Product Info

Platform

Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC

Publisher

PQube Games

Developer

VEWO Interactive

Series

Nexomon

Genre

Adventure, RPG

Players

1

File Size (Minimum)

2.9 GB

Release Date (NA)

Aug 28, 2020

Purchase From

eShop

PSN Store

Steam

Nexomon: Extinction is another average monster catcher RPG that uses Pokémon’s tried-and-true formula, but with accessibility that Pokémon lacks. Available for a mere $20 on the Nintendo Switch, Playstation 4, the PC via Steam, and Xbox One starting on September 25th. Nexomon is a viable option for gamers looking for Pokémon action that don’t own a Switch or don’t want to pay $60, or simply need more pocket monsters in their life.

Trying to Become a Tamer

In Nexomon: Extinction, the player controls a Nexomon tamer (not trainer!) coming up through the ranks of the Nexomon guild. By catching Nexomon in traps and battling other tamers, your tamer grows stronger, allowing you to battle and catch increasingly difficult Nexomon. Your tamer’s goal is to stop the extinction of the human race that will inevitably be caused by Tyrants, giant, powerful Nexomon that are tearing the world apart as they battle each other for dominance.

Gameplay follows standard, turn-based combat, using fast, weak moves in conjunction with stronger, slow moves, buffs, debuffs, healing, and items, to defeat your opponent. Using the correct elemental type gives your Nexomon an advantage over your rival, such as using a water-type Nexomon against a fire-type Nexomon. When battling a fellow tamer, your goal is to defeat their team of one to six Nexomon with your team of six by depleting their whole team to zero hit points. When battling a wild Nexomon, the player decides if they want to defeat it, or attempt to catch it with a Nexotrap. Depleting the wild Nexomon’s HP and stamina gives the player a greater chance at catching it. During the catch phase, the player performs a quick time event (QTE) of eight button pushes with a time limit of about six seconds. While this is a QTE, it’s one of the few moments of fun urgency in the game. It’s unclear how this affects the catch rate, though. Performing it perfectly can still result in a failed catch, and failing the QTE entirely can still result in a caught Nexomon.

No Money, No Captures

A certain amount of grinding is to be expected in this style of game, but Extinction exacerbates the problem by having an unbalanced economy. Even using the correct element type, a Nexomon needs to be healed after nearly every battle, but each battle doesn’t earn enough gold for a healing potion. If the player is attempting to catch the Nexomon, that requires an expensive Nexotrap. Catches fail more frequently than they succeed, so each catch usually takes multiple traps. Constantly requiring healing and more Nexotraps means that gold is in high demand with low supply, so the player is continually forced to return to town where they can receive healing for free. Repeatedly traveling to town, entering a building, and tapping your way through multiple dialogue screens, just so you can grind out a bit of experience or gold, saps a lot of energy from Extinction.

Thankfully, combat shines during boss battles, where your Nexomon team is pushed to its limits against strong teams or a singular powerful opponent, and the player’s attention and thoughtfulness is required for success.

User Interface Outdated

If the grinding isn’t bad enough, Extinction also slows gameplay with poorly designed menus. It takes a full minute and a half to slowly scroll through your database of 381 Nexomon if you don’t know the name or type of a particular creature. Moreover, if you want to compare stats of your Nexomon while assembling your team of six, the player needs to jump between multiple menus. There’s also no record of element effectiveness. With nine types versus nine types, that’s 81 points of data the player needs to memorize (or pull up on their tablet that sits next to them) to use their team in the most efficient manner. Finally, while there is an overworld map utilized for warping between locations, each individual location would have also benefited from a map.

Nexomon’s art and graphics are just unique enough to stand apart from similar games. The locations feature some of the best art in the game, with each section of the map having its own color palette and style, like a fancifully eerie pink and purple haunted forest, or a lava-filled volcano. Some of the monster designs are whimsical, but the majority of them feel dated and uninspired. As for the tamers, the player has some limited creative leeway with picking their tamer’s sprite design, with basic choices of sex, hair color, and clothing. The cute character sprites are frequently more visually appealing than the fully rendered art of the same character, which is done in a typical anime style.

While the character art is a little bland, they make up for it in dialogue and writing. The character interactions are witty and amusing, and the plot is above average for a monster catcher game. A highlight is snarky Coco, your anthropomorphic cat companion, who continually makes snide comments about your friends, adversaries, and the game writers themselves. Nexomon likes to break the fourth wall and make fun of itself with self-deprecating humor, but it never acknowledges the elephant in the room. Perhaps if it had blatantly acknowledged and embraced the fact that it is a Pokémon knock-off, it could have made the funniest joke of all. Instead, it works hard to avoid being a parody.

The Final Catch

Nexomon got its start in 2017 as a cheap and easily accessible phone app. Ultimately, this may have been the better platform for the game, serving customers that don’t have access to Pokémon and gamers on the go. As a console game, Nexomon: Extinction is an adequate Pokémon stand-in, but without all the community excitement and social hype that makes Pokémon so much fun.

A code provided by the publisher for this review and gameplay footage. Nexomon: Extinction available now on the PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, and PC. Coming soon to the Xbox One.