Monster Box vs Critical
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both games, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Monster Box
Engage in strategic battles against waves of monsters. Upgrade your stickman characters with gold and jewels to enhance their power and defeat increasingly formidable foes. Enjoy a simple yet engaging combat experience.
- Monster battles
- Stickman upgrades
- Gold and jewel currency
- Strategic combat
- Monster evolution
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Monster overflowing and Battle of Stickman! Stickman after upgrade in gold and jewel, please earnestly defeat a lot of monsters. By upgrade the monster, enjoy fight against powerful monsters.
Critical
Manage a reactor to prevent it from becoming critical by delivering water. Earn money over time to unlock permanent upgrades and improve your survival capabilities. Invest wisely to extend your runs and uncover secrets.
- Reactor management
- Incremental income generation
- Permanent upgrades
- Research and secrets
- Survival gameplay
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Stop the reactor from going critical by delivering water. Robots are expensive though, so we use cheap expendable personnel instead. Money earned ramps up incrementally the longer you last. Survive as long as possible to maximize your income! Spend your hard earned cash to unlock permanent upgrades. Invest wisely to make each new run longer than the last. Tons of upgrades to buy, research to be done, and secrets to uncover. Give it a try! The longer you can keep the reactor from exploding, the more money you’ll make. Start small and watch your income grow exponentially as you survive longer and longer. Delay the inevitable cataclysm as long as possible and watch your cashflow go through the roof.
Screenshots
Verdict
Monster Box and Critical both sit at 4.5 stars, but that hides the real split: 87% of Monster Box's written reviews are positive against 18% of Critical's. Monster Box also leads on in-app purchases (none vs 17). Critical's advantage is update cadence (fortnightly vs every 3 months). On price, rating, ratings volume and ads there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Both are free to download. Critical sells 17 one-off in-app purchases. Monster Box asks for nothing beyond the download.
On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.5 for Monster Box against 4.4 for Critical. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 212 and 125 respectively. Written reviews are what separate them: 87% of Monster Box's written reviews are positive against 18% of Critical's.
Monster Box ships an update every 3 months, Critical fortnightly. The most recent releases landed on October 12, 2026 and October 13, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Monster Box | Critical |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.5 (212 ratings) — better | 4.4 (125 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 87.1% of reviews — better | 18.2% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 212 — better | 125 |
| Update frequency | Every 3 months | Fortnightly — better |
| Ads | Yes | Yes |
| In-app purchases | No — better | Yes |
| Monetization | Ad-supported — better | Free with in-app purchases |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better | iPhone, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 13.0 | 12.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 7 MB | 99 MB |
| Age rating | 9+ | 4+ |
| Developer | DAN-BALL | WaffleStack Studio LLC |
Customer experience
Monster Box
Critical
Bugs and requests
Monster Box
Reported bugs
6 issues- Stick figures drift to the right when revived repeatedly
- Game crashes for no apparent reason
- Certain medals are unobtainable (Ohagi medal)
- iPhone X notch cuts off progress bar
- Game data loss when too many monsters spawn
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- Occasional freezing on newer high-definition phones
Requested features
15 requests- More character classes (especially from Stick Ranger)
- Landscape/horizontal mode support
- Zoom feature to see action better
- Cloud save and cross-device progress transfer
- Sandbox mode with infinite monsters
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- More monsters and enemy variety
- Reset progress button
- Backup/save functionality
- Steam port
- Terrain and environment elements
- More upgrade options
- Idle mode that doesn't end at monster cap
- Ad-free premium version
- Larger UI scaling option
- Landscape orientation support
Critical
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
Monster Box
No in-app purchases
Critical
- 100 Gems$2.99
- 100 Gems$4.99
- Remove Ads$7.99
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- 225 Gems$7.99
- Starter Pack$9.99
- Remove All Ads$9.99
- 225 Gems$9.99
- 500 Gems$9.99
- Pro Pack$9.99
- Pro Pack$14.99
- New Player Sale$14.99
- 500 Gems$14.99
- 1400 Gems$19.99
- 800 Gems$19.99
- 1400 Gems$29.99
- 3000 Gems$29.99
- 3000 Gems$39.99
