Arukugatari1

@professoress My experience with this game is staggeringly different...

Playing Monaco by oneself is fun for a ton of levels, then it gets challenging. Not once did I ever find it truly frustrating or impossible though, just take your time with it and enjoy it :) .
You don't have to get a good time to beat levels in the beginning!!

With random groups it can be more tricky and chaotic, but so long as you're willing to have fun and not take it too seriously it's alright. Respect those making groups to play dead serious, and find those who just want to have fun. You'll have to expose yourself to them eventually to make friends online anyhow like in any game experience, and I now know 3-5 ppl online from doing so.

You'll have it rough without a mic, to be honest. I tried it for a while and figured you have to be so good by yourself or, more likely, you have to listen to those with mics else risk confusing everyone else, which can be stifling ~_~.

Once you've beaten all the levels with or without others, I find the best part is going back and speed running levels, or at least trying to get a better score from what you started out with. Doing so in multiplayer is hard because you'll all need mics, be somewhat skilled and coordinated and not feel everyone is sharing the workload close to evenly. One player all the money is yours, and you can PURPOSEFULLY DIE to switch to another character without losing any time for each extra life you have! Strategy...but it all comes down to preference :P