Jul 27

Jul 27 Review | Coromon - Gotta Gather Them In Their Entirety

My first adventure of Coromon cave crawling was a somewhat nostalgic feeling of being swarmed by digital critters. I satisfyingly ploughed through them, mostly with my starting ‘mon; the snowball-shaped ice-bear, Cubzero. Despite the pile of lesser trainers whittling down my resources, I reach the broken generator I was sent to repair. I see a scientist, and psyche myself up for laying down a serious trainer fight. Maybe it’s a full squad of ‘mon? He tells me to fix the fuse box nearby. The battle music kicks up and I do end up having a boss battle…with the fuse box. What?

Coromon is by all accounts an unapologetic Pokémon clone. Its pure love for the earlier pocket monster generations seeps through in every facet. While it has its own quirks and charms, its swathe of quality of life improvements and streamlining while keeping the feeling of these classic Gameboy era games that make it a joy for any fan of the genre.

Nearly all of the combat and general rules and mechanics just straight up are those from Pokémon. Even down to the generational-specific things like holding berries and weather are here. However, the choice differences are nearly all good decisions.

Tutorials, gameplay information and quest objectives are all just much better conveyed to the player. Even mid-battle, you can whip out the type charts for your Coromon. You can assess this against you and your opponents ‘mon to focus on the right weaknesses at the right time. Also, at 114 unique ‘mon and seven ‘mon types (plus six unique move types) there is already less of a burden of knowledge compared to the decades of Pokémon it feels like you have to be familiar with these days.

There are also a lot of mechanics that free up the tedium. For example, ’mon can pick and choose moves rather than lose them for good. There’s also a universal stamina resource, with stronger moves using more stamina. This opens up a lot more tactical decisions for both defenders and attackers in turn-based action.

There are also dozens of difficulty, accessibility and customisation options to make unique runs that caters to more hardcore players. Even a specific difficulty setting is included to recreate the popular Pokemon ‘Nuzlocke’ hard mode fan-mod where ‘mon are permanently lost if they faint.

All good showdowns take place in the rain.

In terms of the presentation, during the overworld and exploration segments it’s a clear homage to indie pixel games. It comes off a bit standard but it works. It’s clean and cute and at the end of the day most of those games were basing their style off of Gameboy games anyway.

But during combat, ‘mon and backgrounds have unique and vibrant pixel art. The best part is the unique ‘mon animations are just very charming. The ‘mon design itself is a bit less cuddly than any of Gamefreak's creations overall. The initial smaller critters are only kinda cute and you’d like a bigger contrast as they evolve into their bigger, badder forms.

This contrasts with the very pun-heavy and goofy story. You’re tasked with gaining energy by defeating the six Titan Coromon. These are nice unique bosses with interesting areas leading up to them. Then there’s the insidious team up to no-good in the background: the fantastical blue-skinned…Wubblonians. It’s very light-hearted and not too serious.

One notable thing about the Switch port was how good the touch screen was. It’s easy to forget about the system's touch screen these days, but for Coromon I used it often. All buttons could responsively be tapped, and when moving your trainer, the digital trackpad responded anywhere on the screen. I’ve rarely seen any done quite so well.

What held Coromon from being up there with comfortably exceeding the best Pokémon are a few things. Some dungeon crawls can feel very long, with several intense floors in a row. This ends up more about attrition rather than interesting battles.

On top of this, dungeons often have tough puzzles. Not many will be fond of frustrating door/switch, moving tile, or sliding puzzle shenanigans.

At the end of these dungeons, you face the titans which are unique fun gimmick boss fights but the Pokémon-themed gyms and badge progression were just more…fun.

Ultimately, Coromon will resonate with some people purely by recreating some of that joy they felt during their first Pokémon. It drops a lot of baggage of the series, at its best, feels like how Pokémon could be if it wasn't too tied to appeasing long-time fans. It’s a delight from its polished combat, challenging dungeons, and gorgeous battle environments and sprites. If people can deal with the long areas and puzzles (or even want that) it could be up there with the other kings of the genre.