Hotel Transylvania 3: Monsters Overboard Review

Hotel Transylvania 3: Monsters Overboard was released a day after the film it was based on, Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation, and in the game, you can play as Dracula or Mavis, and you can switch between them at any time. However, the characters don’t have any special individual abilities so it doesn’t really matter who you play as. The beginning of the game shows us a cutscene, not even an animated one by the way, just stills. It explains how the gang’s cruise ship has been shipwrecked, leaving them all stranded on the Lost Islands.

The aim of the game is pretty simple – you start off with 2 flying monsters called ‘Impas’ that you have to throw at enemies in order to receive gems. You then put the gems into a portal, which then gives you more Impas to fight alongside you. On all 3 islands there is a character from the films that you have to save, and in doing so, you unlock a different type of monster to defeat different enemies and it also allows you to progress through the game.

In terms of collectibles, you can collect treasures. Treasures can unlock achievements, but they also give you perks. The more treasure you collect, the more perks you will unlock. Perks can really help you progress in the game. They include things like increasing the attack power of your impas, an increase in the impas speed, or it can even make the night you spend on the island last longer (because vampires can’t go out in the daytime, obviously). This leads me to another point – you don’t just get all the tie in the world to explore the island – you are being timed. You have 10 in-game hours to explore at night, which is 10 minutes in real-time. Once the time runs out, you are taken back to the ship – and you can also end the night early if you really want to. A frustrating part of the game is that the different impas you use, such as the vampirimpas and the frankenimpas, require different commands. So eventually, I just ended up using one type of impa for the battles which made the game a lot easier. But the different impas have different abilities, for example, only one type of impa can weigh down pressure pads or open doors, so it is useful is you have a variety of different impas with you at all times. At the end of each level you have to fight a boss. Some of these bosses can be quite difficult and confusing to fight which is a problem considering the game is aimed at young children. The game doesn’t have a great presentation as far as bringing you into the world of Hotel Transylvania, which is a shame. Even the in-game cutscenes are mainly just stills, with hardly any animation. This could lead to fans of the movie series being a bit disappointed with this game.

In terms of controls, I found them difficult at first. Getting used to the fact that you were in control of little monsters as well as yourself was pretty frustrating, especially when there isn’t a ‘call back all’ option for the impas, which meant sometimes I found them getting stuck on objects. After a while I got used to the controls and it wasn’t that difficult at the end. Another issue is the length of the game – it took me roughly about 5 hours to complete it, which isn’t very long at all. However, if you wanted to unlock the platinum trophy for this game I can imagine it adding another 3 hours on top, at least. My final complaint about this game is the repetitive dialogue. I found that Mavis shouts ‘Here, Impas, Impas, Impas!’ quite a lot and it got very frustrating, I just feel that there could have been more dialogue to tie in more with the film, instead of the same phrases over and over again.

Overall, Hotel Transylvania: Monsters Overboard isn’t a bad game. I just feel like there wasn’t much of a storyline. Don’t get me wrong, it was fun! But, it would have been better if it was more related to the film franchise and not its own standalone game/story. Apart from that, I actually had quite a lot of fun playing the game, and I will be playing it again to try to get the platinum trophy. I just wish it was longer!

REVIEW CODE: A FREE Sony Playstation 4 code was provided to Brash Games for this review. Please send all review code enquiries to editor@brashgames.co.uk.