Dear Monster is a silly, sometimes sweet, erotic BL visual novel about romancing sexy supernatural men. Allen is invited to visit the grandfather he’s never met, only to arrive and find himself trapped in a house with sexy monsters he can choose to bond with and discovering his own magic.

Official Description:

A NSFW tale of magic and love between man and monster with art by the famous bara artist Jouvru! Allen is trapped in a mansion with five magical beasts. Will he escape or claim his legacy as a wizard? Magic is real, the pull is strong, and he can’t turn away from these gorgeous monsters.

Allen thought he had his life all figured out. He just graduated university and was headed off to med school. Then a strange letter arrives from a grandfather he never knew. He’s pulled onto a new path toward a strange mansion filled with even stranger creatures.

These fantasy beings shouldn’t even exist–and yet, they’re somehow familiar. Allen has no time for mysteries, but when he tries to leave he realizes he’s trapped, and so are the magical monsters! Allen must solve the mystery of his own past while learning magic by “bonding” to one of the fantasy creatures. Otherwise he’ll never get free!

Long Review:

I have mixed feelings about this one. It wasn’t really for me, but it could be great for you. I think it’s fun, depending on what you’re looking for, and aesthetically beautiful! But the whole thing seemed to be mostly a vessel for sex scenes, and the writing and story were not worth $24 (which was already a sale price) for me.

I wasn’t into the writing. When it wasn’t about sex, it was fine, but then characters would randomly get raunchy and start talking about their dick or wanting to fuck. Dialogue also got ridiculous sometimes, taken to extremes in an attempt to make characters edgy or quickly establish personalities or move things along faster. And the sex scenes were… let’s say, not to my taste. “Wank his meat”? No. Why? Why?? But that’s what all of them were like.

The story/plot was decent, not too complex. The MC goes to a castle to find his grandpa, he gets trapped there with all these supernaturals, he chooses one to bond with, then he starts trying to learn magic and bring down the barrier trapping them all there. Part of that plot never gets a resolution, which is a little odd. (Update below.) But different things happen during that time, depending on which romance option you choose.

Each romanceable character has three or four endings, some unhappy, some that could be considered disturbing or good depending on what you like, but at least one for each character is definitely a happily ever after.

The characters had potential. But with how short the routes were, I don’t think any of them reached their potential, though Hikmat came closest. Disappointing, because I do think most of them could’ve been really interesting. My spoiler-free thoughts: Imbriss (aggressive dragon) was pretty predictable and stereotypical. Faeryn (helpful unicorn) was the most surprising. Hikmat (stoic Egyptian god) had the most fascinating backstory and personality. Momo (playful fox) was somewhere between complex and forced edgy, but he had some unique backstory as well. The Slagathor (down-to-earth orc) route isn’t out yet at the time of this review. (Update below.)

The romances lacked depth. The MC had only just met these guys that day, so he barely knew them. And it was only about an hour into the game, so I barely knew them. But already he was choosing one to create a powerful, lifelong magical bond with and having sex. It didn’t feel at all believable for most of the characters. Some of them talked earlier that day about how it wasn’t something to be taken lightly or wasn’t something they wanted. And then maybe a couple days later, the MC was in love. I think I might’ve found the love more believable if I wasn’t already put off by him making the bond so quickly. I didn’t understand why he felt such a draw and would rush into something like that. And the way the sex scenes were shoved into the story, no pun intended, just felt ridiculous. If you take out all the weird, sudden sex, once again, I felt Hikmat’s route was written best, the most believable and touching. (Or Slagathor’s, now that his has been added.) There were a couple cute Momo moments though.

(I know it sounds like I just have a bias toward Hikmat, but I actually bought this game because I couldn’t resist Faeryn in all his shiny beauty.)

The game made me laugh though. Characters were so ridiculous sometimes (purposely written that way).

The art was great. You already know what the characters look like (hot), but there are also quite a few CGs and some beautiful backgrounds. Most sex scenes have basically one CG, but there are, I think, at least three scenes for each romanceable character. There’s a gallery for the CGs.

The music was fine. I didn’t really notice it. It didn’t stand out, but it did its job.

This was shorter than I thought it’d be and only took me 3 hours to complete my first playthrough and 12 to finish all the endings. (More like 15 now with Slagathor’s.)

I got this for $23.99 on sale on Steam.

I went into this knowing it would have sex, obviously, but I thought there would be more and better story to go with the sex, especially for the $30 price tag. It’s silly, sexy fun! And it’s nicely put together. But each route is pretty short and shallow. If you’re mostly looking for some beautiful NSFW art of beefy men with big dicks and a quick romance to go with it, then you’ll probably love this. But if you’re looking for a story or romance with depth, you might still enjoy the art and what you do get to know about the characters, but at least wait for a good sale.

Update:

They’ve added Slagathor’s route, and I think I liked his best because—and maybe this is boring of me—he was the most normal. It was still really fast, but that relationship felt the most believable. Also, he’s down-to-earth, he can cook, he considers his partners’ comfort and pleasure—definitely the best partner of the lot. His good ending was genuinely touching.

And I feel like this route was more self-aware. Like, the devs know the other characters are ridiculous and poked a bit of fun at that, which did make me laugh. And Allen just had more sense, didn’t want to go rushing into a very serious Familiar bond with people he’d just met.

They’ve also added an ending to a part of the story that was previously left hanging. Though I noticed they didn’t quite change all the text to fit, so characters might still weirdly act like it didn’t happen afterward.

I really am on the fence. I feel like this writer can write good characters and relationships! It’s just that they jump straight into sex and rush things faster than I can really get into them. So it just depends on what you’re looking for.

Short Review:

– Shorter than I expected
– Writing was not great
– Characters had potential but didn’t reach it
– Romance too quick, lacked depth
– Plot was decent
– Made me laugh
– Beautiful art
– Overall, not what I was looking for, but silly fun if you mostly want sex scenes

Accessibility:

(May not include everything)
– Partly accessible for visually impaired players and screen reader users with Ren’Py self-voicing / TTS (press V once game window has opened). Does not work for menus. The text does give some description of the romance options though.
– Warning for a flashing light each time the MC comes in sex scenes, and sort of when Faeryn uses his powers.

More Info:

Steam // itch.io // Developer Websites