Coromon (2020)

I started out really enjoying my time with Coromon but eventually it kind of faded for me and I'm not sure why exactly.

I think most of the creature designs are really cool, and it shakes up the traditional pokemon formula in some interesting ways too. I like how many quality of life features there are as well.

Honestly it could have just been me, who knows, but I was 12 hours into my playthrough and they did a big update which recommended starting a new save and the game just didn't have enough pull to get me to want to start over. I'll definitely revisit this one day and hope my score will go up once I actually finish a full playthrough, but for now at least I'd sum this game up as improving mechanically over pokemon a lot and be fun (3 is still a positive score) but missing some of that secret sauce that pokemon has that keeps me coming back (assuming that secret sauce isn't just nostalgia. Which it might be)

3 / 5 Stars

One of the complaints about pokemon (we're going to talk about pokemon while we review something that ripped it off..tributes it?) is that it's much much too easy. at least for PVE there is no real challenge, beyond the end game of some of them.

Coromon keeps the challenge up, it keeps trainers and wild po-Coromon even with your levels. you'll need to carry plenty of healing items and actually strategize, especially against the titans (this game's gym leaders? I guess?) if you want to succeed. In theory this is good. In practice, all it actually does it make it all slower. progress is slow, every battle is a slog, you are constantly back tracking to heal. Every dungeon becomes a chore, leveling is so slow that there's no room to experiment with your team and evolutions are a rarity. You realize, you miss just plowing through your foes with ease. This wasn't what you wanted afterall.

This isn't the only way that Coromon doesn't replicate the charm of pokemon. It tries to mix up the formula by having Titans in place of Gyms. Titans are sentient monsters (that you can't catch) you must work your way to and fight to collect their essence, as part of the clumsy storyline. It's almost refreshing to do something novel, but without gyms, a league, or a rival, something is missing. There's no motivation. the story, as little as there is, supplies no motive to train up a strong team and take on the challenge. There are other trainers, but they're just aimless one off encounters that have no lasting part of your journey and are all unremarkable.

The Coromon themselves are fine. The designs keep a consistent aesthetic and are varied and interesting. cast in a better story, they would have shined.

There's a few nice tweaks to the formula. Instead of Shiny you have two variants colors on every Coromon with better stats, making finding them more than just about collecting. moves can be re learned the way they can in newer pokemon games. Trainers you trade with will re appear and battle you. sometimes. the puzzles you have to do along the way, and there's a ton, are actaully engaging and fun, the challenge is just right.

all of this just serves as a let down. because there are so many good elements that serve a weak unmotivating overall experience. it's still fun. It's a solid pokemon like game. but it just doesn't capture the magic.

While I felt the game's intro could have used more and better world building, the core gameplay is solid and features a number of improvements and features that make it feel like a more enjoyable core experience than Pokemon.

I'd love to see the developers lean into the elements that help make it unique even more and otherwise just give more of everything in a sequel. I found almost all the monster designs to be great with only a few duds or mons I felt could have benefitted from design tweaks. The element + animal designs were fun, but the best for me were the more unique looking mons that took less obvious inspirations.

Just listing some of the major points instead of how I'd normally review. I'd say this was a 3.5⋆ for me. Not really anything mind-blowing, but a solid game on most fronts.

Some cool things:

• The take on “shinies” in Coromon is two-fold: there are three different variants of every Coromon—standard, potent, and perfect. Each form has a different color, as well as better stat improvements when you go up from standard. The simplest explanation is that your Coromon have a “potential” score and this is generally higher with potent and perfect Coromon. As your Coromon grow, they level up number-wise, but also with a second bar that grants 3 stat points that you can allocate as you please each time it levels. With a higher potential, this bar fills faster, so you get points more often.

