Mobile Game – Pinkie's Paradise

It’s Raining Cats and Dogs: Castle Cats and Dungeon Dogs Review

So I have some very big news! Probably! It is not official yet but it looks like I might be moving soon! it This past Saturday I did something else other than watching anime! I went to view a new place I could rent! Less drug trades on the parking lot, less illegal racing or violence! More tolerance and an appartement with some actual space! It looks like I got it! Though I haven’t signed a contract yet, all parties were in agreement! So yay! Better times ahead. I will stick by my rules though and not watch the anime later that day as I was well worn and had a nice dream buzz! No instead we will finish catch up week by taking the Cat from catch-up and adding some nice clothes to them!

Kittens and Puppies

So normally I am not into mobile gaming. I played some Dragon Ball Legends, I played some Dokkan Battle, but usually whenever I am done with a Story Mode I am done with a game. Sure they get updates every now and again and I might come back.. but I don’t stick to Mobile games all that much. I still play Dragon Ball Legends and Pokémon Go and very loosely but other than that I rarely play a mobile game. So when Summer of Foovay’s Cauldron told me this game was good I thought… I’ll probably try it out for a day and dump it on the second..I am however been pretty dedicated for over a week now and I want more! Well at least of Castle Cats!

Castle Cats and Dungeon Dogs are both Idle Hero games developed by Pocapp Studios.
In Castle Cat you make a Guild Master of a Heroes Guild and collect cats to make them go on quests in the hopes of defeating the evil Pugomancer. In Dungeon Dogs you make a Rebel Captain Dog.. and collect dogs to let them do missions for the resistance against the evil cats. Both are essentially the same game with a different story and different flavouring but the exact same mechanics. It’s up to you whether Dogs or Cats are more your thing. Where Dungeon Dogs is only a recent game though Cats has the more impressive library of collectables With about 260 cats where currently you can collect 60 ish dogs. Guess I got suckered into two more collectable creature games huh!

As an Idle game the gameplay consists of making Gacha-pulls if you have the right resources and clicking on a few spaces to gather these resources or allocate cats to get them for you. Each mission has a timer but the player can join in a battle and tap on a boss to reduce their health while charging up their heroes powers until they can unleash a super attack. With the resources gained you can upgrade your furry friends with new outfits, powers and make them eligible for more quests. Other options involve upgrading your base to gather your three main resources faster or your main building which allows you to send more allies on a mission at the same time. Other than that you can craft some items with an alchemy station for aid when you do battle, or a bigger reward payout. Yet there are also special crafts depending on events you got going on. Which usually leads to super unique heroes being collected. It doesn’t do anything special gameplay wise but everything happens in a very non intrusive way. You can choose to just toss your phone aside and let the troops do the work or actively take part in the fights. I prefer to keep my paws clean and just let my darlings gather resources while I blog! Each day I collect a few kittens and puppies and I just smile.

Mi’wow

While Dungeon Dogs doesn’t impress me as much as Castle Cats does I must comment both for their lovely presentation. The Joy on your cats and dogs as they complete a mission, or walk through your field is amazing. The design of creatures, especially the higher rarity ones is incredible! There is so much personality in them.The colours are vibrant and both your main story heroes as well as those rare finds oftenly look good enough in design to be in an actual cartoon of sorts. This is these games greatests plus. Oftenly mobile collectable creature games on mobile can look really unique but there is nothing to bind you to them. Say some Fakemon shows it and it looks mighty cute, I am still not tempted to drop some money in as it would be nice to have.. but there is no NEED to have it. A game using an existing IP thus makes a better Gacha! I want the new Majin Vegeta in Legends so I might drop some cash or do missions to get him.. as I recognise him.. he becomes something to pursue. Pocapp Studios manages a way to balance this greatly.

Most of the cats and dogs to collect have a reference, they are something else from another source of media. So for example my first Mystical was a cat called Howard, who when evolved turned into the Eldritch Cthulhu. Howard of course being the H in HP Lovecraft. But I also got Bunny! A cat who was chosen by the moon to be a guardian. When you evolve her she gets a sailor outfit and blonde buns.Usagi is the Japanese word for Bunny.. so you really know who you just collected. All of them have dialogue too! Scarlett really makes me laugh! It is a cat who wants to be a Blobmon trainer. He really wants to ride a bike.. but he knows now is not the time and place and HE is always watching. Scarlett indeed is Red from Pokémon. Because these games take a deep dive into Geekdom there is more reason to collect the creatures other than their cute look! You want to find out who they all are! My best friend Bean for example got a cat named Edward..He doesn’t like to be called small and his brother is an armor. I really want him!

What is also very impressive about these games is that you seem to get “fair deals” for spending money. You don’t need to spend money and by watching adds you can unlock a whole bunch of extra goodies as well so there is no real need to put money into it.. but the bundles and deals you get seem actually cool! Where Dokkan Battle for example only really has sweet deals when it comes to summonable stones in these games some creatures are strictly for sale. Yet some of them have powers to spawn resources you might need like Embers used to upgrade your creatures, or crafting resources. So while you get a cute cat, you also get some usability out of it. Package deals can refill your resources, can offer your embers, cats and skins summon tickets all for a bundle deal so there is always something nice in the store for you. You can say.. I do not care about that..but let’s be honest a game needs to make money and it needs to work with these deals.. that’s how they work so I wont judge them for it! These deals feel unique and rewarding and not like a complete rip-off. So while I will not become a money investing whale here.. they very much know what they are doing.

That confidence is shown in just about everything. The Story lines of the games are both cute, though I again vastly prefer the story of Castle Cats as it has that cuter atmosphere that just fits better with the aesthetics and the genre. Dungeon Dogs focussing on rebellion just feels a bit forced somehow. Mostly because their size seems to exist in the universe so I would assume they have the upper hand.It just doesn’t feel as magical! Castle Cats story however is surprisingly entertaining for a mobile game. Again it has a bit that saturday morning cartoon vibe with each story mission being a cartoon episode. While we only get a few lines of dialogue it is easy to imagine how that adventure will go. Both games feature three protagonist that all are very fun. Lyra the Golden Retriever dog is not my favourite as I find her a bit bland. Poppy the Barbarian Dog is probably one of my favourite characters though! For Castle Cats, Catniss ,(which indeed IS a reference) Conan and Frederique are all pretty good. It’s funny to see Catniss volunteer for every suicide mission because.. she is Katniss. It might not be fully original but these games just ooze with charm. Making it really something you want to play.

A Bark Worse than It’s Bite

The games are not flawless though, especially not if you choose to play both. Both games promote playing both through a quest line but because of it you see they are a bit TOO samesey. It makes sense from either a dog person or a cat person perspective but since both games push you to play both..chances are you will experience how same everything is. The base is a sprite swap with everything at the exact same location, the mini games are the same between the games, even the resources don’t look THAT different. Instead of Iron Ore, dogs gets bones and some stuff is swapped around but essentially it is the same and you can craft the same things with it.. it’s all just sprite swaps. It also leads you to compare items. Avatar items for example are WAAAAY better in Dungeon Dogs, the items are so much more detailed and ornate. Yet Cats have so much more felines to collect.

