Monster Girl Therapy Review

Monster Girl Therapy is a classic RPG–esque game in which your goal is to save as many monster girl NPCs by convincing them to leave the fantasy game they live in before it completely collapses and the servers are gone for good. It was created by the German indie studio Zwiebelspiele and was released on the 10th of March.

Initially, it starts off seeming like a normal experience: you launch the game and the main character you play as is a guy who feels nostalgia for it and wants to save as many of the NPCs in it, who are all monster girls. You start by selecting how you want to look in-game, and then go into the main area, from which you can decide where to go. You have five options all throughout the map, and the one I picked is the Madame, who’s a shopkeeper. 

The main character is pretty forthcoming with his intentions to rescue the girls from the game, but it’s not all simple — it is a game, after all, so he has to complete some basic quests they give him. The Madame, for example, wants you to help her take inventory. Once you do, though, it becomes apparent there’s more here, with her lying to you about multiple things. Not all the monster girls are liars, though: each has her own issue with different subjects, which ties to being a conscious NPC, especially in a game purposely designed with attractive monster girls for a certain type of audience. Another important thing is the main character’s mentality — why is he really here? Is he really just trying to save the girls out of the goodness of his heart?

Overall, it’s a very interesting premise, and it’s pretty easy to connect with the characters. Unfortunately, the experience is a bit short, though, with me finishing it at about 3.5 hours, and I was actually pretty bad at most of the mini-games. Speaking of those, I didn’t really enjoy most of them, especially the first one I encountered, which consisted of counting how many copies of an item exist in a very disorganised room while the main character keeps moving. It wasn’t a horrible experience, but the gameplay is definitely not a positive point of the game, with most of it being either walking around or mini-games which consist of remembering where things are or their order.

The controls are also not the greatest, with movement being tile-based instead of physics-based. It’s a little hard to control sometimes and can get pretty frustrating when you’re playing a mini-game in which you need precise starts and stops, or to move at a very specific pace without getting stuck anywhere. Another small issue is that the text guiding you on how to use an ability (like running, which the game calls dashing for some reason) does not change if you’re playing with a controller, meaning I had to waste the first try of a mini-game, which required running, on figuring out which button to use.

There were two nice mini-games, and another one which wasn’t too terrible, but nothing was interesting. The way Monster Girl Therapy looks both fits with the story of it being an old (I assume MMO) RPG title, and looks pretty nice. The designs of the monster girls are pretty sexualised, but it makes sense in lore (although my lesbian ass might be a little biased on that). As for the level design, it’s really nice, and each area looks distinct and fitting for the theme it’s supposed to convey. 

The music ranges from mediocre to really good, and I really enjoyed some of the tracks in this game. Now, I’m not sure if anything is making it into my playlist, but I did find myself just leaving the game on for a few minutes to listen to different tracks while doing some tasks on my computer. The sound effects are just normal RPG sound effects for voice and certain actions, so nothing special here, but I can’t really complain about that either.

Overall, then, Monster Girl Therapy can be a really good game, depending on what you’re looking for. If a title with a meaningful and deep story that connects to real-world issues of mental health, loneliness, and even sexualisation in media is something that would interest you, I will 100% recommend you try this, especially for a low price like £5. Now, I am part of that niche group of gamers this title is for, but if you’re the kind of player who prefers interesting gameplay or immersive 3D graphics, this is probably not something you would enjoy.