You know, I actually had a small shred of hope for Justice Monsters Five [Free]. It looked like a take-off of the enjoyable Monster Strike [Free], had some nice-looking artwork, and its status as a Final Fantasy 15 spin-off, the first playable non-demo anything based on Final Fantasy 15, lulled me into thinking it was going to be of a certain level of quality. Plus, Square Enix has gotten better with their free-to-play efforts of late. They're all quite serviceable if not very exciting or innovative. Unfortunately, I was almost completely wrong about this game. The production values are good for what it is and it's not a broken game or anything like that, but those are both of the nice things I have to say about this shallow, dull affair.
Like most of the free-to-play games coming out of Japan these days, Justice Monsters Five uses a familiar social RPG-like structure wherein you collect and train a team of characters. As such, all of the things you would expect to be in play are here, including stamina meters, random monster draws, a gigantic extra install on initial loading, periodic online checks, inventory limits, and a premium currency that can help you grease away some of those squeaks. The loading times are awful, and the UI occasionally seems to be unresponsive. Still, the skeleton of the game is a proven set-up, provided you've got something interesting for your battle mechanics. Justice Monsters Five makes a valiant try at that. The battles in the game play out li...