#and being totally in sync playing co-op games and still trying to one-up each other even when we're on the same team hehe

[copiawife]

i went to this place today with a bunch of arcade and pinball machines and had a super fun time and now i'm thinking about arcade date fluff with copia....

[hashtag-anthems]

Preliminary Thoughts on Pokémon Masters

I say preliminary as though I’m not on the chapter where I get my fifth badge...

Gameplay

So the battle system is interesting. It was a little counter-intuitive when I first started playing, but overall I don’t dislike it. It’s a real-time game instead of a turn-based one, so that took some getting used to. Managing your sync pairs is a bit of a hassle since you need a new type for every chapter, and you have to make sure everyone is of a sufficient level. The level curve isn’t drastic, but it is annoying having to watch your level caps. Every new sync pair you get is a 3-star, which means they can only go up to level 30 without the player raising their level cap, and considering you hit a point where you have to have a team of Lv. 45+ Pokémon to stand a chance against opponents, that’s already two level cap increases, which use up a lot of items when you have to do it to a lot of sync pairs. So grinding for items and experience is a big part of the game.

There seem to be items you can use to increase a sync pair’s star level, but I haven’t found any from missions or stages, so how plausible that system is has yet to be seen.

Evolution is... interesting. You have to level up a sync pair, then complete a side story to evolve the Pokémon, but not every sync pair is capable of evolving their Pokémon.

Thankfully there isn’t any sort of stamina system, so you can power through as many stages as you want and try them as many times as you need to in order to win. Which is helpful when you have to experiment with different team compositions and strategies.

Summoning

The summoning system is another gacha where you pay premium currency to get more sync pairs. It isn’t... required, I guess, because you do get free sync pairs of varying types just by playing the main story, but it definitely helps to summon for more. It seems like 5-star guarantee pulls are exclusive to the Sync Scouts that take paid gems, so even if you do a 10-pull from the free one, you’re never guaranteed a 5-star. It costs 3,000 gems for a 10-pull, 300 for a 1-pull, and there’s a “daily discount” that costs 100 paid gems, but you can only use it once per day. It does seem like they’re limiting how many paid gems you can use in a day, but people with money to drop on this game are still going to have an advantage. Free gems come 10 at a time when you complete a stage for the first time, whether it’s a battle or just exposition, so you would have to complete 300 stages to earn enough gems for a 10-pull. 

Summoning rates for 4- and 5-star sync pairs are predictably low, and the current summoning pool is tragically small, but they’re almost definitely going to expand it in future events. Summoning duplicates will just power up the one you already had, so it isn’t a total waste if you get sync pairs you already have. 

The one (somewhat) redeeming feature is that for each summoning event, if you can build up 400 scout points (1 point per 100 gems spent on scouting) you can pick any sync pair you want and automatically get it. Scout points are unique to the summoning event you scout from, and they will be lost when the summoning event ends. If it was easier to get gems, this would be a great system.

Multiplayer

I’ll be honest, I know that there are co-op battles, but I haven’t tried them out. They seem to be the only thing you can do with your friends. Considering how many items you need to maintain your team, it would be great if you could send gifts to your friends like you can in PoGo. Overall, I don’t see a lot of importance being placed on multiplayer features in this game.

Story and Characters

Okay, the storyline is kind of compelling, but the story-to-battle ratio is sadly pretty small. You’ve got your generic baddies, Team Break, who just seem to want to steal Pokémon. You’ve got the pretentious rich boy, Lear, and his lackeys, who look down on everyone else for being too friendly with their Pokémon. Your rival isn’t around enough to be a compelling rival, honestly. I’ve seen him twice, and I haven’t even gotten to battle him. And I’m almost done collecting badges for the Pokémon Masters League. What’s a rival if you don’t get to test your strength against him every so often?

They do a pretty good job of giving some more personality to existing characters, but the new characters exclusive to this game fall a little flat in my opinion. The voice acting is pretty good in both English and Japanese, given that they only voice a few small clips that get used over and over. 

They actually aren’t going too Kanto-heavy on the currently available characters right now, which was a pleasant surprise. Your first recruits are Brock and Misty, but then most of your future free recruits are from the other games, and the current summoning event is focusing on Kris.

Overall impression

This is going to be a gacha-based time- and money-sink just like Fire Emblem Heroes and Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp were. Its big appeal is that it’s Pokémon, and brand loyalty is a powerful thing. Presumably, they’re saving the most-beloved characters for future events where you’ll have a 1.4% chance of getting them on any given pull, and because you can’t earn a lot of free gems, you’ll want to spend money to make sure you get your faves. 

Story-wise, I hope it gets more compelling in future updates, because I’m pretty far into it, and I’m getting tired of fighting pseudo-Team Rocket.