However the worst part about these games being so linked! Your VIP status is NOT linked. I spent 7 dollars now on Castle Cats which was enough to get me to VIP1 and I feel I should have shared that level between both games. That way I could buy dogs I want when I already have the cat from the monthly bundle or vice versa and still keep my VIP level up! But no alas.. it is seen as a different game any money spend is counted for that game alone. If those get linked I might go deeper but for now it means I shall invest 0 money in Dogs.

I honestly suggest you stick to one game and for me it would be Cats. The references are a bit sharper, although the dogs have more intricate designs. There is not really a bad side here. During my time playing I experience a few glitches in Castle Cats. For example my Adds for extra rewards or skipping missions will sometimes refuse to play unless I reset the game. Other times my screen would go unresponsive during the minigames. I haven’t had these issues with Dungeon Dogs yet.. but that one plays a lot more additional commercials which you can spend a pass on to have them disabled. I dislike that choice which puts me off Dogs a bit more than Cats.. I have control over what I watch in Cats and more control over my spending. In the end these games are made for you to pay for a creature or two. I am not going to hold that against them. It doesn’t HAVE to be fully playable for free. You can have your fun with it for free but like a real Gashapon vending machine.. it is cute to stare at for free but a lot more fun if you toss a few coins at it. That is fine and no one is gonna convince me otherwise, this is a type of game now, deal with it!

The biggest gripe I had with my gameplay so far is that the game at one point bottlenecks you in story mode. IF you haven’t chosen to keep up your main three heroes. I got a lot of Cats that can generate embers.. so I prefer to send those on missions instead. Yet later you need to send a cat with two skills on a mission. Usually the only ones who fit are the main heroes. I have been stuck for two days now being forced to grind embers and levels for Conan, draining my resource pools for a cat I did not really want to level. Of course I could spend money on it to make it go by easier..as you can both by level boosters and embers but thats not how I like to do things. However it makes story progress slightly more unappealing as it limits you very much! I can’t say how much of these missions will come as of yet as I am stuck at this one so much but if you play these games do level up your main heroes! Regardless if I progress in the main story or not though I still have lots of fun with this game so the positives really outweigh the negatives.

Positikitty

These are wonderful games for you to play on the side or whatever else you are doing that day! Mind you .. Emphasis on the side. The gameplay is monotone so it would not entertain you through the day. It has the stamina thing most Free to Start games have so gameplay is not unlimited either. Yet if you play it casual this is one super fun game! I got two friends addicted in a short time. Cute sweet innocent fun, with a amazing design time behind it and witty yet also very clear cut references. These are games that reward you from dropping money, but hardly ever punish you for going free to play and that for me is the ideal mix. I don’t think Free to Play needs to be equally rewarding. It has fun enough gameplay an amazing store and even if you don’t use it a very fun libarary of creatures to collect so if you want something fun feel free to try it out! If you REALLY want to try it out though give a shout out to me in the comments! I could send you an invite and get stuff as a reward… I am all about those rewards now.. because I am hooked enough to at least put in an effort. That is more than most mobile games can make me say.

As for what flavour to reward it with..I feel that is rather relative for this one. For me personally this is a Gacha Idle Game done right. I feel the need to collect and the urge to pay and I would happily splash a few dollar for it here and there. It gives me satisfaction without the need to feel to purchase everything. I can take this journey like I take this game. One step at a time. I’ll get there when I get there. Meanwhile I stare at cute cats a grin widely! This is fun, it does more for me than Dragon Ball Legends does.. which is a fine game but I can still see myself getting frustrated with it within a few week so it won’t receive the highest of my praise. In the end I find this game Berry Good…now I want a cat named Berry Good! I might be more addicted than I think!

Pinkie Plays On the Internet: Random Topic Generator

Hello Island Guests! I felt like doing something a bit odd today. Perhaps I am running a fever, perhaps I am slipping into a insanity but I wanted to talk about stuff I would normally never talk about.. as well as find a way to keep myself entertained! So i found a random topic generator and as a blog I will adres some topics it spouts at me! Onto the first topic!

Topic: Where is the most beautiful place you have been?

Hmmm well I have been to lots of places that have been beautiful to me for lots of different reasons. If we have to do the generic general aesthetic concept of beauty I would have to say it’s a tie between the wooded areas near Alanya Turkey or the city of Porto. The turkish forests I visited during a Jeep Safari thing while traveling there with friends. We were invited in a classic turkish home in the middle of the wilderness and it was quite a sight to behold. Yet.. I would not want to live there ..so I’d have to say the city of Porto takes the win in the end. It’s such a pretty city so few from above. It is a very layed city with all sorts of plateaus and coloured houses, almost as if a child builds with legos.. there is colour everywhere.

There are so many beautiful spots in this city like the mozaic train station, the port and of course the famous bookstore the Livraria Lello. This bookstore is an important inspiration for Hogwarts and it doesn’t take a lot of imagination to see the similarities. It’s the prettiest store I have ever seen and truly seems magical. If only I could read portuguese I would have bought a book.. but things there are a bit pricey. A bought a super pretty pink bottle of water though, which was the most beautiful throw away bottle of water I have ever seen. I might even still have that around somewhere. If you ever find yourself in Porto definitely visit this bookstore.. and of course visit the boulevard and the major bridge as well. Don’t go in heels though or Porto will kill you.

Topic: What is the Most Frustrating App You ever Tried

Hmmm this is a hard one, I don’t play a lot on my phone, I guess for me the most frustrating one would be Pokémon Masters. You see… I happen to like Pokémon but because of in game purchases this game was not allowed to release her in the Netherlands.. So I installed it through a work around. At first the game was a bit sparse, while I enjoyed it very much I felt so much iconic stuff was missing. Also the one weakness mechanic while understandable felt super counter intuitive for what I have known for most my life now .That’s when I learned about events.. all those super iconic trainers are available on alternating banners.. event banners. So my issue got fixed or so I thought.

It would soon turn out that for every event I would need to update my game, and my work around for installation of Masters could not allow updates. Which basically meant each update I had to uninstall wait a few days for the updated file to be presented for me to install on a website I trusted.. grind out the event with a few days less and NOT pull any of the major event characters. I never got one of the major pulls. Since I am not allowed to play this officially I was afraid to put money in it as well so that was no option .. and the way to gather actually currency is just way to slow, given the time I have available for such a thing. It was a lot of work to get nothing over and over again.. until eventually I stopped updating, moving on.

Topic: What is the least favorite job you ever had?

There are actually two jobs that come to mind. First was pressing buttons in a bread factory. They were implementing a new production line and I had to press buttons at a certain interval to make the machine learn. Yet the machine broke that so many times I had to do something else like working the oven. Pinkie is not heatproof. Even though I said I could not take it they made me do it until I fainted.. they brought me back and I was feeling miserable and they made me work there for another two hours. People who worked three years with each other didn’t even know from each other they were married so it wasn’t very sociable either. It was horrible and I felt sick constantly due to the smells and the heat.

