After previously being teased, Monark, the “new school RPG” from former Megami Tensei and Shin Megami Tensei developers has been given new details. The game will launch for PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, and Switch on October 14 in Japan for 8,470 yen according to the latest issue of Weekly Famitsu.
The game’s staff includes:
- Planning, Production, and Direction: Fuyuki Hayashi, Mitsuhiro Hoshino
- Scenario: Fuyuki Hayashi, Ryutaro Ito
- Scenario Supervision and Cooperation: Kazunari Suzuki, Aya Nishitani
- Character Design: so-bin
- Background Music: Tsukasa Masuko
- Developer: Lancarse
- Publisher: FuRyu
The protagonist will be voiced by Gakuto Kajiwara, while the stuffed rabbit character will be voiced by Shigeru Chiba.
In terms of combat, battles are command-based with a free move turn system, while increasing your madness will allow you to use more powerful skills. However, if you increase it too much, you will go insane and rampage against targets both friend and foe, making the fight impossible. In addition, there is also an “EGO” system, which represents the player’s desire levels of pride, wrath, envy, lust, gluttony, and sloth. These will change depending on your diagnosis and the choices you make, and will also affect the demons you can employ as your “underlings.” These underlings can also have their appearances and voices be customized.
Famitsu also has an interview with the developers, which Gematsu translated here:
- Hayashi and Hoshino: “We got excited talking about Shin Megami Tensei IF, and how nowadays there are no games like it, so we constructed the prototype for Monark with consideration for the world view and atmosphere we thought important to preserve in a school RPG project.”
- Haysashi: “I can’t thank [the creators who joined the project sensing mine and Hoashino’s enthusiasm] enough. The chemistry with the other creators was there and we were able to develop the game with the idea team.”
- Suzuki: “While I’m participating in the project as a supervisor, I hve been able to give detailed advice to Hayashi and Ito, who are writing the scenario.”
- Ito: “I worked on the stories for 100 students.”
- Masuko: “I worked on about 40 songs.”
The four-minute debut trailer and six-minute background music introduction video for the game are scheduled to premiere on June 10 at 12:00 JST.