I love the concept behind Invizimals: The Alliance- the idea that there is a hidden world that exists alongside our own and you are part of a research group, trying to understand the creatures that reside in this world, is an interesting concept. Unfortunately, the delivery of this concept isn't as good.

So, Invizimals is Sony's attempt at entering in the monster hunting/fighting genre and I will say, at least they tried to make things a bit different to Pokemon. Sure, the monsters you collect are really only used to fight and by fighting, they gain experience and with enough experience they level and will eventually evolve into a more powerful form. However, unlike Pokemon, Invizimals has a more action orientated combat system, which does make the player more engaged, as you must conserve your stamina for attacks, as well as timing your shields and dodges. At leats for this, Invizimals is engaging to play.

However, the other major part of Invizimals, the collecting, is incredibly frustrating. You see, in Invizimals: The Alliance you have to AR cards to catch each creature in their own mini game. Whilst I like the idea of augemented reality gaming, I have yet to find a game that actually implements it well. Unfortunately, Invizimals does not succeed in this area. Half the time, you will be struggling to get the camera to read the cards and when you do manage to get the cards and camera to line up, you then hae to contend with the mini games. Each mini game uses some aspect of the Vita from the front and rear touch pads, to the camera to the microphone. I found that about half the time I was trying to complete these mini games, the game would not register when I touched the screen or when I was using the microphone. I know its not my Vita that's the issue as it does not struggle with games, like Tearway, which also uses these Vita features. And with no checkpoints in these mini games, if you fail, you have to start from the beginning leading to rather frustrating experience.

That's not to say the whole game is bad. I liked the different Invizimal designs. Each Invizimal was unique and you could easily identify each one. They also played very differently- the Phoenix was fast but unable to take too many hits whilst Jungelous, a large mossy goant, was much slower but delivered incredibly powerful attacks. This encouraged me to try out different Invizimals in battle, rather than stiocking with just a handful of them.

Overall, the idea behind Invizimals is fantastic, however the delivery of the concept is what lets the game down. Instead of trying to force every PS Vita feature to be used in the game and the heavy realiance of AR gameplay, the developer's should have focussed more on the story and the Invizimals themselves. I know there are some Invizimals games that don't use the AR cards, so I will be trying one of those but I would suggest that you stay away from The Alliance, unless you are an Invizimals fan wanting to experience all of the Invizimals games.