39.0 hours played
Written 25 days ago
As a long time fan of Pokemon, I am always looking for monster collecting games that give me the same feeling, but either improve upon or expand upon mechanics and themes that Pokemon has, so i saw a review on here scorning Coromon for being 'just another Pokeclone' and being 'too grindy.' Well, I love grinding levels out in games and I love Pokemon so much, I'd be chuffed to play a game that is just another copy. Seeing Coromon on sale, and reading that negative review, I decided to buy the game.
I'm 20 hours and some change into the game and I'm wondering if that reviewer just didn't play past the first village, or if they were being willfully ignorant. Coromon is a wonderfully addicting monster collector, and really blew away any expectations and preconceived notions I had going in. Where do I even start?
First as a professional artist and animator, what caught me right away was the wonderful design of the monsters, and the charming hand animated sprites for each of them. I can tell a lot of thought and love went into making these creatures and giving them their idle animations. The pixel art is whimsical and nostalgic, and I often catch myself just staring at the monsters and their animations in the middle of a battle. The backgrounds during a battle are also thoughtfully crafted, with each area having a detailed background that really helps set the mood and draw you into the scene, and they have lots of little subtle environmental animations as well which i really appreciate- they could have just been still images, but the artists went that extra mile to make it feel alive.
Speaking of settings, I am really impressed with hose sizeable each of the towns are, how many hidden items and little quests there are, and how full and alive they managed to make each town/city feel. The towns feel lived in, they have lots of things to inspect and find, without feeling crowded or overwhelming. Each town has a very specific vibe and theme and I love seeing the little characters and Coromon wandering around.
Another feature I enjoy is that Coromon's versions of 'shinies' come in tiers, and also have more potential for better stats. Every few levels you get the option to allocate 3 stat points to your coromon, but the 'shinies' have more opportunities for these bonus skill levels. its a very fun mechanic and a way to experiment with either boosting the stats that the monster is already proficient in, or padding their stats where they may be otherwise lacking.
The game has Big god-tier monsters you fight instead of gym leaders, and each monster has puzzles and trials that you must pass before fighting them, and I really enjoy it because they aren't particularly hard, but they aren't a cakewalk either, there is a level of challenge that I find enjoyable and makes the game last longer in a way that doesn't feel like a slog. When you finally reach these monsters, each boss fight has its own special little mechanic worked in to make them feel unique.
I like the concept that the typing system goes into, you have your standard water,fire,ice,normal, and air. Then you have ghost and magic, and then there are moves that sometimes have completely separate typing (like sharp, heavy, and foul) I'll be honest and say that some of the typing matchups don't make complete sense to me, but the game makes it easy enough to check during battle, and If they ever make another game in this series, I would really ,like to see them expand coromon types but also the moves that have their own special typing.
The game also allows you to interact with the environment frequently via a mechanic called your 'gauntlet' It's really fun! you can use it to break barriers, push obstacles, attract monsters, scan for items, it's fun and I like any mechanic in these kinds of games that allows you to interact with the environment more than just walking around.
I think i am about halfway through the game, so far I can say the story is not super deep or ground breaking, but its pretty solid for a monster collector, it's pretty well written and interesting and all of the characters have fun and engaging dialog that keeps me interested and not wanting to just skip through so I can get to the next battle. I think the story COULD be stronger, but i don't think it is bad by any means.
The battle system is very typical of mosnter collectors, simple turn based with a priority move system. In that regards it is very much like pokemon, I saw somebody list this as a negative, but I personally don't mind. I don't think every creature collector needs to break every single formula that pokemon has set, in fact, I went in expecting pokemon and really, I don't think there's much to compare other than catching monsters and evolving them!
Overall, this is a very lovely game that I can't stop playing, I bought it maybe a week ago and I have been obsessively playing it every night after work and whatever spare time I could squeeze in on the weekend. I think Coromon can absolutely stand on it's own, and calling it a Pokeclone is doing it a disservice, as there is a lot of work and love that went into the lore and design of this world that makes it uniquely its own. I highly reccommend it to anybody looking for a fun creature collector, with a bit of challenge (but not too much of a ball twister.)
Oh- also- it really is NOT that grindy. if you think this game is grindy I don't know what to tell you fam, part of the fun of these games is taking the time to level up your team, maybe these games just aren't for you if spending an hour to level up your entire team is 'too grindy.'