Dawn of the Monsters

I came into this one skeptical. Shooters are my zone, and a side-scrolling kaiju brawler felt like exactly the kind of gimmick I usually bench after two hours. But Dawn of the Monsters held my attention long enough to earn a real look, and the reason is that 13AM Games built actual systems under the spectacle. You pick from four distinct combatants - Megadon (the Godzilla stand-in), Ganira (a sea terror who can summon a crab companion to split enemy aggro), Aegis Prime (an Ultraman-flavored transformer with fast combo strings), and Tempest Galahad (a cannon-armed mech that plays more defensively). Each one genuinely feels different. The combat is slower and more deliberate than Streets of Rage 4 - these things lumber, which is thematically correct but takes some adjustment if you came expecting tight footsies. You get light and heavy attacks, a block, a parry window, a short dash, RAGE special moves that build into a screen-filling Cataclysm finisher, and the ability to rip buildings out of the ground and use them as weapons. The destructible environments are not just window dressing - there are health caches inside structures, and lobbing a skyscraper at a Nephilim boss mid-combo is reliably satisfying. The DNA Augment system is where the game earns its keep beyond surface-level bashing. Each monster slots three augments that modify stats and add active effects - things like boosting speed after a heavy hit, or routing execution kills into your Cataclysm meter. You earn augments based on your stage ranking (up to S+), and you can reroll or sell ones that don't fit your build. It is not deep enough to scratch a true theorycrafting itch, but it is enough to give you real decisions before each mission, especially on boss stages where the telegraph patterns demand a specific defensive setup. The grind to source specific augments does get tedious late in the campaign - a few players reported replaying already-mastered stages twenty-plus times to get a useful drop, which is a genuine design irritant and worth knowing going in. Content-wise, over 35 missions across four city environments (Toronto through Tokyo) gives you enough runtime without overstaying the welcome - most sessions clock in around six to eight hours for a clean first run, longer if you chase S+ ranks on everything. The story leans into its tokusatsu-and-manga DNA with full voice acting and a lore database that actually has stuff in it worth reading. The narrative itself is predictable, but the world-building is committed enough that you buy in. Local two-player co-op is the clear best-case scenario here. The game is playable and enjoyable solo, but side-by-side co-op makes the chaos read correctly and smooths out the moments where solo play starts to feel formulaic. No online co-op is the main practical gap - for a game with this obvious couch-sharing appeal, that omission stings. No microtransactions anywhere, which is worth noting explicitly. Steam user reviews sit at 88% positive across 124 reviews, and critic consensus on OpenCritic landed around a 78 average with an 84% recommendation rate. That is a fair score. This is a confident, polished brawler with real character variety and a build system that rewards attention - it just runs out of modes once the campaign ends. If you have someone to play it with locally, that calculus shifts meaningfully in its favor. Fred, Scout Team