Set developed by SherryBirkin and Layton, guide written by benit149

Hello, and welcome to my short but concise guide that explains the monster evolution mechanic for Monster Tale, a Metroidvania pet simulator released for the Nintendo DS in 2011. You play as a girl named Ellie, who is suddenly whisked away to a foreign world full of monsters, obtains a mystical band (bracelet), and befriends a newly hatched creature that she names Chomp due to his penchant to eat a lot. Her quest initially begins with finding a way for her to return home, but soon becomes a journey to save the human world from an invasion by the monster world orchestrated by the malignant Kid Kings – other children who were likewise taken from their world and forced monsters to do their bidding.

This guide isn’t really a walkthrough for the game itself, as you can consult an in-game map that helps show you where to go at any time. Unlike in the Metroid series, you have a lot more guidance here in figuring out what your next objective is. I did find the constant backtracking rather egregious at times, but since I’m not into Metroidvanias as a whole, I’ll assume that’s just standard for the genre.

For the Nintendo DS emulation, you will need a stylus mapped. The lower screen is Chomp’s pet sanctuary, where items that Ellie picks up will be stored. Press the X button to send Chomp back and forth between the upper and lower screens. This is a mechanic that is required for making actual progress in the stages, as well as defeating particular monsters that like to sneak into the lower part of the screen that Ellie can never interact with. Whenever Chomp’s stamina runs low, send him into the lower screen to have him quickly refill it. He will also automatically go there if he is knocked out during combat, and will regain stamina at a slightly slower rate. You also want to be quick with selecting which items Chomp will consume in case you’re holding on to a valuable item for later.

Let’s get into the mechanics then.

UNLOCKING EVOLUTIONS

While the exploration is half of the game, the other half consists of raising Chomp’s levels to make him stronger, as well as for him to gain evolution forms. He starts off with his Foundling form, or his baby form. After defeating Meade, Chomp’s teenaged form will unlock, and likewise his adult form after beating Deanu. All these of these have evolution trees that you will want to work towards for unlocking the missable evolution and skill achievements.

Chomp has two ways of gaining experience points (EXP) – landing at least one hit on a monster before Ellie defeats it, and consuming items in the lower screen. However, you don’t want to rush too quickly to max out any levels for Chomp’s forms. The missable aspect of the marked achievements comes from one frustrating wrinkle to the whole system that is not explained in-game whatsoever:

Chomp will not gain any progress towards a new form if a given parent form reaches level 30 before unlocking the related child form.

What does this mean? Let’s take a look at Foundling. Go into the Chomp Menu and select EVO. This brings up the evolution trees you will be working toward. Foundling has two branching paths that are initially locked, but I’ll just say that you’ll be unlocking the Acrobat and Repeller forms. How are these unlocked? By feeding Foundling specific items. For Acrobat, Foundling has to eat sweets for its meter to increase. Similarly, Foundling has to play with toys for Repeller to unlock. If you go all will-nilly and feed Foundling other items, they will give him EXP, but will make no progress towards the evolution meters.

Let’s use another form in Chomp’s adult phase as a further example. He starts off with Sentinel, and has two branching paths of its own. Feed Sentinel enough sweets to unlock Cyclops, and likewise give it toys and art to unlock Seeker. From there, Cyclops and Seeker have their own evolution trees, freeing up Sentinel to be leveled up to 30 if you so desire.

Carelessly feeding Chomp too much stuff that gives him lots of EXP without unlocking the two forms is a bad idea. All of his forms have a maximum level of 30, after which no progress can be made on the evolution meters anymore. I had not understood this aspect of the gameplay, which caused me to miss out on an evolution late into the game because I had leveled one of Chomp’s parent forms to level 30 before unlocking the child form. Take care not to make the same mistake that I did.

As long as you understand this premise, then the rest should be smooth sailing. Balance out the leveling for Chomp’s various forms, dedicating more levels to forms who have had all of their child forms unlocked so you don’t accidentally screw yourself over. As long as everything is done correctly, you will unlock every form, and thus make additional progress towards improving all of the skills that are available to each one.

FOOD & ITEM CATEGORIES

The next vague aspect I’d like to cover is the various categories that Chomp’s consumable items fall under. In the evolution menu, you’ll see that the various forms require items like “sweets”, “grains”, “surprises”, “art”, and such. These terms are much too generalized and ill-defined for players to understand what items are in what categories, which makes it a struggle to understand what will help make progress towards unlocking evolutions.

A source of information you can use in the game is Jinx’s shop. Browse through his inventory for Chomp, and you’ll notice that beneath the name of the item being sold is another word that designates its category. To make things more convenient, I’ll organize everything by their categories so you don’t have to keep running back to Jinx to check.

