If Master of the Monster Lair sounds familiar, that's because it is. A few months ago, I reviewed a unique PSP title called Dungeon Maker that placed you in charge of creating an underground playground for monsters. Master of the Monster Lair, which comes from the same developer Global A, is basically the watered-down, child-friendly version of Dungeon Maker.

Master of the Monster Lair is anything but impressive visually. The cartoon look has a nice charm, but something about it rubbed me the wrong way. I tend to dig the anime look, but there's a certain sense of character missing from the game. Dungeons are no more compelling visually when you first start as they are when you're finished. Textures are incredibly flat and bland and there's a noticeable lack of color. I understand that the game takes place in a dungeon, but that isn't an excuse for things to look as uninteresting as they do. Even the monsters you lure into your dungeon lean towards the generic side.

Sound follows the lead of the visuals. The music is anything but memorable and becomes annoying a few hours into the game. In a sense, it is like a Coldplay song - it isn't bad, it just isn't something you want to hear on a constant loop.

This may be the second time playing the same game, but the premise doesn't get any less interesting. After finding a magic talking shovel (no, really), you are charged with digging a dungeon for monsters. According to the mayor and most of the citizens, monsters have been on the rampage as of late and the best way to control their population is to lure them into a dungeon and kill them. It's a bit inhumane and cruel, but considering most of the monsters are of the neutral sex, it is probably the best way.

Gameplay is split into two styles - dungeon building and dungeon crawling. Dungeon building is run in day cycles. Each day, you have a limited number of moves (denoted by your shovel's energy) to dig tunnels or place rooms in your dungeon. Early on, you can't do much, so the early game is painfully slow. Normally, the story would be enough to keep you occupied until you could start pumping out bigger, better labyrinths, but even in the later game, the story is barely there.

Once your dungeon begins to take shape, monsters will begin to appear, giving way to the dungeon crawling. Combat is turn-based and fairly basic. Like the early stages of dungeon building, combat is painfully slow and doesn't get much better. Eventually, you earn two party members to help speed things up, though only one of the two, Gloop, brings anything new to the game. Gloop can shapeshift body parts, which in turn gives him new abilities. It doesn't come into play as much as it should, but it is one of the game's more interesting elements.

Difficulty is determined by how you build your dungeon. However, unlike Dungeon Maker, Master of the Monster Lair's design scheme encourages basic layouts that aren't much fun. Monsters will only appear in certain room locations (as opposed to anywhere in Dungeon Maker) and there's only one exit/ entrance in each. Rather than building twisting corridors, the mechanics of play force you to build areas with lots of dead ends. You can attempt to up the difficulty by placing rooms in succession, though this doesn't make as much of a difference as your shovel would lead you to believe.

Between build days, you can return to the town and purchase new rooms, equipment or level up. Although Monster Lair features a combat system, leveling is determined by the types of food you eat while in town. Food is made with items found in the town and gives boosts to different attributes. As with Gloop, the system is neat, but it is also extremely exploitable. Finding the right ingredients isn't that much of a hassle, so you can easily make the best recipe in your book and quickly power level your characters. Of course, you probably won't need to, considering the lack of difficulty.

Inexplicably, Master of the Monster Lair eschews the obvious and doesn't use the stylus in dungeon construction. Instead, you need to walk around your dungeon and manually place rooms or dig hallways. With a small dungeon this isn't much of a hassle, but with bigger ones, it is a bit grating. Placing rooms requires a slight thought adjustment. Rooms are placed in the space you are looking at rather than the space you are standing in, so until you remember this, it is possible to trap yourself in a section of your dungeon.

Global A was really onto something with Dungeon Maker, so I can't see why Master of the Monster Lair isn't a better game than it is. There's enough here to keep some Dungeon Maker fans interested, but if you're not tired of the PSP game, there's little reason to make the switch.