Another job I had was with a company that important american goods and sold them to a us europeans. Stuff like special cans of Monster Energie, Twinkies, snickers. I had to put some orders in boxes, put a label on them and make sure they were safe for shipping. I got a bunch of papers i could shred to make fillings and all in all, it seemed like a fairly nice job with low pressure, I could easily keep up. However things began seeming off when the supervisor who would judge if I did a proper job or not went on vacation during almost the entirety for my evaluation period.

I discovered that the papers I shredded was our invoices.. the pieces of paper that said how much we paid for stuff. I noticed people ordering a single can of monster energy drink shipping it to finland or sweden for over 3x times what the can itself cost. Maybe someone collected the cans? When the same address ordered a box of twinkies for 7x more delivery cost than the costs of goods however I began to have serious doubts. I would get the day off for the weirdest reason like.. “we have a party tonight and we want to sleep in, let’s just skip a day” I presented this to my mediator who immediately pulled me out after that.

Topic: If you could learn the answer of one question about your future which would it be?

When will I die? It would suck to know that I am about to die, but since I am sick I think that oftenly enough. Think about all the insurance money I could save and not having to worry about my own sickness and whether or not it will kill me. If the answer would be tomorrow or something close by I would be super upset but hey at least I can now do things I was afraid to. I can eat Fugu without worrying if I will die or not, I could even walk everywhere in the world without having to worry.. to much. While I do not think I would be happier, I think it is a matter of problem substitution , I would at least have a bit more money!

Topic: What is the craziest, most outrageous thing you want to achieve?

I am not that outrages in my plans at least something that I am actively pursuing. Winning the lottery seems like one of those but that is such a boring answer. I do believe that I have enough bad luck to compensate though so I am an active believer that I can have that turn around magic moment, where suddenly I can break free of my monetary and entropic chains and live without a limit. I keep playing in lotteries because it is something I very much belief in. Magic is possible and due to my health issues I am a bit stuck right now so in magic I must belief.

Achieving magic might be another thing I try to achieve.. I do feel there is more to this world than we can see, I saw ghosts in the past, I felt as if I could do more with my mind. It feels as if something is locked away and discovering what lies deep inside me can be that outrageous think that Pinkie strives for. I can read people very well and I do not know why. I have these intuitions and this feeling that is more than what I currently can define and I wish to discover what else is out there. I just know there is more.

Topic: Where is the worst place you have been stuck for a long time

Okay, this is not a really fun story, but at least you all might get a laugh out of it. I told you all in some of those tag posts that I can get stupidly unlucky and that I was left in a forest once. Well that second statement was not fully correct it happened twice, though the second time was way more mean spirited. We had a school camp and we had a game where we would play drug runners. Having to run from some parents trying to capture us we had to outsmart them and score as much as we could. If you got caught wearing drugs the parent could tie you to a tree for 5 minutes or so as a time out. … now you can already probably see where this is going.

When my time was just about to be up a boy ran by.. drawing the parent guarding me away for a bit… a shout from that boy could be heard as the boy twisted his ankle maybe even broke it so was thought at the time. The parent went along with him.. forgetting me. The game wrapped up and a few boys were tasked to check if everyone is complete. The boy who found me was someone who bullied me in the past and just grinned and left me. The boy who was injured was a friend of mine so for a bit it was believed that I went along with them. It wasn’t until after the parent returned with the boy from the hospital they noticed I wasn’t there.

The girls whom I shared a room with did not really mention anything either, to this day I do not know if this was out of disliking me or because they thought I went to the hospital with my friend.. they claim the latter but timewise it doesn’t fully check out. I got freed after being tied to that tree for about two hours maybe even more. This was before cellphones as well so I could not text.. I left camp the next day as it was ruined for me. The boy who left me got expelled from camp so that was a bit awkward.

Final Topic: Do you have any siblings?

Yes Pinkie has a little sister, we aren’t particularly close but when we do see each other we can be really similar. While she isn’t a geek we have the same comedic timing, we laugh at the same sort of things and we just can agree on so many things. It’s really nice, she has a very calming presence on my mind as well. Normally I am trying to come off more sociable or more normal than I am but around her I really am me. In the past we could not have been more different she wanted attention, I wanted less, she would rather smack someone I would rather flee, I was not good at fleeing so I often got smacked.

Even though we have little contact , the talks we do have are always nice.. as of late. We had a bit of a troubled past which is mostly due to her former partner who wronged our family and I could forgive for what they made me go trough. That is water under the bridge now.. but now that I think about that.. the partner caused me to be stuck in a place as well.. but I kinda really liked it there so unlike the tree i guess it wouldn’t count. Me and my sister are doing great now and I am happy to have her in my life.

Now this concludes my first Random Topic Generator post, it was actually kind of fun! I might do it again if inspiration fails me! Want to try it out for yourself? This is the random topic generator I used this time! I only skipped two questions it gave me, one was very similar to the travel one and one topic I recently talked about. Hope to see you next time!

XO
Pinkie

Mario Kart Tour

Welcome dear guests. For those who follow me on Twitter, I haven’t been exactly keeping it a secret that I really enjoy my time with Mario Kart Tour. Reactions from across the web however have been less than stellar. Since I write about everything geeky now, let’s take a closer look at whats up.

Gacha-Kart

Mario Kart Tour like most mobile in this day and age is a Gacha game, meaning we can spend premium currency to get characters, karts and gliders. This premium currency can be earned but also purchased and characters karts and gliders come in three rarity grades. (Silver, gold and sparkly Pink) So far it’s like every Gacha game ever, but pinker, not doing anything special. However Mario Kart Tour also has a subscription plan, allowing you for more and better ‘quest ‘ rewards. For the nominal fee of about €5+change a month you can gain extra gems ,extra stars and even get offered some free high(er) tier karts or characters if you perform well enough. I signed up for this deal because of the amount of time I already spend with the game , completely justifying it for me. I’ll recognise the game without the description would be a bit barebones but I will not mark it down for it. Over time we have developed the idea that games SHOULD be free to play and even free to finish but I very much disagree. If someone makes something I enjoy I want to reward them for it.. and Mario Kart Tour is no exception. What I get for those 5 and a bit euro’s is well worth it.

People tend to demonise these practices, calling everything a company does greedy, but in reality, servers have to run and they have to keep a constant staff on these sort of games so it’s also understandable. The Internet also say Nintendo is greedy for not throwing buckets of free gems their way as any new game “SHOULD” but again this is a skewed perception. Companies hand out free gems to promote their games, to get you to play them,it makes sense they try that with freebies, realistically speaking this is Mario Kart.. an established name, by an established company, they do not buy your love. They kinda already have it, and there is nothing to criminal in them knowing it already. I’ll admit it isn’t ‘nice’ of them.. but it doesn’t make them greedy either. They know the value of their IP and simply aren’t your pal, they aren’t demons for not being your friend though. That is basically how I feel on the entire Gatcha aspect of it.

