Depending on which sin you match best with, you are given a corresponding fiend who serves as a party member. Things begin with your traditional silent protagonist taking a psychology test to develop your ego – effectively a personality sheet detailing attributes which are based on your relationship to the Seven Deadly Sins. Your first fiend can have a big effect on your playstyle. Unfortunately, by the time there’s any real effort put toward fleshing out the characters you’ve already hit the climax of the story, making it far too little too late. The cast has some fun little banter between expeditions in the True Student Council meeting room, too. Most of the characters are interesting thanks to distinct personalities and solid voice performances to sell them: Ryotaro, for instance, is a fellow Pactbearer who has a confident sense of self and purpose yet has a tragic and grounded backstory. This setup is engaging to start, but it never develops much tension. The drawback, however, is that if this is used in the real world a mist will appear that will slowly drive people mad.
You take control of a Pactbearer: someone who has made a deal with an otherworldly daemon called a Monark that provides a unique power known as authority. Monark sets up a high-stakes story that takes place at Shin Mikado Academy, where a mysterious barrier looms over the school grounds and makes it impossible for anyone to leave.
But Monark continuously trips over itself elsewhere due to a disjointed story, static puzzles, and repetitive level design that made staying interested a lot harder than it could have been. To its credit, it does introduce some fresh combat mechanics to an otherwise-straightforward tactical JRPG structure. Monark comes to us from Kazunari Suzuki, best known for his work on the Megami Tensei and Shin Megami Tensei franchises, so it had a ton of potential. It’s always exciting to dive into a new JRPG from one of the genre's veterans at the helm.
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