• There are Coromon types, but there are also types that apply only to skills (moves/attacks/whatever you want to call them). There are seven types that apply to Coromon themselves (Fire, Water, Electric, Ice, Sand, Normal, and Ghost), and six additional types that apply only to skills (Magic, Foul, Heavy, Air, Poison, Cut). The number of types are pretty limited when you’re used to Pokémon, especially with no dual types, but I still think it’s an interesting system with its own level of complexity.

• There’s a stamina system, instead of PP. Each skill costs a certain number of stamina points. You can have your Coromon rest at any point during battle to regain half of their stamina, or use items to recover it. This kind of forced me to change my habits that I have from Pokemon where, say, I take out 90% of an enemy’s HP in one hit, so I use a “Normal” attack or something weaker to conserve PP of my Fire/Water/whatever attack to finish them off. In this case, that might be a strong Normal move that uses more stamina, so you might as well just use the Fire attack again.

• Just a generally tougher monster collector than Pokémon. There aren’t Gyms or a real likeness to them, but there are several “bosses” and they’re solidly difficult if you aren’t prepared. Some normal-ass trainer fights are also pretty tough sometimes, which is pretty refreshing. You don’t really need to GRIND, especially when you find several exp share-type hold items, but you do need to have a pretty strong team throughout. End-game stuff is around level 70. I was not at level 70 and the final battle was rough.

• Fantastic music throughout the game. Coromon are fully animated in battles, as are the backgrounds, which are beautiful. It’s a really pretty game.

Some not-so-cool things:

• There are double- and triple-battles at random in the wild. You still only get to use one Coromon. This is pretty different from the swarms in Pokémon where they’re all pretty weak. The level might be a bit lower, but generally not drastically. A lot of times it’ll be an evolved and unevolved form together, which is kinda cool, but these fights get tedious.

• This could be a plus for some people, but most of the dungeons were just really long with annoying and/or tedious puzzles which meant a lot of back and forth hitting switches and shit in a game where I was already backtracking to heal a lot (mostly early game to save money), so huge chunks of the game were a bit frustrating.

• There's not much to the story. There's a simple plot as to why you're saving the world and whatnot but there's zero explanation behind it. There are some fourth wall-breaking moments from some NPCs and the game is pretty funny at times, though.

My team (all potent):

Volcadon (starter), Kyraptor, Swampa, Purrghast, Toravolt, Glamoth.

I know that as the resident cat lady I should love Purrghast the most, but Swampa has my heart. And Glamoth. <3

I KNOW THE PICTURES ARE MESSY AHHHH.

Nearing the end of Coromon. Should hopefully have a review up later. Just in time for Temtem tomorrow!!

I played too much Ooblets this weekend instead of finishing Coromon, so now I'm trying to finish it in between writing seven IEPs for meetings this week, in a system I still haven't really been trained in, when I technically am off today. Six years of special education/IEP-writing experience and I'm sitting here feeling as if I've never seen an IEP before. Love ittt. ;--;

First impressions so far, negatives first:

-The presentation and overworld sprites, especially for characters, is not great. I'd say it's serviceable but still a shame it's not as great as the battle screens and sprites.

-The writing is kinda bad, with a combination of weird phrasing or word choices, grammar errors, pop culture references, and what feels weak world building. It does seem to pick up a bit or maybe I'm just getting used to the style of it. It's not as jarring as Nexomon's forced meta jokes at least.

The positives:

-The game overall feels like it took the basic pokemon formula as a foundation and greatly innovated and improved upon it with a variety of quality of life changes.

-The battle sprites, animations, backgrounds and sounds have been great so far and a definite highlight.

-I've enjoyed every Coromon design so far, so it's been really fun to keep seeing new Coromon as a I progress.

I've heard some pretty good things about this and wanted to pick it up at some point. It's on sale on the eShop right now, so I grabbed it yesterday and ended up playing a little bit before bed. (Yes, I'm still playing XC3.)

It's super cute, the music is great, the three starters almost had me pacing trying to decide between them, and I honestly can't wait to sink some more time into it.