High Score-Kart

Mario Kart Tour is different then it’s older brothers. Every two weeks, we as the player get a New Tour, which rotates us through a dozen or so cups of three races and a special challenge. It is up to you , not only to win the races but also to set a high score. Scores will unlock Power Stars, and gathering enough Power Stars will open gift boxes and new cups. Each stage has a number of favoured racers karts and gliders that allow you to get more items, combo time or flat-out more points. The higher the quality of the items the better the chance of you getting good items or ‘Frenzy’. Each track two to four racers get three items per item box, get 3 of a kind and you can use that item infinitely for a brief period of time, really sending your high scores through the roof. The internet rightfully so, complains about how races oftenly are more about having the right character but once more this is used to make Nintendo seem greedy and evil, but does it really? Having played through the first two tours I would have to say no. My subscription allowed me to gain enough rewards to completely max out every single cup , only missing out on some of the final gift boxes, which I basically just do not want to grind out but could trough daily challenges. While I can’t always max out a cup or race from the very start, as the weeks progress I gain the resources to do so in a leisurely pace. I might have had incredible luck, but in fact I missed out on almost every single one of the most rare units, except for New York Mario. Except for the time trials everything feels very forgiving and over the course of the weeks you get better and better and update. I found it really enjoyable to tweak my high scores, especially of the ranked cups and it was a blast. Each item I managed to buy that helps me felt like sweet rewards and kept me playing. It feels deliciously retro to go for that sweet sweet high score again.

Part-Time Kart

Something that gets the most flack on the internet is Nintendo’s choice to limit the resources you can gether per day. You can only grind out 300 coins per day and the experience to level up your characters karts and gliders is also capped. This does not include any rewards from ‘quests’ or from spending premium currency to do a coin event. I can only say that I might be the only person in the world that LOVES this choice Nintendo made. Leveling up drivers makes them worth more points, coins can give you new drivers, karts and gliders. By keeping a cap on these, the playing field in the competitive cup is equalised. We don’t need to spend energy and race to our hearts content.. but we are blocked from infinitely grinding. I can work on my highscores as much as I want but no one is allowed to spend every waking hour to grind out every character to destroy my high scores, we are all subjected to the same amount of luck. It allows me to pick up my phone when I want. Dailies are REALLY easy and as each tour unlocks more and more over the course of two weeks never do you HAVE to play more than like half an hour , maybe an hour if you have trouble. I love how you can compete casually. THIS is what I want in a mobile game!

Slippery Kart

The technical aspects I left to the end, It’s mario kart, you know it’s not going to be bad. Very befitting of a highscore game, Mario Kart Tour is easy to learn difficult to master. The game offers a wide variation of control methods and safety nets so that everyone can play to their hearts contents. You can use gyro-controls or not, you can simply steer the kart by swiping your finger or turn on manual drift which makes it so that you can fully control how much drifting you get done. Steering aid will prevent you from moving into sandpits but make it a lot harder to sacrifice speed for that hidden shortcut, it is up to you to figure out what works best for you. I must admit I wished I grasped the concept on how to manual drift better.. but hey I haven’t needed it until the Paris tour , now I end up slipping everywhere.. because I can’t grasp the concept just yet. Youtube might provide an answer for me in the near future though. I always have other options though. The manual drift could have been handled better but otherwise I do think it’s Mario Kart trough and trough. However I do have my gripes with the game as well. Each tour has about 8 or 10 stages, we alternate between given that we visit about 40 or so stages that means a lot of repeats. Cleverly hazards have been altered and sometimes the track is mirrored, but not all tracks are long enough for it to be noticable and can feel kinda stale on their third and fourth roulation. Some elements can feel tacked on in the final quarter of the cups. Characters no longer have their own drive feeling, everyone’s the same, Bowser handles exactly like Toad. they just affect your score. Luckily they sometimes can have semi-unique weapons available to them and unluckily they shout out their catchphrases aplenty. All in all I wish there was a bit more ‘soul’ and control, but technically I can’t expect much more than I got for this type of game.

Flavour Kart

While all the negatives that are said about this game are true, that doesn’t apply to the conclusion people make about this game. Yes there are plenty of grinding caps, yes you are restricted by luck and yes Nintendo is very stingy with free stuff. The luck requirement is basically prevalent in the entire Gatcha genre. Don’t compare it to the console or mobile Mario Kart titles, that would be unfair. You pay to play those, it’s just not the same thing. Compare it to Dragonball Z Dokkan Battle or Fate Grand Order and you’ll get a much more fair comparison. Gameplay in a Gatcha is a secondary element. Mario Kart was never a hardcore game, casuals being much more a demographic and Nintendo acknowledges that with these caps. While it might not be fun .. if you want to grind out everything in a single day the strategy makes it excellent to just pick up AND put down. For the price of a regular Mario Kart game I can play this one for at least 10 month’s with new tours arrivery every two weeks and unlocking most of what the game can offer me and that is perfectly fine.
It’s not the best Mario Kart game, nor is it the best mobile game I ever played but it is a perfectly playable game that people just love to turn into something evil. It’s not guys .. it’s really not. It’s quite OKiwi.

Review: Pokemon Masters

We haven’t been feeling all that nicely lately.. a bit sick.. though that isn’t unusual for us it really made writing a bit difficult, but hey at least I Chibi Pinkie got to catch up with a lot of games I needed to play. I really managed to get some progress in the Pokémon Masters game as well, and even though we haven’t completed the story yet i’d say I’ve played enough to give you a good first impression of the game.

The Disclaimer

For this review , no money will be spend on Pokémon Masters to see how playable it is without spending money on the game. Any money I might invest will be kept out of my verdict. For the story playthrough I will only use trainers I acquire through the game or that I farmed with free credits. Keep in mind though that should I have gotten any duplicates with payed credits it could level up my free partners so there might be a SLIGHT difference in difficulty. At the same time I will not tell you about my monetised pull because I can not do a lot of them, therefore until I see more online content about them (which I haven’t seen to much) there i no way to tell how lucky or unlucky I have gotten. I will not be reviewing the multiplayer.. right now the game is not available in my country so my friends don’t want to download it .. so I can not try it. I might bring that to the table in my re-review. Finally, even though there is a stigma on mobile games still, I will not talk about if this is a good platform. I will evaluate it like any other Gacha Mobile game as well any other Pokémon game but we won’t talk about if Nintendo should just focus on Switch of the sorts. Hence it will not be marked down for being something that promotes microtransactions as that’s part of its DNA.

The Concept

In Pokémon Masters you “create” your avatar by picking a gender, hair colour eye colour and skin colour. Like in Pokémon Go the model of your hair is set, but unlike it’s older brother for now there is no way to customise your avatar further. The protagonist version of you, you just made travels by boat to the Pasio Region. Where the PML will be hosted. The Pokémon Masters League. A tournament where the great of the greats gather to compete to be the strongest of them all. However in Pasio , there are no wild pokémon to capture nor can participants bring their entire team of Pokémon. In Pasio you fight only with your partner pokémon. Since this would be unbalanced and the super effective typing would always win the PML is fought in teams however. PML teams can consist out of hordes of trainers but in official battles you can only fight three on three. So you will have to build creative teams from trainers and pokémon for each stage and setting.

