Monster Dynamite

Genre: Puzzle

Players: 1

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Review:

(Note: This game is included in Bundle: Monster Dynamite + Ultimate Runner, along with Ultimate Runner.)

Monster Dynamite is a physics-based Puzzle game released on PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch in 2019. This game has players placing and detonating bombs near platforms containing monsters and other benign creatures, trying to knock off the monsters while keeping the other creatures safe.

The presentation here uses simple cartoony 2D visuals that seem very reminiscent of the sort of thing you would expect to see on mobile devices, backed by extremely repetitive music that you’ll want to mute before too long. In short, none of this is at all impressive or memorable.

The gameplay here is slightly reminiscent of the Angry Birds games, except instead of flinging birds at structures, you’re freely setting bombs, with the proximity to different parts of the level determining how strongly they’re affected by the blast.

I think there’s potential for a decent Puzzle game here, but I don’t think the level design is very good, resulting in a lot of trial and error as you try to clear the monsters without getting rid of the benign creatures when there’s no clear way to do so and as a result you just try everything and hope that something ends up giving you a win through pure luck.

Just to emphasize how shoddy the level design is (or perhaps the physics), the very first level has objects start sliding without any interaction from you, to the point where you only need to wait and everything will fall off without you doing anything. I just had to shake my head at this.

There is one other major problem here: the price. At $20, this is just insulting, especially when you can play similar games for free on your mobile devices. To the game’s credit, it does occasionally go on sale for $4, but even that seems a bit high for what’s on offer here.

In the end, Monster Dynamite takes a pretty tired Puzzle formula, doesn’t do much with it, has poor level design and an ugly presentation, and then overcharges for it. The core game here still has some enjoyable moments, but with everything going wrong here I absolutely cannot recommend this.

tl;dr – Monster Dynamite is a physics-based Puzzle game that has players placing and detonating bombs to try to knock monsters off of platforms while keeping benign creatures in place. The gameplay here is very similar to the Angry Birds games, and this game’s gameplay doesn’t add much to that formula, and in fact makes things worse with a sub-par presentation and bad level design, all with an absurdly high price tag. Skip this.

Grade: D+

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