izigame.me

TLDR: Go play Utawarerumono Mask games first. Could be a starter entry into the Utawarerumono series, but I wouldn't recommend it. Enjoyable JRPG that may yet pioneer a new legend in Utawarerumono history.
In case you haven't already noticed from the dozens of other reviews, YES, THIS IS AN UTAWARERUMONO GAME. And yes, I think you definitely should play the other Uta games first. I rue to say that Monomebi uses the Mask games as a crutch, but it kind of does (at least that's how it feels to me). The mask games enhance the experience of Monomebi by a lot and Monomebi does spoil the Mask games in a sense. Anyways, I quite enjoyed Monomebi ( 8/10, 7/10 if I wasn't already invested ), but I also understand that it's flawed in a lot of ways.
Flaws/Complaints:
You can see a fair amount of reused assets as well as some battle segments that felt more like story prolongment (Raven Trials).
I only had this problem with one area, but the PC port isn't exactly optimized, so there can be some extreme lag making the game unplayable. If your PC should be good enough, but is lagging anyways, try to relaunch the game.
Personally, I'm pretty okay with the 3d npc models, but I do think they could've polished our main cast models a wee bit more in cutscenes.
The story isn't quite up to par with the Mask games, understandably so. Monomebi felt stretched thin by trying to focus more on the JRPG elements of the game while still keeping a decent story. Enjoyable nonetheless, but since this isn't primarily a visual novel, I'll give it a pass since it's understandably hard to balance gameplay and story transitioning into a JRPG style. I really do wish they took their time more for the storytelling. Particularly for Dikotama's training. It really felt like Dikotama was barely a teacher to them and still feels more like an exaggerated legend. I understand that he's old and out of his prime, but I love my training arcs in general and wish this one was better done. There was probably more training in alcoholism than combat with the way the game portrayed it
The JRPG combat itself is mediocre, but I do appreciate that they let you kind of skip combat by instakilling field enemies once you're strong enough. That aspect helps with farming materials, and at some point I ended up way more overleveled than I intended to be, but I play this game more for story than combat, so it is what it is.
The English translation was mostly good, but there were definitely a few times where translations felt out of place/character within a conversation accuracy wise. At the same time, there were also places that the translators implied character's lines adding their own flavor text. For me, these implied feelings were a hit and miss with most of them being hits. In the translators' defense, I do think that at least a few of the implied dialogues originally spoken in Japanese could have some more elaboration. Overall, I think the translation was good enough though
Pros:
Dekopompo clown shoe noises
We finally have an origin story for Oshtor and co. It's not exactly perfect, but its still very nice to see how these characters came to be where they are in the Mask games even if its an incomplete history... for now.
Experiencing the land of Yamato first hand made for a fun experience I couldn't have in the Mask games. This is probably the strongest point of the JRPG transition in my opinion since the world is fleshed out as an experience as opposed to textually.
Lots of expansion into the Uta universe's culture and world. We come to understand that there are (Endgame spoilers) more gods than just Uitsalnimitea. Aztec gods Tezcatlipoca and Quetzalcoatl. This part honestly interests me a lot since it shows so much potential not only in how the game ended, but also simply how Earth's culture also had supernatural beings that somehow connects to the world of Yamato (Assuming these are the same Aztec gods from Earth and not new Aztec named gods born on this new planet)
Overview:
Overall, as an Utawarerumono fan, I think this game is great and has a lot of future potential. While this game is unpolished in a lot of ways, I see promise there. Monomebi is Aquaplus' experimental transition into JRPG Uta, and I look forward to seeing how they expand on it both mechanics wise and of course story wise. GIVE ME MORE! MORE LORE! OH AKURUKA, OPEN THE GATES OF LORE TO MY ORIGIN! This game brings so many new factors and loose ends that make me think of theories and new possibilities for the franchise to expand on, and I'm just craving Utawarerumono again...