Trainers and Pokémon share a four set movepool, with the Pokémon dealing damage and trainers being able to give out buffs or healing. After battling alongside each other trainer and pokémon have build up enough energy to unleash a devastating Sync Move, which to those in the know are basically a lot like Z-moves. The game tells its story in a almost visual novel like style, but very simplified, with some simple branching dialogue options here and there. You can encounter three types of stages. One being the story stages, your basic exposition scenes with dialogue options mentioned before. The combat stages speak for itself, you get one or two encounters to get trough and you just have to be the very best. The last type are the investigation stages. These are a bit of a mix of the two earlier ones, except you can look around freely on usually about 4 different screens to look for additional lore and some items. In doing so it puts on a much more cinematic concept compared to other gacha games. With a lot more focus on exploring facets of the pokémon world rather then just forcing you to pull as many units as you can.

With Pokémon Go being a simplified version of catching and raising Pokémon, this game can be described as a simplified version of the battling concept of Pokémon. It puts on a charming narrative with each stage providing a logical step in your trainers journey and a lot of fanservice…..in the nostalgic non lewd kinda way. It’s quite the happy little game that does drop the ball on some occasions. Badgeholders you defeat usually end up tagging along with you.. because there are others that hold the batch as well, and the rules of the PML would allow them to. That’s just odd to me. I mean I love Flannery in my team but I would have much rather seen for example narratives of Flanery trying to take Blaine down who was the gym leader and after you done so .. she decides to follow you. The fact that others hold the same badge just harms the world building just a bit for me.. getting a badge is no longer a sign of overcoming a challenge..but that you find the weakest gym leader. The fact that the story gives you free gathas (pulls) that are usually helpful in the next part of your journey though I can only be happy about.

The Atmosphere

By far the games strongest aspect is the atmosphere. Pasio is a beautiful place that comes alive through the spot on visuals and nicely remixed tunes. The Pasio Pokécenter is a place where you are going to spend a lot of time managing all your stuff. It’s design is neat and feels vibrant with all your collected team mates as well as people you battled showing up, with plenty of cute dialogues. tips pokémon lore and more. As a result your ‘home’ feels super comfy. For fangirls like me it’s a delight to see Whitney show up talking about herself being so cute, or Korina giving you an empowering speech. I do hate when Crasher Wake shows up though.. but that’s personal.. he is kind of intimidating and I got him in a free pull… now his swoll bod keeps blocking up my screen all the time as he shouts and laughs like a D&D dwarf. It’s not really a negative.. his personality pops out and I don’t really like it so he annoys me.. in a way he feels alive. Every character has these typical japanese style voice acting bits where they aren’t fully voiced but have ‘emote’ like shouts they usher at certain emotions. They also introduce themselves when you pull them and such. Because of that I do recommend everyone who played the games to use the english voice setting. Though not all voice actors are as good as the japanese ones it really doesn’t scratch the same nostalgia itch to see Misty introduce herself as Kasumi.. it doesn’t line up with the text either. The english dialogue is ..passable enough but taglines can get a bit annoying on extended play. Whitney and Rosa for example have higher star rates, and thus higher maximum levels, on free play it means you’ll use them a lot and Whitney’s : Ain’t I a cutie can get obnoxious when she tells it to you for the 46th time.

Of course you can choose not to read the dialogues in the center .. but they are often so cute and charming you’d be missing out.
The music is nice even if not very memorable, this to me is a good thing though. The game can be bit of a grind meaning repeating stages are bound to happen. I never got annoyed by repeating music throughout any of my grinds so that’s a good thing.

Though the story unfolds in a visual novel like style, the models are all 3d-ish models who can show a lot of emotions. Not just the humans but the pokémon as well. Little choices like how a pokémonon delivers it’s cry oftenly when their trainer talks about them makes the world feel even more alive. In fact it’s so alive that I’d say just talking to the trainers and finding out about the bond with their pokémon would be my favorite part of the game. DeNa the developer provided me with a perfect chance to enjoy this in the form of Sync Pair Stories. Cute little stories all over the island featuring the many characters and their most beloved pokémon in the pokéverse have gotten to know each other. Lucario is no longer a static pokémon that by level we know to be Korina’s ace.. no we learned that in the beginning they did not really get along that well at all because of Korina’s personality. We see Liza , one half of the psychic gym twins, miss her brother now being seperated for the first time but finding solace in her pokémon. Characters never feel reinvented these people we see moving and emoting now like we never saw them before we knew them already and this is not a new model wearing their skin they all keep their old personalities and their development. Barry is still fining people millions of dollars for each thing they do wrong in his eyes.. but now we find out why. The game presents everyone in nice and rich colours which make the pokémon blend in really well.

Now onto the negatives of the atmosphere, and note this is not a gripe to me, which is a bit difficult to explain. DeNa (I am not using the emote in the name because wordpress turns it into a smilie) clearly loves the POkémon games there is so much reference there is so much that is spot on from the games. Every single character IS the one you encountered in the games. Now for those who don’t know anything about pokémon this will result in the game having a lot of fluff dialogue. Barry saying that if you don’t show up in time he will fine you a million poké might sound serious or you’ll go like.. what the frizzlesticks is that blonde kid going on about. Flannery being shocked that she will have to face gym leader Norman is inconsequential. These reactions and dialogue arcs are catered too those who have played the games. While the main story is enjoyable to both old and new players this is definitely a legacy game and a lot of story elements are a lot better if you know the games. Secondly this game loves the games, not the anime or the manga.. but the main line games. This means Brock and Misty aren’t anything like the shouting red-head and the lovable goof you might have seen on tv. Brock is focussed determined and tactical, Misty is bubbly and happy and somewhat naive, she respects Blue though hates his arrogance. Brock and Misty are also designed after their more recent models so they don’t even look like their most know counterpart that much. For a lot of kids who saw the show or for those wanting to pick up Pokémon again this might seem a bit confusing. So as alive and good looking as this game is you REALLY need to keep in mind where it’s coming from, for those who really know nothing about the game should wonder if they should start with a LEGACY game.

The Technical Thingies

Though apparently there were a lot of troubles for Android users, i can honestly say I never really experienced any trouble. While a little over halfway through the game I did not encounter majors bugs weird glitches or anything. My game crashed only once and that was on busy hours during an event. I found the game plays nicely, the controls are smooth and your input is accepted accurately and quickly.Technically it’s quite a solid game , though I wish some things would have been made differently. Most of these gripes are in the form of information provided towards the trainer. For example to upgrade your trainer’s stars you need items much like any other Gacha.. but unlike most of its peers never does an item state where or how you can get it. Other games I play like Dragon Ball Legends allow you to access stages to get required material with a single button press. You just select your character tab it to level and select the item you lack going straight into a mission after which you go back to the upgrade menu. Back in our game, if you want to upgrade Misty’s passive ability you first have to open your sync pair dex, select misty, click on the little plus to find misty’s role, back out go into the training stages, find the right training stage for her role that’s in a tab within a tab , grind it out, move towards the trainer select abilities, move to passive abilities and than purchase it.

