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Monsters Ate My Metropolis is a beautifully animated card game held back by ads, IAPs, and repetition

The App Army Assembles

Monsters Ate My Metropolis is a beautifully animated card game held back by ads, IAPs, and repetition

Each week, we ask members of our App Army for their feedback on the latest and greatest releases on mobile.

One top pick this week was PikPok Games's zany card battler Monsters Ate My Metropolis, published by Adult Swim Games.

Let's see what our App Army had to say...


All the power-ups are so bombastic and colourful... it's really cool that they're inspired by Adult Swim's other games!


Monsters Ate My Metropolis is probably my favourite mobile game at the moment. I love the layout and the battle style.

I normally complain about tutorials in games, but Monsters Ate My Metropolis has one of the best tutorials I've ever played through.

As you might expect from an Adult Swim game, Monsters Ate My Metropolis is hilarious. It's one of my favourite games this year so far.


I'm enjoying the game so far... it's suitably challenging to start off with, and the tutorial does a good job of introducing you to the game.

It is ad supported though, which always annoys me, but the ads themselves aren't that intrusive.


Haven't played for that long, but I'm beginning to wonder whether the challenge of executing attacks gets any more involved than tapping at the right moment.


Monster Ate My Metropolis is a decent game, but I can see the simplicity becoming dull and repetitive rather quickly. The RNG mechanics are all over the place in this game.

You either don't get a favoured colour card when you need it, or you don't get a card with a high damage rating.

I still need to build my deck, but I'm sorry to say I don't see this game holding my interest for too long.


It's great how fun and crazy this game is, although I am finding it a bit repetitive. The animation is off the wall and really helps you engage with this simple card game.

Monster Ate My Metropolis is fun for a while, but the repetitive nature of the ads are ultimately very tiring, prevent it from being genuinely fun.


I keep getting trash bronze cards, yet somehow I've still been able to make a decent amount of progress in the scrub league I'm in.

I have to admit, Monsters Ate My Metropolis has grown on me. If I could get some more decent cards it'd be a relief though!


At first glance, Monsters Ate My Metropolis seems pretty fun. The sheer wackiness of it is great at first.

The quality of the animation is really absorbing too. It's a card game, which I wasn't expecting, but I've enjoyed the format nevertheless.

The concept is starting to feel repetitive now though. I can't see myself playing this for the long run.


Yup, an entertaining way to pass the time when you have five minutes to kill.


I'm sorry to say I'm finding this a tad dull. It's the same thing over and over with too many prompts to purchase IAPs and it's overloaded with adverts just in case you don't spend money.


The comic value of the game is good... but that's about it after an hour of playing.

It feels like the type of game where you can only really progress if you either spend money, or waste hours on trying to get a half decent card.

Even then, there still doesn't seem to be much point to it all. It's good for a quick fix game for an hour of boredom, but for me that's about it.


I'm not seeing the replay value in this game. The difficulty still hasn't progressed any further at all.

Strategy doesn't go any further than picking cards with the right colour to lower the damage of your opponent's card.

There isn't a way of getting out of a situation where your opponent has cards with colours that beat yours... it's just not fair.

I'm not against the concept of free to play, but the ads here are quite intrusive in light of games like Vault!

Buying new packs of cards is quite expensive, and premium currency isn't doled out quickly enough, so you're stuck buying with cash.

That shouldn't be a bad thing in and of itself, but the regular currency only unlocks one card. That's only enough to feed your monster to improve its typically awful stats.


I like Monsters Ate My Metropolis, but I can see a bunch of players dropping this game fast because it's both too simple and too repetitive.

Fortunately for me, the game's managed to maintain my interest, but I think it's mostly due to my urge to get better cards.

I'm getting aggravated by the fact that I only ever seem to unpack bronze-tier cards. Supposedly there's a chance to get silver cards, but it sure doesn't seem like it considering I've opened dozens of packs already.

The drop rate is atrocious. I'm going to save up to get a 5 pack, and if all 5 turn out to be bronze, I'm quitting this game for good!

You realise this game is totally unfair when a city manages to kill your monster after using just two measly cards. This game's practically begging me to delete it.


Monsters Ate My Metropolis is an interesting card game in my book. The gameplay is comical and fun to play, while being simple and easy to get to grips with at the same time.

The game flows silky smooth on my device, and the sound and animation really stand out.

Although things get a bit repetitive as you're performing the same actions over and over, it's still a great addition to the card game genre.

