Pokemon Quest Review
Recently, Nintendo has put more effort towards their mobile games, either by releasing new ones, or updating the previously released ones. However, their most recently announced mobile game, Pokemon Quest, has already been released preemptively on the Nintendo Switch. While this may be in an effort to show it off early, and possibly score some extra cash, this means it will be held up to a higher set of standards. So, does Pokemon Quest work well as both a mobile and a Switch game?
Story
The story is a bare bones as most Pokemon spin offs. You’re a Pokemon researcher who goes to explore Tumblecube Island, and you befriend and fight Pokemon along the way.
Gameplay
Now, this is where Pokemon Quest shows its true colors, and they don’t look so good. That’s because, you basically don’t even need to do anything to play the game. The main gameplay is sending out a team of three Pokemon to explore areas and fight other Pokemon. In fact, there’s even an auto button that literally plays the game for you. But there’s no option to turn off the fact that the Pokemon walk around their own, so you just have to press the attack button. There’s a way to make a game like this, but still have the player be engaged. It wouldn’t have been much trouble to just let people tap the screen to have the Pokemon go there.
However, the more engaging gameplay actually lies outside the main mode. That’s because you do the most at your base camp. There you can add decorations, change up your team, give them items, and cook recipes to ttract wild Pokemon. But this doesn’t keep you very engaged for more than a few minutes at a time.
Presentation
Pokemon Quest’s presentation is probably the best thing about it, as it has this bright and happy feel, and everything is made out of blocks. This creates a fun representation of pixelated Pokemon in 3D. Not only that, all the backgrounds of the areas you explore look great, but are still very simplistic.
Final Thoughts
Honestly, Pokemon Quest just isn’t a very good game. That’s mostly because, you don’t really have to do anything. It’s trying to act like a level by level dungeon crawler, but it doesn’t really work. However, it can be fun every once in a while, but even for an app, it’s too bare bones and hands off.