The game however , half way in never even told me about these roles. They do tell you how to upgrade your attack, but never mention there is a second tab there , easily to overlook. When learning an offensive move.. the effect of the new attack is hidden until purchase. Now these effects are the same as in the main game so I am fine with that but I doubt every pokémon player in the world, let alone every pokémon masters player knows what the move close combat does. It means rookie trainers could spend resources into upgrading an attack that is not really worth it. Never is it explained that the burn stats halves strength stat of it’s target.. yet it does. There is a FAQ section and a trainer tip section in the menu to help you…but once again you are never told about them.

What they they do do right is how they communicate what pokémon to bring. Each stage has two advantages types. The most advantageous in the first slot the supportive in the second. If you follow the advise stages are quite passable. I intentionally played a bit worse than I could (not focussing on abilities I know would work well together but on what superficially seems okay) and the stages are quite clearable. Grinding is going to be needed but it’s kind of fun the game chose to not have an energy system .. so this actually feels like a game. It’s just a game that if you want to play it properly you might need to do some reading up on.. because the game doesn’t tell you a lot and from a kid friendly game we might not expect that.

The Gameplay

Overall I find the gameplay enjoyable but to do this properly I will divide the gameplay in a couple of main aspects. Battling your way through the stories, interacting with other characters, leveling up and training and finally collecting new trainers. Incidentally there are also events. We shall discuss these one by one.

First let’s talk about the combat , the main selling point of this game. While I do not agree with the entire combat system I do feel it’s a rather unique interpretation that does feel like pokémon and trainer are battling together. It feels close enough to the core series gameplay while still feeling fresh enough. For example Dragonball Dokkan Battle is a bad game in this regard, it feels very little like dragon ball and the collecting itself feels like a main part of the battle gameplay. Though team members can sometimes boost each other and it might be smart to create synergy in between your trainers, it’s not always needed nor possible. Marley for example uses an Arcanine as her trainer and her abilities allow to boost everyone’s speed which is neat. Rosa is a grass type trainer who boosts everyone’s special attack. You would think these go well together but in truth not that much. Rosa’s special attack buff is neat.. but Arcanine prefers physical attacks , so he doesn’t benefit from her boost. Marley’s speed boost is not very effective alongside Rosa .. because she has the ability to cheer and energise everyone.. (which makes speed a bit unneeded) .

Even with their conflicting abilities however it can be advantageous to have both on your field due to type advantage.. or in some cases even with type advantage you are better off creating a different team because it’s really specially resistant or something. What I mean to say is, unlike most Gacha’s there isn’t a perfect team, the game encourages you to swap.
You can play with the highest rank trainers all you like.. if they lack the abilities or typing you need it might just be better to swap it out for lower levels. Yet the game never goes that brutally difficult that you can never bring your favorites either. Unlike plenty of other games in the genre

Battling works quite simple. On the bottom of your screen you have an energy meter which contains 4 , but upgradable in quantity , blocks. Each attack of your pokemon costs an amount of blocks to use. For example energy ball costs two energy and ember costs 1.
Each attack has a base damage and an effect, the higher the cost the more damage, or the better the effect. The speed stat of your pokémon determine how fast your energy bar fills. Trainers can use their actions without spending energy but each trainer action can only be used twice. These usually are items from the games in the first slot you get.. like potions. x attack/defence/etc (all or single) full heal’s or dire hits. The second upgradable spot usually holds a big boost like how Rosa can fully bring your energy meter to full. Opposed to normal pokémon, every pokemon only has one weakness, for you as a trainer they are set, for npc’s they can vary per stage. In one stage Swanna is weak to electricity in the other it’s weak to rock.. all so you can see different type of pokémon.. and softly urge you to make some pulls.

The alternating weakness is something I do dislike, Swanna in reality is quad weak to electricity, I do feel with 926 pokémon to choose from if you design a battle where they want you to fight with rock and grass, you pick pokémon whose primary weakness ARE that, not let you attack with better options available. I do get why they chose it to be this way as not every battle is just three pokémon but it does feel super weird to me when a swanna takes more damage from a Torkoal then from a Pikachu. Resistances do not exist. All in all it’s an adequate battle system that feels comfortable and simplified enough for new players, yet at the same time there is so much for the fan present in the other aspects that it feels a bit unnatural but that is only if you know the type system by heart…so in actuality it’s fine… this is just weird for fans like me.

Interacting with other characters is to me the most fun part of the game. People react like they should and are given the depth they lack. I love their stories and they are nice to follow. I do question some of the dialogue options you get though. At times people will ask you ‘Will you help me?’ sort of questions. The game decides to give you the possibility to answer at times but a lot of times they are only an illusion of choice.. quite obviously. ‘Will you help me?’ at times can be answered by either ‘Yes’ or ‘Sure’ alternatively. One might be read a bit more enthusiastically but in the end there’s a lot of choices like this. ‘Tell me how you met’ .. ‘so how did you two end up together?’ It feels a bit to samesy to me. I do know in Japanese there is probably more tonal distance but still. Ever since Nugget bridge your choices did not matter in a pokémn game so this might just be some odd wink. Other then an occasional odd eyebrow raise i really love this aspect of the game. Except for Crasher Wake… he’s so swole!

The leveling up and upgrade characters is done okay. It’s behind a bit of a grindwall, but an easy one at that. Experience quests give a lot of leveling up items, even on the easiest level. Need to raise a character too about level 50 is easily doable in a few minutes. From what I have seen so far the higher levels will never be painstakingly slow. Do note that I absolutely hate grinding so me saying this is definitely saying something. If you have still new characters to watch sync move animations with it can even be fun to knock some experience out. Like I said in technical thingies already though, finding the correct items initially can be a major slog. Trainers with a fist Icon need items from the Strike Course in training, trainers with the exclamation mark are those of tech quality and those who bear the symbol of a heart belong to the support role. Strikers get red tonics, Techies get green and Supporters get all the blue drinks. Grinding these out is less fun and not as fast. Finding enough megaphones (which bestow moves) can be even trickier. Though it requires some searching eventually you can easily overcome it and once your a bit familiar with it leveling up is kind of a breeze.. except from starring up. Which is a lot trickier.