• Sweets: candy, cookie, ice cream
• Fruit and Veg.: cherry, corn, squash
• Meat: turkey, pepperoni pizza, hamburger
• Grains: rice
• Reading: book, grand grimoire, scroll, document
• Exercise: dumbbell, jump rope, boxing gloves, soccer ball, bicycle, frisbee
• Toys: toy car, toy tank, video games, magic hat, catapult
• Art: paint brush (represented as an artist’s palette), camera
• Pet Care: soap
• Rocks: meteorite (appears as an ordinary rock in the pet sanctuary)
• Surprises: treasure chest, gift box

Of these items, only the treasure chest and gift box are not available from Jinx. They have a very low chance to be dropped by defeated monsters, with the chest spawning two random items, and the gift box giving direct benefits for Ellie. Furthermore, I have seen claims that the magic hat, catapult, camera, and toy tank increase the meter for Surprises, but I haven’t verified this. I did try feeding Chomp corn for an evolution that wanted Grains, and apparently it made progress on the meter. I’m certain it works because I never fed him rice in my playthrough.

As you can see, the information for what items make progress is poorly documented. If anyone verifies any particular items for a given category, or if there’s a better resource out there that I can refer to, please send me a PM on RA so I can update this section.

ADDENDUM: It's not just the child form's preferences that contribute to its evolution meter - it's also the parent form's. For instance, if you want to evolve Adult Chomp from Seeker to Warlock, the parent form's preferences of art and toys as well as the child form's preference for surprises will all contribute to unlocking Warlock. That's why you may have made progress with a child form if the parent form consumed any items that it likes but the child didn't ask for.

CHOMP’S EVOLUTIONS

So now it’s time to put everything together by detailing which forms require which items. I’ll sort them by Baby, Teenager, and Adult forms for easier browsing.

Baby

• Foundling -> Acrobat: Sweets
• Foundling -> Repeller: Toys
• Acrobat -> Scourge: Fruits and Veg.
• Repeller -> Stalwart: Reading
• Repeller -> Ravenous: Exercise
• Ravenous -> Pixie: Reading
• Ravenous -> Winged Avenger: Grains
• Ravenous -> Hurler: Meat
• Hurler -> Zippy: Rocks and Pet Care

As you can see, Baby likes to do a lot of reading, as well as one of Teenager’s first form unlocks, so stock up on plenty of books and documents whenever you acquire them. Zippy will be the hardest form to unlock for Baby because you need to go through Foundling -> Repeller -> Ravenous -> Hurler, then feed Hurler items from two of the rarest categories in the whole game. This was the form that I had messed up on my first playthrough because I had leveled up Hurler to level 30 before I could make enough progress on the evolution meter to unlock Zippy.

Teenager

• Ballista -> Paladin: Reading
• Ballista -> Spitter: Ice Cream
• Paladin -> Mimic: Art and Pet Care
• Spitter -> Wrecker: Meat and Exercise
• Mimic -> Prickett: Pizza
• Wrecker -> Glider: Fruits and Veg.
• Wrecker -> Petdozer: Toys and Candy
• Petdozer -> Icarus: Fruits and Veg, and Bicycle
• Petdozer -> Elite Guard: Cookies, Video Games, and fight in battles

Teenager is very fussy about what items he wants. He won’t want any items from a category – he’ll actually want a specific item, and only that item. This makes unlocking Spitter a pain in the ass because not many enemies drop ice cream, so you’d want to buy it from Jinx. In fact, Jinx will be a major supplier of items for Teenager to consume, so expect to farm loads of money.

Elite Guard has a unique condition where Petdozer will still gain progression towards that evolution by fighting monsters. The trouble is that it takes a ridiculously long time to do so. The best bet is to mix up the items you give him, as well as let him take damage from the lasers in Ethan's section of the dungeon. If Petdozer reaches level 30 prior to unlocking Elite Guard, using damage to increase the evolution meter will not work, so be careful.

Adult

• Sentinel -> Cyclops: Sweets
• Sentinel -> Seeker: Toys and Art
• Cyclops -> Juggernaut: Boxing Gloves
• Seeker -> Warlock: Surprises
• Warlock -> Gilgamesh: Jump Rope
• Warlock -> Bruiser: Meat
• Bruiser -> Tall Bain: Hamburgers
• Tall Bain -> Rebel: Video Games
• Tall Bain -> Sasquatch: Squash

Adult gets even worse than Teenager with what items he wants. Not only are they difficult items to find overall, they also give a lot of EXP to Chomp, which could risk him reaching level 30 prematurely. You’ll have to juggle around his forms, only switching to the parent form when you have a desired item in stock for Chomp to consume, then swapping back to a previous form that you’re free to level up otherwise.

CONCLUSION

Not too long of a guide, was it? I said it would be brief, since Monster Tale itself is not a complicated game overall. It’s just that the evolution aspect is so poorly explained that I felt I could provide clarification for newcomers. Unfortunately, there are some parts that I couldn’t be clearer on, so any contributions from the community would be great.

I played this for Cheevomon League and had a good time with it, despite not being interested in Metroidvanias in general. The pet simulator and JRPG grinding interested me, though it is understandable that the set doesn’t have a lot of masteries due to how annoyingly long it takes to unlock forms and level up Chomp.

Thanks for reading, and good luck with your run.

• Benit149, June 2026