On the surface, Monark looks like any number of other Japanese role-playing games that star high schoolers like Persona, Trails of Cold Steel, or some Shin Megami Tensei titles. But Monark differentiates itself from that crowd by leaning into horror, with a slick gothy vibe throughout — it's a bit like Persona 3 going through a rough patch, overdoing the eyeliner and listening to Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness on repeat.
The game is set at the Shin Mikado academy in Japan – a reasonably normal school that’s thrown into turmoil when it’s suddenly surrounded by a pearlescent barrier that won’t allow anything in or out of the area. The school starts filling with a strange mist and any student or faculty unlucky enough to spend too much time in the fog is driven mad. It’s quite literally insane in the membrane.