Pulling for characters is a important part of every gacha game and doing that for free in Pokémon Masters is absolute Trubbish. This is where the game falters… BIG time. Daily Discounts ..are only available with PAID credits. Guaranteed Pull banners… only with PAID credits. Yes this game has paid and unpaid gems/credits for pulling. A decision I have mixed feelings about. I do not think it’s that bad of an idea to reward those who decide tro pay for your free game. In fact I’d be all for it if buying credits wasn’t as expensive as it is. A multi summon (10 scouts) is 3000 diamonds, mid game I gathered up a little over 5000 I’d say. To buy 3200 diamonds costs you 30 euro’s .. probably 30 dollars as well respectively. For 10 cards spend 30 dollars. Now truth be told.. undiscounted this is about the same as Dragonball Legends with the latter only being 3 euro’s cheaper. But we would not talk about money today.. grinding out the credits in the latter is a whole lot easier. Plus you can get the summon discounts on free credits. I played Pokémon Masters for a week.. and managed to pull a multi scout once.. alongside some single attempts on the Blue banner to find out. On my free banner, I managed to boost Whitney a Four Star a bit.. but other than that.. my free pulls were really bad. I spend a week.. only to make my Crasher Wake my most powerful three star. Swole….

The Verdict

In my re-review where I will come back to see how this game has developed in awhile I will discuss on if events add something. So far the game brings a lot to the table and definitely is in the running to be my favorite gacha in terms of gameplay. It’s the absolute winner in terms of charm and feeling and it’s quite a solid pokémon game. Would it not be for the low level cap on three star units and the lackluster information provided I would definitely love it… well there is one thing that makes me rank it down as well…as far as as a collection game… this one is the worst I’ve ever played. Gotta catch…just enough so I can finish the story.

Whoops got a bit carried away by this one! I mean.. uhm oooh no Crasher Wake made my post swole as well. There just was a lot for me to tell. Still I haven’t said everything I wanted to say…so if you play maybe we can be friends in the game! This blog was written on saturday but pain prevented me from finishing it. There was little news to report on anyway after my thursday post. Next week we are going to try a more liberal schedule for our content. You can expect to see a lot of Chibi Pinkie next week, a trainer profile about myself and a Sunday Special where I talk about lovers in Pokémon for OWLS. Hope to see you there.
The pinkest pokémon trainer is signing off again!

XO
Pinkie.

Review: Pokémon Quest (Android)

Hello once more my little monsters. I had a bit of a crappy day today, so I decided to forget all about it and write you all a nice little bonus blog. That will cheer me right up! Recently I got a phone that actually works, and isn’t powered by fossil fuels anymore. Finally I could play what some people consider worse than Fortnite, Mobile Games! What else what I play but Pokémon though? So today we have a review for Pokémon Quest!

The concept:
Describing what Quest is about is already a bit difficult, in essence I would describe it as an on rails Pokémon Mystery dungeon like game, which played a lot of minecraft at the daycare center. From the egg between those two, came Pokémon Quest. In non poké-players terms, it’s a semi automated dungeon-runner with cubelike pokémon. You play a nameless and faceless adventurer along with their robot pal MoBee. Mobee and you travel on a cute little ship , when you stumble upon Tumblecube Island, which is is a very diverse island, with lush jungles and scorching deserts, alongside vast pink plains and some cavelike stuff, among other things. Each area holds a variation of the original first generation pokémon, as well as some tribal statues you and Mobee are trying to collect. Don’t ask why, it’s just a thing you do. It doesn’t take MoBee long to locate you a starter pokémon, you get choose from Bulbasaur, Charmander, Squirtle, Eevee and Pikachu. Of course I chose my pal Bulbasaur.
From there on out you get to explore the island.

The Atmosphere
The game’s main selling point is how freaking adorable it looks. Cube Bulbasaur is kawaii as frizzlesticks. Kawaii being weeaboo for cute. Man is this game adorable. After your first expedition you get a base camp where all your pokémon gather and hang out. You can see your cube pidgey hang out with your cube bulbasaur playing together by jumping in rhythm. Sometimes they even stack themselves on top of each other, which also looks adorable. Sometimes you just see them talking to each other, well you actually see a bunch of shaking cubes.. but you know what’s it about. The amount of life they managed to get into these cubes is truly amazing Attacks are mostly recognisable , for example my bulbasaur knew petal dance which is animated a series of pink cubes spinning around, but pidgey actually got a little tornado for gust. The cubiness never is used to excessive and there is still a distinct pokémon feeling about how everything looks. The sounds are okay, of course it does feature the original cries of pokemon, which is super neat and whenever you attract a new pokemon, you get them blacked out with just their cry, reminiscent of the “who is that pokémon” game we all know and love. It’s charming throughout. The music is nice and peppy, though they oftenly feature weird sound bites inside them and can be really busy. I don’t mind , cause it’s totally me, but I can see this getting annoying to some in time.
The game is quite grindy so music is created a lot. I am not particularly fond of the boss theme for that reason. All in all they create a solid atmosphere that makes the game fun to look at and listen too. A nitpick of mine is how they could have made the layout feel a bit more inline with what we usually see from Pokémon games. The chosen Icon and HUDS just don’t feel very Pokémon like to me, making me believe this might have started out as a different game.

Technical Thingies:
Programming wise the game is pretty solid. I have to commend the Autoplay AI (which you in time will use) for actually being somewhat tactical in when to use powers and when it doesn’t. Yet for boss battles you might want to consider taking back control, because the difficulty scale is a tad on the harsh side. The game oftenly provides a power level you need to have to pass a mission, but this doesn’t always fly true. Nor do the reckoning type badges apply to each level making the game feel a bit wonky at times. Loading times also seem a bit longer then what is needed for the actual screen to appear, causing me to press buttons without them responding, however in fairness this may also be due to the hot weather slightly affecting my screen. The biggest technical snafu however is the pathfinding.
As mentioned earlier pokemon move sort of on rails. However that rails is randomised each time. They just run to a new random spawn zone on the map without you controlling it. In doing so however both your team as the enemies can’t tell if there is a river , a mountain or nothing in between you. They do learn but if Pidgey and Bulbasaur clip behind a rock and Vulpix is free, the latter will not wait for it’s team members and go on a suicide mission, which can be detrimental to runs. They did make a button to fix those issues though, that cause a pokemon to backdash.
On the plus side, controls are simple clean and as soon AS they are responsive they react accurately and properly. Swapping item, placing decorations and all the extra stuff works very smoothly so I’d say the game preforms average to okay on this area.

Green Hiils, only Sonic can cope with those! Pokémon just up against them!