I'm also enjoying the element of competition that stems from fighting to have the city with the largest population.


Man, I really hoped I would be able to disagree with everybody as I really liked Monsters Ate My Condo way back when, but I feel the same way after making myself play it for a little more than an hour.

What's really a bummer is that it's pretty fun... for the first 20 minutes. Then it's all IAPs and déjà vu.


Hmm... you seem to get much better cards when you buy the 5 pack. I destroyed this city quickly. Look at my card's damage and tell me... is this good game design?


Jeepers!


One positive I must add is the best thing about this game - the victory song. It's just so darn hilarious!

Seriously... the next time you destroy a city, just let it run for awhile and listen to the lyrics.


A game that forces you to use IAPs for in-game currency always forces me to delete it after a while, and this one's no exception.

They combine this with adverts. All too much for me. It should just be one or the other.


This game is stunning aesthetically: the characters, graphics, sound design, and music couldn't be funnier or weirder.

Outside of the presentation though, the game's pretty disappointing. It's sad to see such a good looking game go to waste just because of over the top IAPs.

I don't see much strategy in the gameplay, making the game pretty repetitive. It's a real shame that most of the developers can't get free to play right.

Nitrome does a great job at balancing their F2P games, so why don't other developer adopt their approach?


Monsters Ate My Metropolis is a beautiful mess.

While visually it's a blast to look at, the game's fun factor quickly burns out, leaving you with a painful feeling of what could have been.

Playing it gives you the impression of watching a crazy cartoon battle, but the actual gameplay falls flat for several reasons:

  • Requiring an Internet connection is a death sentence for most games, and this one is no different.
  • You'll quickly tire of seeing the same buildings and attacks over and over. Different environments would have kept it fresher for longer.
  • The game is structured in a way that leaves you crushed by opponents who have shelled out for the better cards.


I thought I wouldn't like this, but I'm enjoying it so far.


I really like it too. The game as a whole, especially for the first few rounds, is fun, crazy, colourful, and all the rest.

Shortly after those first few rounds though, the game is spoilt by IAPs.

It's like you hit the paywall almost as soon as the tutorial is over, which just makes the free to play aspects that much worse for me.


I agree Brad. The energy system is really annoying.

This is one of those games where I wouldn't mind paying a few bucks to be able to play as much as I want.

Maybe some IAPs would be fine, but not mandatory ones preventing me from being able to play.


Definitely. I have nothing against IAPs - I would totally have paid to get rid of ads or even buy new cards.

However, when a game requires constant financial upkeep I soon give up on it.


Just noticed the environments don't change. That's a shame.


The visuals in Monsters Ate My Metropolis are so lively and fun that it often feels like you are watching some kind of cartoon.

The songs are fantastic too - really wasn't expecting that. I think I have spent more time listening to the songs than playing the actual game.

The fun didn't last long though. At the beginning it's all great, but you soon get bored of seeing the same animations over and over again.

The game does offer a lot of replayability, but it doesn't offer any new content. It's one of the better card battlers I've played recently, but it's not very good in the long term.


Monsters Ate My Metropolis is a game with loveable animations and ridiculous characters. The game follows the typical Adult Swim style - a bit chaotic with plenty of colours flying at you.

As a card game, it does a pretty good job. It has decent mechanics, and the matches don't take very long.

Sadly though, it's a bit too luck-based, and you'll have to keep attacking other players in order to stay high in the leaderboards.

Take a day off and the other players will have raided your village, soon displacing you from the top spot.

Essentially, whoever spends the most time playing will always be the highest ranked player. That's the most annoying aspect of the game for me.

You can choose who to attack, and since the reward for beating low-skilled players are nearly identical to beating high-skilled players, you can easily win every time you play, gaining lots of points.


There's not much that hasn't already been said. The game's fun, colourful, and very addictive for the first few hours.

After that, the energy system just ruins it. After a few days, playing just seemed like a chore to me.

There's no real challenge to it since the mechanics are pretty straightforward and you somehow win almost every time you attack.

It's really a shame as Monsters Ate My Metropolis has so much potential. I really hope they can fix the balancing as time goes on.

The App Army have spoken! If you'd like to sign up, please have a gander at our App Army application article. Did you pick up Monsters Ate My Metropolis? What do you think of it? Let us know in the comments below!
Danny Russell
Danny Russell
After spending years in Japan collecting game developers' business cards, Danny has returned to the UK to breed Pokemon. He spends his time championing elusive region-exclusive games while shaking his fist at the whole region-locking thing.