[EXPRESSO] Godzilla Defense Force iOS | ♫ To protect Mother Earth… ♫

The second of the three mobile Godzilla games promised by Toho for 2021, advertised a month ago as Godzilla Battle Line, published by Nexon and co-developed by Neople and Studio 42.

After the odd but cute stats raising-pet simulator of Run Godzilla, now we have a more traditional offering for a mobile licensed spin-off game. It’s not exactly a proper tower defense, but more of a tapper with RTS elements: units despatch and attack automatically the enemy waves from building you can upgrade, but you can also tap on them for extra damage (especially when their weak points show up), or use the various Kaiju Cards left by fallen monsters and/or obtained via card packs, of course available to purchase for real money.

It’s a decent little timewaster, a little more engaging than the usual tapper, but it’s aggressively monetized, even if it’s oddly pushy in making you watch ads to boost stats like production speed or to get resources, instead of just saying “cough up the cash to save time”, and i feel it’s the lesser evil of the options they could have gone with. BUT it still feeds into the same objective: to get you spending real money on the card packs and batches of premium currency, especially since the game remembers you revenge can be had easier by wiewing ads, etc.

Presentation is good, the story is what you’d expect, as an EDF commander you organize a defense line to repel kaijus attacking Earth, often sent and/or resurrected by the evil aliens called Xilliens. By progressing you get new locations to build bases, the ability to summon new allies with passive abilities, new monsters (some obscure references to Toho’s non-Godzilla material), making for a decent and entertaining loop, even if you’d wish for a bit more depth to it.

[EXPRESSO] Run Godzilla iOS | Tamakaiju

Toho plans to release not one, not two, but THREE Godzilla mobile games this year worlwide, and the first one is the already available Run Godzilla, which isn’t an endless runner (despite the title kinda implying it), but more a simulator-raising game where you take care of your very own kaiju in order to… make it run like a horse.

I’ve seen people describe it as basically Uma Musume but with kaijus instead of horse girls… and it’s not that far off. And by that i mean it’s basically a stat building game where you increase the stats of the monster before taking on races, where you can just tap a button to encourage the monster to go faster, but that’s about it, you don’t control the kaiju directly.

Strenghtening the monster is done via a typical idle game setup, as you juggle resources to have enough people praying for the monster to grow, extend the time they will stay in the group, pick up apples and gems to recruit more people, and change weather to influence the growth of a some stats over others. The kaiju itself has an “expiration date” which can’t be extended, but the following generation/monster will inherit some experience points, and the loop repeats.

It’s more complex to look at than to actually play, just a thing you’re supposed to tinker with on a somewhat regular base, as timers keep running regardless, so you might come back to find the your digital “pet kaiju” (one you don’t have to feed or “poopscoop”) already dead/expired.

It’s a thing to thinker with more than play, and while it’s very honest about it, outside of the initial novelty it’s hard to care for long if you have at least another free-to-play game/app you keep coming back to regularly.

[EXPRESSO] Crash Bandicoot: On The Run iOS | N.Sane Freeconomy

After a soft-launch in some Asian countries last year, now the Crash Bandicoot runner (developed by trademark abuser & bully King, yes, i have the power of “memory”) launched worldwide, and since i still can’t find Crash Bandicoot 4 at a decent price, might as well review this.

Cortex is up to his usual stuff, which means he sent his minions to conquer various dimensions, but Coco found a way to kick their asses and save the multiverse, which involves Crash and Aku running their way through familiar levels.

After you’ve crafted the weapons required for the boss or to even enter the level, with the usual gaggle of resources needed to craft items and timers, all avoidable with the premium currency. And of course the usual gaggle of base building stuff and social integration. You might say it’s at least upfront about it being a free-to-play game, i will say that Activision and associates evidently don’t feel it necessary to even mask the issue, so they just start pummelling your resolve very early, even if you do know the shitty deal, doesn’t matter.

The gameplay itself it’s alright, i mean, a Crash Bandicoot endless runner makes a LOT of sense, it looks good and runs well, but it doesn’t really stand out in this crowded genre, even if this does have finite levels, alongside looping and proceduraly generated ones. It starts very run of the mill, but the level design does improve after the initial phase and there are some tough extra challenges.

Shame new areas and story runs aren’t that distinct or well designed to be worth the grinding and farming they’re locked behind, which only gets more taxing as the game progresses and keeps pestering you into buying the premium currency.

Vexation which isn’t optional, at all.

Princess Connect RE: Dive iOS [EXPRESSO] | Idle Moe Mediocrity

Now that “Priconne” has gone global, let’s give it a look.

Ok, story. You start in the usual “media res battle you lose”, then wake up as your generic male fantasy anime protagonist, now amnesiac but apparently a prince-knight known by everyone else in the world, so alongside your girl retainer and various battle princesses you go on a quest to scale Sol Tower and get a wish granted.

