Recent reviews by Spitfire

Nonbiased review of video game

Good game but i wish it was less horny

nice

This is a reasonable side-grade to a traditional pokemon game. If you wish they were still making them like Black and White, this game is a good fit for you.

This game's main problem is that it's an upgrade on the traditional pokemon formula across the board without any introspection into whether or not that formula is any good. For example, the accuracy stat in pokemon is criminally underutilized. It's bad design to have a whole stat that the player can barely interact with. Coromon fixes this by giving the player efficient tools to debuff accuracy. Unfortunately, having an accuracy stat in the first place is also terrible design. In the original, the two mistakes cancelled out. Here, the improved design actually ends up making the end product worse.

Another good example is the SP system. In the original Pokemon, you have Power Points which limit the number of times you can use a move. This system exists because it's entirely possible to get into an infinitely repeating game state. Power Points force a conclusion, because eventually someone will run out and Struggle their pokemon to death. Coromon mistakes Power Points for a badly put together resource management system, and replaces it with a much better designed resource management system of SP. Again, this improvement makes the game worse: SP no longer fulfills the function of forcing an end - anyone can recover half their SP by skipping a turn - and adds an extra layer of annoyance to grinding levels.

I think the weakest point of the game is the type system. There's an obsession with "balancing" types in pokemon-likes, and that's a fundamental mistake. I'm more than 10 hours in and 90+% of the interactions in the game are type neutral. It's really weird to have a bird and a bug fighting each other and have no type interaction at all. Or to have Ice be neutral against Sand.

The strongest point of the game is the monster design. The creatures have a distinct style and they look great. As I acquired more of them, I was really torn about which 6 to use. They all have interesting traits that suggest different builds I'd like to try with each. I wish there were more diversity in wild Coromons, but I really appreciate that there aren't any throw away designs.

Ultimately, the monster design is what these games live or dies on, so this game is a winner for me. It's also hard to make a game that departs significantly from Pokemon's mechanics without alienating big chunks of the fan base, so I give them a break on the mechanics I found annoying.

bad

very good

changed my life

good

I paid for this

EDF!! EDF!!