Montabi

I went into Montabi braced for a genre Frankenstein - creature collecting bolted onto roguelike progression bolted onto deckbuilding, each layer diluting the others. That is not what happened. The three systems here actually reinforce each other in ways that kept me running scenarios in my head long after I put the controller down. The core loop is cleaner than the genre mashup label suggests: pick one of 22 starters, build a three-Montabi squad, and fight through a city map node by node. Your deck is not a fixed construct you curate from a shared card pool - each creature brings its own card set, so roster composition IS deck construction. Swap out your frontline tank for a different creature and your available moves shift entirely. That single design decision makes every team-building choice feel weighty in the way I want from a strategy game. The 3x3 grid combat is where Montabi distinguishes itself from Slay the Spire comparisons. Position matters. Abilities hit vertical lines, horizontal rows, or area patterns, so moving a creature one cell left is a genuine tactical decision, not just house-keeping. The Trainer character sitting on that same grid adds a permadeath pressure point that concentrates the mind: protect your trainer or the run ends, regardless of how healthy your Montabi are. Elite and boss encounters lean hard on this, and there were runs where I was convinced I had hit a wall, only to grind through by tightening my positioning discipline. Good game design from a debut studio. The depth numbers hold up too. Over 60 collectable Montabi, 22 starters each with an evolutionary line carrying its own unique deck, and a card pool that reportedly exceeds 570 entries across the full roster. Equipment and charms layer on top as run modifiers, giving you additional build levers beyond raw creature selection. The roguelike structure means failed runs still move you forward through compensatory rewards, and the adjustable difficulty setting means newcomers can dial back the punishment while they learn which synergies actually function. I would not call this an easy game at default settings, but it is a legible one - all the information you need is on screen, and the tutorial respects you enough to explain keywords properly. The weaknesses are real and worth naming. The story is thin to the point of transparency: the X Gang stole your creatures, go get them back, generic twist at the end. If you need narrative payoff to sustain motivation through multiple runs, Montabi will run dry for you. Some reviewers flagged bugs at launch, including a few run-breaking ones. The developer has been actively patching, and by the time most players arrive the worst of that should be behind them, but check the community hub update history before diving in. The creature design also invites unavoidable Pokemon comparisons that it cannot fully survive - there is a washing-machine creature named Washette, a vending machine named Vem that attacks with soda, a sword-wielding fox called Kyuchi. Charming, original in detail, but the broader visual grammar is familiar territory. For the strategy player who wants something they can finish in a session but think about for a week, Montabi punches above its debut-studio weight class. The synergy space is wide enough that I am still finding new interactions after multiple completed runs, and the grid combat has enough geometric texture to reward the kind of player who reads every card tooltip twice. Thin on story, occasionally buggy, but mechanically cohesive in a way that most triple-genre mashups never manage.

Diego · Scout Team

Strategy & simulation

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