The gameplay
Unfortunately I can’t be quite as positive about the gameplay, though I would not call the game pay to win too much, the pase can be dreadfully slow if you don’t pay.
In essence the game works like this, in your base camp there is a cooking pot. You toss some fruits, mushrooms and fossils (for some reason) in the pot to cook meals.
These meals attract pokémon that you can add to your team. You can take up to three cuties on an expedition with you, giving you new power up items and ingredients to cook with. Each time you start cooking it will show you a 0 out of X number. The X is how many expeditions you have to do before your new soup is ready, iow you need to play that many rounds to get a new pokémon. You level up your Pokémon by having them go on expeditions or by doing training. New moves can only be learned through training and that is exactly where the game falls apart for me. Training..sacrifices pokémon you caught, the more pokemon of the same type you use.. the more experience you get. Move learning however is an entirely different form of training als requiring you to sack of some Pokémon. A soup will, at least in the earliest stages take you about two two five expeditions. Each expedition costing Mobee some battery energy. He has five! energy. Each bar recharges in 30 minutes. This means you’ll get one or maybe two pokémon per two and a half hours. These pokémon are heavily RNG influenced. A pokémon can learn one or two moves, which can both be status or attacking moves. Everyone has a basic attack as well. These basic attacks are super weak though, so basically if after two and a half hours you get your new mon and it only learns lightscreen… you either need to sacrifice four pokemon (10 hours of work) to learn it a new one, or rely on RNG and hope that you attract a better one by creating a similar soup. Luckily this is somewhat compensated by recipes. Certain types of soup attract certain type of Pokémon, so if you need a water type, it’s a safe bet to cook with a lot of blue ingredients. My luck in attracting Pokémon is horrendous , though I did manage to get my hands on a shiny machop! If you pick up certain package deals you will get up to three extra cooking pots, which I must say are somewhat fairly priced for something that effectively doubles up to quadruples your game speed. The expeditions themselves are fun and short enough just to fire your phone up for briefly. The descent autopilot makes it into a decent idle game as well. Just turn it on while chopping your salad or flipping your burger and you can still have a fun time, if you don’t mind trying your luck. The in game currency you can get fast enough to expand your pokemon slots and item slots without it limiting your game, just don’t go crazy and shop for to many decorations in the beginning. Those offer you a bonus themselves but until you get a versatile team, having power up items and plenty pokemon is more beneficial. No great gameplay, but it’s free to start so it doesn’t underachieve for me either.

Your pokémon will have a lot more fun at basecamp than you , if you play for free.

Score
Definitely the cutest pokemon game, (at least if we don’t consider the ones who use the IP illegally) you can get on your phone, but with plenty of frustrations to be had if you allow it to. Something you can easily pass upon and you would not really miss out on anything, yet again if you really love pokémon or even just love to see some cute cubed monsters running around there is no really any harm in playing it either. You will not even feel totally ripped off, if you buy the adventure packs. As for available purchases this game does actually give you some worth for your buck. Guaranteed pokémon, and permanent game speed upgrades?! I can totally live with those. Don’t expect a Pokémon Go like mobile game which you can constantly play though. Compare this game to an episode of a Joy of Painting (Bob Ross).
There’s a lot of happy little things and some bosses you can beat the devil out off, but in between those waits it’s borings as flan.

An I don’t mind it, seems like a perfect score, it’s exactly how I feel about the Joy of Painting as well. Have you played this game? What is your favorite mobile Pokémon game?
What is your best happily little accident? Leave a like and thanks for reading once more.
Stay a thinned Alizarine Crimson! (That’s Pink)

Pink-Poké-News Week 29

Welcome back my little monsters, on my Weekend Weeklies mostly on PPN (Pink-Poke-News) we will discuss what happened that week in the wonderful world of Pokémon , as well as well as me sharing some thought on matters of that week.

Pokémon Community Day of July Mudkip
Pokémon Go, becoming increasingly stale to myself, is holding their community day this week. In just a few hours we will be able to hunt shiny mudkip, trivialising the once rare species once more, Niantic continues it’s trend of force feeding shinies and devaluing them further for trade. That said Mudkip is a nice shiny it’s purple colour really works well with the muddy being..whatever it may be as some weird tadpole , frog thing hybrid.
The Rocket expansion dropped this week as well, alongside concepts like shadow Pokémon.. this reporter really wished they would just add in more Pokémon and cycle them out just a bit more. We are here to catch pocket monsters after all. I like walking and hunting for Pokémon a lot, I do not even mind raids and gym battles that much but as we draw closer to completing our Pokédexes, Niantic would rather bring us new features to capture old Pokémon yet again. If I wanted to battle Team Rocket I would play a full on title, and for shadow Pokémon , the gamecube…or emulators offer much better alternatives. Maybe it is time for this reporter to bow out of Team Mystic, and try to become a master.

Pokémon Master News: The Poryphone, Co-op and Sygna Suits.
A new trailer and info dropped on Pokémon Masters, and I must say, it looks absolutely stunning. Although a lot of people have been giving Nintendo flack for focussing on phones rather then their mainline games I really like the concept of Pokémon Masters, and for fans it’s just an opportunity to play more Pokémon, I know I have been negative on P-Go just now.. but that is not because it’s a bad game, I like it’s core concept , this reporter dislikes it currently because it’s becoming lackluster in it’s core in favor of added features. Think of it like Pokémon Snap getting updates, but instead of new Pokémon to photograph or new stages to travel on, we get snapchat filters or mini games added to it. However Pokémon Masters is looking pretty darn good, offering a new battle format and bringing Pokémon the legacy game it very much deserved. It’s a 3 vs 3 legacy battling game where you collect legendary trainers and their signature Pokémon from throughout all generations, to win Gym Badges to compete in the Pokémon Masters League. Every trailer so far looks absolutely stunning, though in the last one a lot of assets from the old one have been reused. The latest updates reveals , two maybe three new things.
The most minor one will be the Porygon-phone .. which might double as a Pokédex. A cute device shaped like our virtual pal. Why we did not get Rotom Phone? Unclear maybe this one is not sentient and just a phone case. Reporter Pinkie will find out for you this summer. Next it was announced that the game will feature a Co-Op function where you and two of your friends…maybe me if you’ll let me batte along… can fight NPC”s and challenge the game together. A mode that can be some great fun if you ask me and can bring some extra dynamics to the whole 3 on 3 system. Hopefully not everyone will use a Pikachu though. Yours truly has yet to hear about PvP possibilties but is dying to find out.
The last announcement on the game are so called Sygna Suits, these are alternative skins, with a VERY special effect. It changes your allies signature Pokémon. For example regular brock uses an Onix, while Sygna Brock uses a Tyranitar. Both still have their eyes closed. How Brock knows he is wearing a different outfit is currently unknown, but hey at least he is finally using a decent Pokémon.
So far Masters looks promising , however the lack of a launch date makes me fear there might be a lot of patchwork left to do, which takes indefinite time, but we will have to see and find out.

Where is Impidimp
Finally a small pondering. During E3 2019 we got to play with two new Pokémon, Yamper, the normal electric good dog, and Impidimp the pink little devil, that is the amazing fairy dark type. Since E3 , Yamper and its ability Ball Fetch, which is sooooo adorable and clever, has been officially announced and features on the Pokémon website. Yet of Impidimp there isn’t any trace. Alongside Yamper, Rolycoly and Duraludon have been announcement, which raises the question: Where is Impidimp? Have you seen the little devil? If so contact us at 555-(that means a phone number is fake)IMPIDIMP, or leave a like and tips in the comments.

Good Luck with your Shiny Hunt, let us know how many you caught. Will you play Pokémon Masters? Where do you think Impidimp is? Be sure to tune in next week for some more Pink-Poke-News, but most of all stay pink.
Until we read again.