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Each time they “awaken to their potential”, you are granted three Potential points to use that will directly raise the stats of your choosing. Rather than relying on leveling up or using a ton of consumable items to adjust a monster’s Speed or Defense stats, they now have a Potential meter that grows with experience points in tandem with their Level meter. This inhibits the chances that players might simply button-mash their way through battles and requires you to be more strategic with your approach.Īnother interesting level of detail is that you now have the ability to directly alter your monster’s stats in a much easier way. Less effective attacks require less SP, while a strong guaranteed knockout move will take up more of that pool. Instead of having each move be tied to a certain number of uses, Coromon all have Stamina Points, which is a shared pool that different moves pull from. Each has four moves to choose from (although these can be swapped out as they level up), and they can only use certain moves a certain number of times. One (sometimes two) monsters enter the battle and duke it out according to the will of you, the trainer. To get right into it, the basic battle mechanics are the same that we’ve seen on countless titles since 1996. As their project has grown and they’ve taken on additional staff, the focus of the game is still clear: to be a nostalgic monster-catcher that is also reminiscent of Golden Sun or The Legend of Zelda. It makes sense then to find out that Jochem Pouwels and Marcel van der Made (the two founders of TRAGsoft) have been working on Coromon for seven years. But what makes this title more than a cheap clone of a successful franchise is that it’s clear many hours have been spent refining what works and buffing out what didn’t. Yes, there are many aspects of Coromon that you have seen or experienced before in the Pokémon series. GAMEPLAY – WELL-POLISHED MACHINEĪs one would expect, this game is all about catching, and battling with, monsters. Nearly every town and building has someone who provides some entertaining pun or sly reference (Weird Al Yankovic fans, keep your eyes peeled), but as players, we aren’t overwhelmed with the number of jokes that need to be clicked through to get to quest hints or mechanic tips. You could go too hard, like in something such as Dungeon of Naheulbeuk or Hero-U, which both suffer from the sheer amount of jokes they tried to include.Ĭoromon has struck the perfect middle ground between funny and helpful within NPC dialogue. Many indie teams have tried to balance plentiful jokes with quality humor, but this is a very hard thing to achieve.
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don’t particularly try to achieve well-written side characters and one-off jokes that actually land. Most NPCs in games like this, be it Pokémon, older Final Fantasy titles, etc. The other thing that I feel gives this game such a boost is the dialogue. There are even optional unlockable accessories that you can wear, such as fun hats.
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As the game goes on, different quests require you to don different outfits, and your character’s appearance changes to reflect that.
#Coromon perfect skin#
Your character can be customized more than you might think, as you can adjust skin color, hairstyles, and clothes in hundreds of different combinations as you see fit. Different upgrades will be used to maneuver your way through the environment and to solve puzzles, adding another layer of gameplay on top of the monster battling. This all might be a thinly veiled version of a Professor granting you a Pokédex, but with the addition of new components that can be slotted into your Gauntlet (yes, you have a dope gauntlet like it’s a Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Disk) make the game progression much more interesting. By joining this “Titan Taskforce”, you are granted access to new innovations that will aid in your work. The basic premise is that your character has recently been hired by a massive technology company, Lux Solis, to research six “Titans” that can be found throughout the region. TRAGsoft has laid out an interesting concept filled with smart writing and fantastic jokes. 3) GRAPHICS/AUDIO – TERRIFIC THROWBACK STORY – YOU ARE AN UNPAID INTERN
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