At least it’s not an isekai (?).

Combat is automated with interaction restricted to activate special skills when charged up… that’s it. There’s no complicated system to power up characters, so it’s not confusing but it’s also lacking any real depth, it just a matter of upgrading enough the characters and choosing the party composition, especially the latter i can see being important when you’re in deep with the harder levels.

Not that i will be reaching that point, but still, i don’t consider “the game really playing itself” a plus, even in a game like this where gameplay is vestigial to the “idle waifu collecting” activities.

One filled with lots of just….incredibly generic fantasy anime moe designs. There are some exceptions like the Alpaca Princess, but not many interesting or good designs. This is to make the rarer characters more desirable and con you into buying premium currency for the gacha.

While the F2P elements aren’t abrasive, the game is relatively generous in giving out gems/crystals and doesn’t gate features with insane grinding… it’s manipulative generousity, there’s always a catch.

The games uses clips from the anime series (which look good), production values are high, it’s harmless, inoffensive, but i just find Priconne to be very disposable and uninteresting, if i didn’t force myself to do some decent progress before writing this review i would have dropped it on day 2.

That’s the sound of 10 years of Ken’s Rage

Sorry to “interrupt” Dino Dicember, but i wanna talk a bit about Koei’s musou series based on Fist Of The North Star, dubbed Ken’s Rage. If you follow any gaming news site, you’ve might already know of this, but since we do have some preview footage running around, i feel the time it’s right to talk about what Koei did to celebrate the 10th year anniversary of Ken’s Rage.

(images taken from Siliconera)

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[EXPRESSO] Super Mario 35 NSWDDL | Mario Royale

Ah, the Mario battle royale game nobody asked for, but it’s here regardless to celebrate the series 35^th anniversary, and like the Super Mario 3D All Stars collection, it will be only available until the 31^th of March 2021.

That’s… a way to make people excited about investing time in a thing it will die by design in 6 months. Also, it’s an exclusive for Nintendo Switch Online subscribers, available for “free” in the same way Tetris 99 was.

And the game it structured in a similar fashion, just applying it to 35 players with the gameplay of Super Mario Bros on the NES, so everyone starts from a SMB stage with 35 seconds on the timer and can hinder the other players by defeating enemies, which get you extra seconds and sends the defeated goons to appear and try to hamper the other players. Coins can be stored and used to purchase power-ups before, or get power-ups from a “?” block if you get at least 20 coins on that run.

There are timed special challenges, a training mode and a standard ranking system that give you more icons for the profile, but not much else.

And it’s… ok, i guess? I don’t hate it, but it’s not that compelling either, after some matches you feel kinda done already, frankly. There is something to it, not that much, and while it’s clear players that already have amassed enough coins can use that to keep an advantage, you can still win and use some strategies like in Tetris 99, especially when you unlock the later levels (with tougher enemies) of SMB.

Cute idea to celebrate the 35^th Mario anniversary, yes, but it won’t keep your attention up for long, almost by design, given it will become useless in 6 months.

[EXPRESSO] Pokemon Masters EX iOS | The Rolling Girls (& Boys)

Pokemon Masters EX iOS.PNG

I usually don’t re-review smarthphone games (i did an Expresso review of the game in italian soon after launch one year ago), but since i didn’t really touch the game after spending time on it for the review, i actually enjoyed it enough, and Nintendo feels the update is so big to warrant a title “upgrade” (hence the “EX”), i will indulge this time.

As one would expect, in time they added more extra modes and stuff to do, even Pokemon eggs (alongside the stuff added as part of the anniversary update, which brought also a new interface)… but they also added freemium elements that weren’t in the game at launch, like the “energy meter”, and of course more stuff for the gacha, and this game is one of those that differentiates between premium currency gotten in-game and paid. Still, they didn’t add lootboxes or more monetization system, and admittely the game launched a little bare on content, not broken or unfinished, but DENA clearly underestimated how ravenous gamers can beat in days what was intended to be consumed in weeks or months.

And i feel bad that ultimately Pokemon Masters is so reliant in the gacha to really lure you back in, because the gameplay itself is (and was) fairly solid, as it’s basically the classic Pokemon combat formula but as a 3 vs 3 affair, with some semplification to accomodate it not being turn based, and a slightly revised system of types’ compatibility. Along with new passive abilities for defense, it’s the closest we have to a proper Pokemon game on smarthphones/mobile, and it’s the better one we got yet. Surely better than that Pokemon Rumble Rush (RIP?).

Still, a fairly good mobile game i don’t really care to play with any sort of frequency.
Or give money to, honestly.

