My Singing Monsters Playground (Switch) Review

Party games feel like home on the Switch, don’t they? With the recent release of games like Mario Party Superstars and Fisti-Fluffs, it seems like there is always something new to play within the multiplayer genre. Tossing its hat into the ring, My Singing Monsters Playground shares much of the same DNA as Nintendo’s own Mario Party series, with a plethora of minigames to enjoy with friends and family. However, it feels like a basic experience, without a general campaign or structure to tie the minigames together.

Based on a highly successful mobile franchise, My Singing Monsters Playground features a cast of, well … monsters. Not the kind of monsters that haunt your dreams or hide under your bed, but cuter, cuter monsters that seem to be on their way to a party with Mike Wazowski. Each time you start the game, you are presented with options to select how many players are competing (up to four), before choosing from seven different monster skins. Our personal favorite is Furcorn, which looks like a hairy bean with legs and a twig sticking out of its head.

You are in a small central world with your other competitors where you can choose one of three different modes: Solo Gauntlet, Tournament, and Free Play. The Solo Gauntlet effectively requires you to be the first in a selection of linear minigames, and the game is over if you fail at any point. It’s a nice mode for those looking for a single player experience, with impressive AI from the competition making for a reasonably fun time.

The tournament and free play constitute the multiplayer offering of the game, although you can also play them alone. The tournament gives you the option to set the number of matches, including 10, 15, and 20, with each player taking turns choosing a minigame out of three. When you win a match, you get diamonds, and the person who comes in first gets 3, the second place gets 2, and so on. The accumulation of diamonds in matches ultimately determines who is the champion.

Free Play is exactly what it sounds like. It simply gives you the freedom to choose which minigame to play, so you can choose exactly which ones you enjoy the most and avoid some of the poorer options. However, please note that you must have played each minigame at least once in Solo Gauntlet or Tournament modes for them to be selectable in Free Play mode.

As for the minigames themselves, there are 25 in total; a decent selection with a surprising amount of variety. The games fall into three categories: free-for-all, 2-on-2, and 1-on-3. Naturally, free-for-all has the most potential to descend into total chaos, and there is a real ‘Takeshi Castlevibrate with some of the options. One of our favorites turns out to be one of the simplest by design: a small circular sand in which a hot pipe rotates around its circumference, like the face of a watch. Your goal is to simply avoid the pipe, jumping on it as it rushes towards you. The pipeline can stop and change direction at any time, so keeping an eye on this is key to victory.

Other featured minigames include Thumpede, which is a simple obstacle course filled with silt and rocks, and Molten Madness, which requires you to avoid molten lava balls, using a frontal metal shield to hit them in the direction of your opponents. Minor minigames aren’t necessarily badly designed, but overall they feel a bit more formulated and, dare we say, a bit bored compared to their more accomplished counterparts. Examples include Monster Rally, which is a standard swamp kart racing game with a bird’s eye view, and Snow Brawl, which is essentially a dodgeball game, but requires absurd levels of precision to be successful.

However, overall, of the 25 games available, there are more that are worth it. What is disappointing, however, is that there is nothing outside of the minigames to tie the whole experience together; no board games or general campaigns of any kind. This is fine if you’re looking for a few short multiplayer sessions here and there, but once you’ve gone through the selection several times, it seems like you’ve already maxed out the longevity potential of the game.

In terms of visuals and performance, the game has a kid-friendly aesthetic. As we mentioned earlier, it would fit very well in a certain Pixar animated movie, and each of the monster designs has its own quirky traits. The frame rate is a bit hit and miss; it stays at a solid pace for the most part, but you’ll definitely notice some drops in quality with some of the more chaotic games. Also, considering that the core world is simply a starting point for the game’s three modes, we’d expect the frame rate to be a bit smoother here.

conclusion

If you enjoy party games, but are not very fond of the board game mechanics seen in titles like Mario Party Superstars, then My Singing Monsters Playground offers a more streamlined experience that focuses exclusively on the minigames themselves, which could be perfect for families with younger players. However, if you are looking for a more substantial experience, the lack of an overall campaign hurts the overall longevity of the game. Frame rate issues in some of the more chaotic minigames, but for the most part, developer Big Blue Bubble has put together a nice addition to the party genre here.