While my clam chowder is cooking, I’m going to write about why The Heist: Monaco is a totally bitchin’ book. Also, SPOILERS, but if you’re cool with that, go ahead.
-The MC is a seasoned thief with notoriety and infamy. Yes, that is the first thing I’m bringing up because my god. This alone makes the book SOOOOOO much better, because the fish out of water MC is way overdone. The MC starts at the top and loses everything, and throughout the book they regain their glory through hard work.
-Oh yeah, it’s gender of choice too. GOC books are typically of pretty good quality, and I’m glad the guys in the fandom got a gender of choice book this great, because they get scraps honestly.
-The soundtrack is really well done and gets me hyped every time.
-IT USES THE POINTS SYSTEM! YES BITCHES!
-The Trust system was also a nice touch, but POINTS SYSTEM!
-There are not one, not two, but THREE female love interests, while there are only two male love interests. This was pretty groundbreaking at the time.
-Sonia and her enemies to lovers route was to die for. It was really, really well done. Probably the best of its kind in the entire game.
-That one artwork of Eris and the fireworks. It was so beautiful.
-The game doesn’t cram diamond outfits down your throat every single chapter, and most of the outfits actually serve a purpose rather than just impressing some rando.
-The fight between Rye, Eris, and MC stemming from Rye’s unwitting betrayal resolves quickly and with no pettiness. Yes, you read this correctly. As opposed to other stories where the fights and drama are dragged out and beaten to death, the disagreement between these three characters resolves very fast and very nicely.
-All the crew members are awesome, are super fleshed out, and have their own flaws, aspirations, personalities, relationships with other crew members, and motivations for joining the crew.
-ALSO, the diamond crew members are absolutely worth their weight in diamonds. I’m not saying Jones, Sybil, and Graves aren’t good crew members, but I’m saying Lena, Edison, and Miranda are 1000% worth it and you should absolutely take the plunge and buy them.
-Miranda and Marguerite’s romance is just adorable and I love that we got to help them get together if we recruited Miranda.
-The plot doesn’t drag on. Every plot point resolves neatly within a chapter.
-Romance takes a much-needed backseat due to the nature of this book, but is still present and done very well.
-The heist itself at the end of the book is worth the wait, and I loved every goddamn minute of it.
-We can actually fail at the end of the story. The points system can lead to a Good Ending, an Average Ending, or a Bad Ending. In other points system books, you still win at the end. Kenna defeats Azura and saves the Five Kingdoms, and Sam and Dave solve the case. But in this one, if you fail, you’re doomed to be on the run for the rest of your days while Ansel is still at large and hunting you down.
-Additionally, depending on how much trust you’ve built with each individual crew member over the course of the book, your crew will get their own unique endings, Good or Bad.
-Finally, you can still achieve a Good Ending even if you don’t pay any diamonds, as the max number of points you can get in the free route is 5000.
