So there I was sitting on the toilet the other day, watching some YouTube videos when I see a trailer for a new Pokemon game is up, so obviously I'm going to watch it. After watching about a minute of some rather interesting board game-style Pokemon, it was revealed that the game was available for download immediately! So I downloaded it and played it for a bit and soon came to realize that this game was actually a lot of fun. So here's what I thought.
First of all, the game had a horrible, horrendous, horrifying first day. The servers were slammed with everyone trying out this new game, because for some reason, the Pokemon Company can't figure out that Pokemon is popular in the U.S. too? Crazy. So, if you played the day it came out, you had a bad time because you could boot up the up for a few minutes and then be sent back to the home screen over and over until you got a black screen or you closed the app altogether. Bad times.
However, these server issues were mostly fixed with a hot little maintenance that night and now I would give the app a 95% smoothosity rating. Finding a game online can still take a few minutes, but that's not a takeaway in any sort of fashion. Merely a small problem.
Now, for the gameplay. The game is a strategy game with a very large luck element to it as well. Two players play with six Pokemon each on a small board. The goal of the game is to get your Pokemon to the other player's back side of the board, which will trigger a victory. There are other ways of winning as well, although those are more difficult to achieve. When a Pokemon encounters another Pokemon on the board, they begin a battle. Battles are determined by the spin of a wheel, with slots on the wheel being attacks, special attacks, priority attacks, defend, or miss. Each of these components takes up a different percentage of the wheel, and as you level up your Pokemon, you can grow these sections while simultaneously shrinking your miss section.
There is an extensive amount of single player levels to play as well as a fair amount of tutorial levels while also having the online mode, and all of this in a free-to-play app with payments.
Overall, so far I am definitely impressed with the app and will be continuing to play it for the foreseeable future. After I get a little more time under my belt, I might do a review, but you should check it out for yourself. It's free.
Until next time, kcduckling out.
