What should an RPG where you play as a monster have?

[Val the Moofia Boss]

It would be cool if you could play as a monster, start as a lowly baby monster struggling to avoid getting eaten by ravens out in the fields, barely winning scrap fights against other monsters, fleeing from wolf packs and bears sniffing your scent, lying in wait for kids playing in the forest to ambush and munch them, until you finally become a medium sized monster and can start knocking down the door or breaking through the window into the homesteads of farmers and eating their families. You get an adventurer's guild bounty on you and have to evade or fight adventurers coming for you. Eventually you become a big monster and can have parties of adventurers after you as you destroy villages, and then become a huge kaiju finally strong enough to assault cities and demolish neighborhoods as the army rallies to take you down. You would be able to pick different mutations like turning into an ice slime or growing tentacles on your back, unlock new monster species to play as, etc.

AFAIK there are only two games kinda like this. Spore allowed you play as a creature and customize it as it grew more powerful, but that game wasn't really themed around being an RPG monster and there were no humans or parties of adventurers to fight. I think retail FF11 had a Monstrosity gamemode where you could play as a monster, but you could only fight against player adventurers in three zones and never attack settlements.

[Valter]

least disturbing RPGHQ hypothetical

[rusty_shackleford]

AFAIK there are only two games kinda like this.

To some degree, VTMB.

[Rand]

Lots of feminism and bear sex, because such a game appeals more to women.
Most men want to be Beowulf and not Grendel.

[Irenaeus]

Larian's Divinity: Dragon Commander (not really an RPG (you can have sex with a female skeleton))

[asf]

i dont want to play as monster

[Gunnar]

Gau from final fantasy 6 mimics the properties of various monsters, which is probably the best way to go about it. There is also Elminage Gothic, where you can get monster party members (though the method to obtain them is tedious)

[Tinky Winky]

Should've just been DINOSAURS/Prehistoric animals instead of over-designed generic fantasy monsters.

[ArcaneLurker]

Dinosaurs are basically monsters.

[Vaako]

2 games come to my mind which may fit this but there were either pretty badly done like that one shark game from a few years ago or that multiplayer game which has shut down by now which had ridiculous mtx and the monster player could evolve think the game name was evolve too.

But yeah would be nice kinda playing like one of those isekai protagonists who gets reincarnated into a monster body, the one with the spider from 4+ years ago was pretty good.

[1998]

[Vaako]

yeah thats the shark game I thought off, worthabuy reviewed it **** on it a lot if I remember right.

[rusty_shackleford]

Play through a full narrative, story-based campaign narrated by Chris Parnell (Rick and Morty, Saturday Night Live, 30 Rock

[UltraFan123]

the one with the spider from 4+ years ago was pretty good.

Yeah that particular series started really good, but sadly just like pretty much 99% of "isekais" that feature a monster protagonist, the spider eventually evolved into a full human form with 0 spider features, which once again makes one wonder what was the point of starting with a monster main character in the first place.

And regarding this thread, there is also a series of mobile games called Hungry Shark I think in which you play as sharks who can eat humans in beaches and destroy settlements, that kind of stuff.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

the one with the spider from 4+ years ago was pretty good.

I did watch the Spider isekai. The show was split into two halves.

As for the Spider protagonist, I remember that she was quite boring to follow. She encountered no difficulty. It is hard for there to be any tension to keep you wanting to find out what will happen next when any crippling damage done to the protagonist is reversed 30 seconds later. Ate a poison worm that is killing you from the inside? No problem, just level up and your HP goes back to max again! Got your leg torn off? No problem, just level up and regrow a leg! Got bitten in half? No problem, just level up and your body is as good as new! Also hard to feel that the protagonist will be in any danger after she soloed an army of 1,000 monkeys. The spider's story becomes more interesting to follow once she gets out of the cave, but that takes a dozen episodes.

The blue haired mage boy and his talking pet were more interesting to follow at first. The blue talking pet burdened with regrets was the most sympathetic character in the show. It was dumb that no one recognized the obvious. "Hm... demon forces are setting up near every military installation and place of strategic importance in the world... I think they are about to launch a simultaneous world wide invasion!". The human story fizzles out and becomes boring to watch around when the spider gets out of the cave.

The 3D CGI later on was dreadful, and also puzzling for a 2021 show. The 3D CGI armies in the 2006 Utawarerumono anime looked better.

[Tweed]

should.png

[1998]

yeah thats the shark game I thought off, worthabuy reviewed it **** on it a lot if I remember right.

Its short, maybe 20 hours. I thought it was fine for that.

[MrTwinkls]

For narrative purposes It's better to start such hypothetical game as a weak human before going full monster and get infected by parasite or something for more fluid story/powers progression and interaction with the world.
I know a few games like that but can't remember any full-fledged narrative driven RPGs except maybe VTMB.

[UltraFan123]

For narrative purposes It's better to start such hypothetical game as a weak human before going full monster and get infected by parasite or something for more fluid story/powers progression and interaction with the world.
I know a few games like that but can't remember any full-fledged narrative driven RPGs except maybe VTMB.

This reminds of that old sandbox game Prototype, though that wasn't really an RPG.

[Kalarion]

Evo has you as a monster from the dawn of time. You're chimeric, you take on new mutations as time passes.

[Vaako]

the one with the spider from 4+ years ago was pretty good.

I did watch the Spider isekai. The show was split into two halves.

As for the Spider protagonist, I remember that she was quite boring to follow. She encountered no difficulty. It is hard for there to be any tension to keep you wanting to find out what will happen next when any crippling damage done to the protagonist is reversed 30 seconds later. Ate a poison worm that is killing you from the inside? No problem, just level up and your HP goes back to max again! Got your leg torn off? No problem, just level up and regrow a leg! Got bitten in half? No problem, just level up and your body is as good as new! Also hard to feel that the protagonist will be in any danger after she soloed an army of 1,000 monkeys. The spider's story becomes more interesting to follow once she gets out of the cave, but that takes a dozen episodes.

The blue haired mage boy and his talking pet were more interesting to follow at first. The blue talking pet burdened with regrets was the most sympathetic character in the show. It was dumb that no one recognized the obvious. "Hm... demon forces are setting up near every military installation and place of strategic importance in the world... I think they are about to launch a simultaneous world wide invasion!". The human story fizzles out and becomes boring to watch around when the spider gets out of the cave.

The 3D CGI later on was dreadful, and also puzzling for a 2021 show. The 3D CGI armies in the 2006 Utawarerumono anime looked better.

Cant have it all if you want a power fantasy where you grow stronger by absorbing/eating your enemies its just a matter of time until the character becomes ridiculous op. I think arifureta started similar. And only the first few episodes were some what interesting. Only animes where the maincharacter didnt become ridiculous op and they dont even have that absorb monster/enemies abilities, were the bookworm anime and mushou tensei which kept the story/characters interesting but I can only speak about the anime not the mangas.

Also there is a vampire rpgmaker game series called vampires dawn first 2 games should be free 3 not I think, there you level your characters with the souls of your enemies, even tho its just a different type of experience points. But you can transform npcs into items, souls or just drain their blood.