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[EXPRESSO] Ninjala NSWITCHDDL | Not Squids, Ninja Kids, Now

Ninjala NSWITCHDDL.jpg

GungHo Online Entertaiment’s ninja themed free-to-play answer to Splatoon, announced years ago, then delayed but now available.

Gameplay-wise….. it’s basically Splatoon, but built as a melee based score deathmatch affair (with respawns), with the ink gimmick replaced by the Ninja Gum, essential as you can throw it, use it to dash mid-air, to transform into an object, or to fashion a stronger version of your weapon. If you can get enough “gum energy” from the drones, that is, which can also be used to activate a super move, alongside regular abilities with cooldowns.

Given this is melee combat only, weapon clashes are frequent – if not constant – so it’s not good that despite tutorials with Youtube videos baked in, trying to gain the upper hand always feels messy. No wonder, since it basically boils down to a QTE guessing game. There is more to Ninjala, there are abilities and complexities to learn (like wall running), but after a confusing first impression (made worse by a completely unbalanced matchmaking), where you either keep winning or losing without knowing WHY, you realize there the cool ideas and mechanics are flawed regardless.

On top of that, there are only 2 maps available right now, two modes (battle royale or team deathmatch), but the game is already bursting with freemium bullshit: various currencies, gacha, battle passes, cosmetic stuff like hats. And a story mode..10 bucks/5 eurobucks for chapter. ALSO, there are consumable weapon skins.

Art direction obviously apes Splatoon and it’s pretty good (ditto for the audio department), but technically speaking is just alright, though fairly stable in my experience.Mind you, it’s fun, despite the messy gameplay (some really messy design choices) and lack of content at the moment.

I’d just buy Splatoon 2 instead, to be blunt, but it’s worth try as it’s “nominally free”.

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[EXPRESSO] One Piece: Bon Bon Journey iOS | Match-3 Pirates

One Piece Bon Bon Journey iOS

There are many One Pieces videogames, even on smarthphones. This is another one, one that i actually pre-registrered for, but i didn’t noticed it released worlwide a couple of months ago.

For smarthphones we already had a One Piece lite RPG, a beat em up, a fighting game (among others never released outside of Japan, China or are defunct), so i guess it was time for a puzzle game, a match-3 with objectives (in the vein of that puzzle game that rimes with “baba yaga”), done in a chibi-esque style, with the numerous, regognizable and highly marketable cast of One Piece characters rendered as mini-sized round shaped head-dolls, like a cross between the actual “bon bons” pastry items and nicely decapited collectable figures.

And to my surprise, it’s actually fairly good, not original in any shape or form, but it actually retells the story from the beginning in a fairly decent manner (especially given the aesthetic choice), and finds ways to work the various scenes (even minor ones like the girl giving an onigiri to a tied Zoro in Shells Town) into the gameplay, with various goals and gimmicks to keep things interesting. This also means having a “toy on toy” style cutscenes for the more serious or epic scenes, like the ending of the Dracule Mihawk VS Zoro fight at the Baratie… which is a thing, not sure if good or bad though.

As far as the freemium economy goes… it’s nothing worthy of particular scorn, the usual free-to-play crap that is to be expected nowadays (shit as it is), with timers and gacha, but nothing out of the ordinary you haven’t already seen, and often done worst. Despite the usual freemium crap, here you can actually do some progress in a reasonable manner even in the later stages.

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[EXPRESSO] Helltaker STEAM | Best Grills

Helltaker STEAM

So, there’s this new game on Steam, describing itself as “a short game about sharply dressed demon girls”, with promise of anime harem (but again it points out “Suggestive clothing and poses. Don’t put your hopes too high though – it’s all tame.”), and it’s free. You can already see why it’s become somewhat of a sensation in the community. Which leads us to this question: are the demon girls cute? (YES)

As far as gameplay goes, it’s not what you might think given this premise, a puzzle game where you (as a sharply dressed and shades wearing badass) kick blocks, skeletons, get keys, avoid traps and proceed through Hell in a turn based fashion, with a turn limit to reach the end of the each level, where you meet a different demon girl in a visual novel-esque segment where you choose from a couple of replies and hope you charmed and/or convinced the hell cutie to join the harem. Otherwise they’ll stab you to death or give you a bad end of some kind.

Fairly good puzzles overall, but the game lets you skip them if you just want to get to the demon girls, with great character designs and very good music.

My main gripe isn’t the short lenght (you can finish it in 1, max 2 hours), is that the multi-stage boss fight at the end requires really fast reflexes and to keep moving around really fast… in a game that’s 90% turn based puzzle game without timers or urgency. It comes out of nowhere and feels more frustrating than it should, since the game doesn’t prepare you for that in any way. It’s like if at the end of a Dynasty Warriors battle you were forced to play a long RTS style map.

Still, quite good and quite the treat!

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