June 27, 2018 (Originally posted on Blogger)
There's several more of these games now, of various kinds. I've played most of them, so I'm going to cover Magikarp Jump, Quest, and even GO. I haven't played Duel and I'm not interested in it either. Also there was this other one that was aimed towards teaching kids how to read or something so I'm not going to cover that one either. Also some camp thing, I think, but I'm mainly just covering anything that's got microtransactions and isn't meant to be educational.
This one came out a while back. Essentially it's a lot like two other games that the studio for this one did before, something about fish raising and another about cooking, from style and gameplay, whatever there is of that. Essentially it comes down to if you want to risk a coin flip or not, with a few surprises thrown in. This one really gets by on charm, because the gameplay itself is mainly a linear grind that takes more iterations the further along you get.
It showcases many types of Magikarp not before seen in the anime or games, which would make you think they'd consider adding some in later, maybe. However they seem to be exclusive, that is, anything but the standard orange and the shiny gold. Like the previously mentioned fish raising game, part of it is finding all the ways the fish can be "forced to retire" as they put it. Essentially brutal murder, often from a bird.
After a while, I got pretty bored of this, and don't come back to it often at all. There were some content updates, but not much after a while. It didn't really turn me away, I just found other things to mess with more.
Arbitrary score: 6/10
This one I just most recently played as soon as it was out on phones. It definitely belongs on phones, not a regular video game system for regular video games, but the Switch is a tablet of some kind by design, which is why Fallout Shelter is also on there. Essentially, the art style is cubes and everyone calls it Minecraft because that game invented cubes apparently.
The gameplay is pretty much just autopilot Rumble that you can occasionally input on. And I don't like Rumble. I also don't really like this game. The main thing I do like is the art style, but mainly for the fact that it makes every monster look either incredibly angry or incredibly in pain. Endless screaming in this game concept that's not very different at all, sounds about right to me.
You can also have it run on autopilot entirely, which I've realized that the goal of a lot of mobile games is to have them play themselves. It's pretty much no different than playing normally because you'd just be hitting the move buttons anyway. I was tired of this one after barely an hour, maybe, if that. Generally I'm getting tired of mobile games and I don't have high hopes for the next ones coming out from big names. Especially the bastardized mainline franchises turned mobile as we saw at E3, yet I'm still interested enough to give Elder Scrolls Blades a go, and even try one-handed mode like a degenerate.
Arbitrary score: 2.5/10 or 5/20
Here's a tricky one to review, but I feel like I can just sum up my feelings now. Pretty much, to get the most out of this one, you need to have a lot of friends who also play and also the availability to travel to other countries as you like. My experience has varied and has just stayed in the same country the whole time. And now the gameplay is kinda extending into a sort of main RPG type game. To be honest, I'm not a great fan of the catching gameplay, yet I keep doing it. Really, I've been on and off on this because it's mainly a giant Safari Zone. I find the Safari Zone annoying. I think I'm probably near another break from this one, perhaps, if I decide to. It fits into routine too well because I do some walking most days, at least those that I'm at something.
I've played this since the beta, and now in its pretty-much-still-beta-but-public, since they keep adding more features suggested since long ago. I've also played a knockoff with dinosaurs that I didn't stick to very long. So, I don't really know, I just generally feel average about this one.
Arbitrary score: 6.5/10 or 13/20