Monaco 2 Review

Xbox used to run this Games With Gold program, where those with a paid membership received free games every fortnight, and I was a very big fan of this approach. In the early years, I played every single title I could get my hands on; this included a top-down, cooperative, stealth game where you and up to three friends could engage in pulse-pounding heists to steal as much as you can carry. I was also terrible at this game and could rarely get any friends together to play it, so after a few shoddy attempts on my lonesome, I gave up. I am, of course, talking about 2013’s Monaco: What's Yours Is Mine, developed by Pocketwatch Games. Over 10 years later, a sequel, Monaco 2, from the same developer is here, looking to steal your hearts… and also £20.99 from your wallet.

Monaco 2 is, on the whole, rather similar to What’s Yours Is Mine, even without a fun subtitle; you still get to pick from a selection of characters with unique abilities, sneak (or… not sneak) through detailed maps around a variety of civilians and guards, and steal keys, valuables, and coins. However, unlike What’s Yours Is Mine, you are no longer stuck with a firm overhead camera angle and 2D graphics that were always a little far away and zoomed out for teenager Erin to properly parse. In Monaco 2, you can move seamlessly between that bird’s eye view and a closer look at each room your 3D-modelled heisters are in. You still can’t see anything they can’t, but the camera control freedom and switch to 3D graphics make the experience far more visceral and easier to understand.

The changes to graphical design and camera use also help to show off just how pretty Monaco 2 is, with each level set in a different beautiful (or at least highly detailed) destination, from gorgeous yachts to fancy mansions and intimidating prisons. At times, it’s worth it to simply sneak around the level to look at all the little touches, both to appreciate the artistry and to find alternate routes and special tools to use. The music is fun too, serving as a cool jazzy background to your latest caper. There’s even a lot of well-performed voice acting to accompany a relatively by-the-numbers plotline of a heist crew getting caught and being forced to do yet more heists to get their way out of a jam.

The characters that fill out that plot are similarly a sight to see, with each having a distinct silhouette and colour scheme to go with their unique abilities. In each level, four members of the wider cast are playable, so even if you have a favourite, you’ll have to occasionally use someone else when they’re unavailable. My personal favourite for solo play is Cosmo, a socialite in a stunning pink dress, a statuesque and impeccable hat, and an adorable lil’ pup named Gimlet. While you mostly play Cosmo, The cute doggo is the real star of the show, as he can be sent out to distract any guard or civilian in Cosmo’s line of sight, preventing them from noticing any untoward actions around them. In this way, the duo can work in tandem, with the helpful hound being the centre of attention and Cosmo slinking away to gather up all the valuables.

However, these abilities can be modified through special Trinkets, equipable items unique to each character; these usually modify their special ability in some way. In Cosmo & Gimlet’s case, you can find Trinkets that increase the number of guards the gorgeous doggy can distract and others that make the puppy pick up coins for you. The more drastic changes can even swap out one ability for another. For Cosmo & Gimlet, this can mean allowing you to control your delightful dog separately and walking him around the level, collecting every available coin, key, and valuable without being spotted. For Pockets, a French man in a green jacket utterly filled with his namesake who normally is able to heal himself and his companions, you can swap out his med kit for bountiful cups of coffee that can make everything go faster for a short time.

At times, it can seem as though you’ve picked a bad character or Trinket for a level, especially if you’re unfamiliar with how they work. However, not only are the levels designed such that each available character has some way to be useful, but there are also several checkpoints between each major segment of a heist. At these checkpoints, anyone can switch to a free character or change which Trinket you’re using, though there is a long cooldown afterwards, no matter what you pick. Even with that caveat, having the option to swap characters and Trinkets mid-heist is very helpful and has even saved a few of my attempts.

However, even with neat features like swapping characters mid-heist and all the Trinkets, playing Monaco 2 on your lonesome is exceptionally tough… if you want to go for high scores. Outside of that, the game slowly ramps up the difficulty from level to level in a satisfying way that offers new challenges that you’ll have to improvise your way around. Yet, if you want the best results (and plenty of Diamonds that you can use to purchase Trinkets), you have to collect every coin and complete the level under a strict time limit, and that can quickly become an infuriating pastime. On a handful of levels, I’ve gone from having max lives to none all in the pursuit of a single safe — usually because of an unlucky patrol crossing my path and being forced to quickly return to the scene of my untimely demise to get that extra life back.

This is much less frustrating if you only go for completing the level (something I personally struggle to do) or if you’re playing with friends who can offer assistance. I played most of Monaco 2 on my own, but I did get a chance to play the first two levels with friends on a stream back during last February’s Steam Next Fest, and that was very fun. It’s clear that, while Monaco 2 offers an entertaining and stylish experience to a solo player, it’s meant first and foremost to be engaged with by a small group of people. The characters compliment each other well, some abilities are most useful when multiple players are around, and every daring escapade I went through had at least one moment where I felt that I could do so much more if I had just one other person there with me.

This goes double for the new Unreliable Narrator mode, a way to replay the well-designed levels with a bit more randomness. You can, with a deep well of patience, memorise and practice a single level to 100% it, even on your own; yet, playing through an old level with all of the traps, coins, cameras, and guards in different places changes things. That’s not even getting into how those very places — the rooms and layout — can change too. In this circumstance, bringing in a seasoned team is the best way to make sure you can properly roll with the punches instead of getting three-quarters of the way through the level only to mess up and lose everything because you ruined your own respawn location by releasing prisoners too soon.

Now, I can talk up and down about how Monaco 2 looks great, sounds nice, and plays nicely, but there are still a few problems. Sure, I rarely ever found myself feeling like my character moved in a way that I didn’t want, but there were a few moments where other issues cropped up. For one, it can be hard to tell which of two objects you’re going to interact with if they’re right next to each other. There’s a helpful pop-up to let you know which it is, but it isn’t always easy to differentiate between the symbols, especially in a heated moment.

Additionally, I found some of the abilities to be a bit inconsistent. For instance, when I, as Cosmo, set Gimlet to gather coins when not distracting people, I found that he kept leaving coins behind that certainly seemed close enough to reach. In this way, this ability stopped saving me any time, as I simply couldn’t trust my dog to get the coins while I focused on other tasks.

Overall, despite being a frustrating experience for me as a solo player, Monaco 2 is a vast improvement on the first game in every conceivable way. It’s prettier, it’s more action-packed, it has more charm, the new camera makes it far easier to see what’s going on, and you can have a dog. Sure, I’m still terrible at it, but in Monaco 2, I feel like I can improve and learn how each map works over time, where I could only stare at the screen in confusion back in What’s Yours Is Mine. This is a worthy upgrade that improves on the original while feeling as fresh as ever.