of fire. Learning when and where to trigger the fusion adds a layer of strategy, as you must manage a limited meter while navigating tricky platform sequences.

Monster Party’s level design is peppered with hidden alcoves, breakable walls, and offbeat powerups that reward exploration. From haunted graveyards to sinister laboratories, each stage introduces new enemy patterns—zombie snails, skeleton knights, and giant eyeballs that spit projectiles—forcing you to adapt your bat swings and aerial maneuvers. The infamous outlandish quotes that pop up between levels (“Go ahead and bite, ya grinning goon!”) also punctuate the pacing, offering a cheeky moment of levity before the next gauntlet of monsters.

Graphics

Visually, Monster Party embraces the limitations of the NES era and turns them into a colorful horror carnival. Sprites are chunky and expressive, with each monster sporting exaggerated features—bulging eyes, snarling maws, and comical proportions—that ensure no two foes feel visually redundant. Mark and Bert’s fused gargoyle form is especially memorable, rendered with a dark green palette and detailed wings that flap in midair.

The backgrounds shift dramatically from stage to stage, creating a sense of journey without ever overstaying their welcome. You’ll traverse flickering graveyards with tombstones and skeletal trees, neon-lit city streets dripping with bizarre shop signs, and gothic castles adorned with stained glass windows. Parallax scrolling—while rudimentary—adds depth to these set pieces, and occasional animated details, like drifting ghosts or swinging lamps, breathe life into the pixel landscapes.

Monster Party also leans into its horror-comedy theme through carefully chosen color schemes and sprite animations. Enemies recoil with exaggerated flinches, and boss transitions are dramatized with screen shakes and brief flashes. Though the resolution can at times feel cluttered—especially when multiple projectile-spewing foes appear—the sheer inventiveness of the monster designs keeps the action readable and entertaining.

Story

The narrative of Monster Party is refreshingly offbeat. You’re introduced to Mark, an otherwise ordinary kid who, after a routine baseball game, encounters Bert—a friendly monster on the run. Bert reveals that his home world is under siege by an evil coalition of creatures, and only a human’s heart of courage can tip the balance. It’s a simple premise, but the game’s charm lies in its delivery.

Story beats are delivered through brief inter-level text screens that have achieved cult status for their bizarre dialogue. Lines like “Get out of my way, you rotten furball!” and “Watch out for them slimy droppers!” are delivered with such over-the-top flair that they become highlights in their own right. These snippets don’t exactly deepen the plot, but they infuse the adventure with personality, making you look forward to each new stage just to see what oddity appears next.

There’s no epic cutscene at the finale, nor a sprawling cast of characters, but the minimal storytelling is perfectly paced for a run-and-gun title. You never linger long enough to crave deeper lore—by the time you’ve rescued Bert’s planet, the combination of monsters defeated, bats swung, and quotable one-liners feels like an experience unto itself.

Overall Experience

Monster Party strikes a satisfying balance between challenge and fun. It’s not an easy romp—you’ll die to respawning zombies, mistimed jumps, and surprise boss attacks—but the checkpoints are fair, and each retry feels like an opportunity to sharpen your reflexes. The fusion mechanic adds a unique strategic layer, giving you moments of sheer power to clear the screen, balanced by the tension of conserving that resource for critical junctures.

Replay value comes from discovering all the secrets hidden in each stage and mastering the timing of Bat Swings vs. special attacks. The soundtrack, while limited by the cartridge’s chiptune constraints, offers memorable motifs that loop without becoming grating, and the sound effects—especially the crack of the bat—retain a percussive punch that never grows old.

For anyone seeking a bite-sized, nostalgically styled platformer with a monstrous twist, Monster Party delivers. Its blend of tight controls, imaginative level design, and cheeky writing makes it stand out in the retro library. Whether you’re a collector of NES oddities or simply a fan of side-scrollers with personality, this little horror-comedy gem is well worth a swing of your bat.

Retro Replay Score

6.7/10