In one of the more unusual turns for Pokémon, the new mobile game Pokémon: Magikarp Jump has been released on mobile devices in a gradual international rollout. This game is developed by Select Button and is a Pokémon-themed spin on its game Survive! Mola Mola. The task? Raise a Magikarp to be as strong as it can be to enter leagues to see how high your Magikarp can jump!
How's this done? It's quite simple. Your first task is to capture a Magikarp by fishing; this is automatic, you'll get a Magikarp and you can then start raising it. You raise it in an aquarium where you can feed it various types of Berries, which respawn every 10 seconds or so or by going through training regimes which regenerate every 30 minutes. These will give your Magikarp CP, which helps determine how high it can jump; that's the stat you need to increase. However, there is a catch. The CP of a Magikarp is limited by its level and its level is limited by your trainer level. Your trainer level is increased by earning experience in the Jump Leagues - this means the Magikarp you catch can only go so far.
Due to this, you end up raising a massive amount of Magikarp as you go through the game. When your Magikarp encounters an opponent that it just cannot beat, then that's the end of the road and you need to start anew and catch a new Magikarp starting from 0. As you'll have levelled up your Trainer rating, this Magikarp will be capable of being stronger. This does, however, show that the game is a considerable grind. You'll need to be continually raising Magikarp from Level 1 all the way up in order to proceed. At time of writing, I've raised 50 Magikarp already.
While this does seem like it could get boring quickly, there are ways that make it go faster. Using Coins you collect in the game you can upgrade the berries and training regimes you have, and you even unlock newer stronger berries and training regimes as you level up. In addition to this, there are also events that happen randomly at the end of some training or league matches that can give you CP, items to help you or coins. However, some of these events do have a chance of making you lose your Magikarp and having to start over, through hilarious instances such as a Pidgeotto carrying it away or it evolving into Gyarados, but you can opt out of doing these events. You can even decorate your aquarium with various items that can give small boosts. Finally, as you progress through the game you can find multiple different looks for Magikarp, such as one looking like an Orca, one being Pink and even Shiny Magikarp which have better CP stats.
There are also a myriad of support Pokémon in the game that you unlock either through completing leagues or purchasing with Diamonds accrued in the game. These Pokémon can have effects such as giving you coins, giving you CP, giving you more food and giving you a free training session.
The leagues are very simple. Each league has between 5 and 20 stages within it and the jumping is literally done by comparison. If your CP is higher, you win. If theirs is higher, they win. However, with Support Pokémon there's a chance that they can give a 5% or 25% boost to your CP. Once you lose a Magikarp in the league, you have to start over from the beginning of the specific league.
This is probably the most disappointing element of the game, as there is a distinct lack of skill and gameplay involved. Making it like a classic golf game where you had to time your tap to get the right jump would have been far more preferable as it makes you feel like you have some control over it, but that is sorely lacking.
As this is a free-to-play game it's fully playable at no cost, and even though it gets to be a significant grind in later levels you can never really feel like you're being blocked off from doing well by not paying in money. The microtransactions are a bit costly, topping out at £31.99/$39.99 for 2,150 Diamonds - which don't go very far - but they do give you access to various decorations and Support Pokémon that would be hard to get if solely relying on the Diamonds given in the game. This does make the game less grind-focused to get through to the end, but it doesn't change how the game works. You'd still be doing the same raise and repeat structure, it's just slightly faster. After buying 2500 Diamonds, however, you do get access to a special Digger item which will give you 100 Diamonds every 22 hours, so there's definite incentive to purchase. Plus, like Pokémon Duel and Pokémon Shuffle Mobile, it limits how much you can spend so you cannot buy more than 5,000 Diamonds every month.
The presentation of the game, meanwhile, is top notch - the artwork is crisp and fitting to the style of game. It's not necessarily fluidly animated, but it matches the aesthetic. Each league has its own look and the Support Pokémon all look great. It's nothing special, but it's definitely a cute look.
The music matches the look as well. It's got great music that definitely has a twist to it. Again, nothing special, but there are specific league themes, aquarium themes and battle themes, all of which are catchy and evoke feelings of classic RPGs and even, in some cases, Yoshi's Safari from the SNES.
Conclusion
Overall, Pokémon: Magikarp is a fascinating package. It has great style, but it severely lacks in gameplay. It feels like the epitome of a generic mobile title with a Pokémon twist, which is somewhat unfortunate. With no gameplay other than feeding the fish and playing "whose stat is bigger?", there's just unfortunately so little to the game. It's definitely something fun to play on the bus or the train to kill time, in a style similar to other mobile games that have you looking after animals or buildings, but it just lacks the depth that we've come to expect from the other Pokémon mobile titles such as Pokémon GO, Pokémon Duel and Pokémon Shuffle. While it's easy to recommend having it on your mobile device, it's hard to recommend paying for microtransactions.
Comments 37
sees gibberish text in screens
....Yeah have they said anything a NA release? lol
I actually saw Derrick play this via GameXplain, seemed somewhat interesting.
Nice to see guest reviews on this site ya know.
If this gets a local Android release, I'll probably give it a try, I don't mind little time wasters and have a certain interest in those sort of number-chasing busywork games.
It stinks.
Those who don't know what that is, check some videos out on Youtube.
@Joeynator3000
I think Italians may take offense to the "gibberish" part XD
@Joeynator3000 Not yet. Coming to Japan tomorrow so probably later this week
@Luna_110 But...but. xD
Clearly the most deserving pocket monster of them all to receive a spin off
I hope their next Pokemon app on mobile would be Jigglypuff Sing. That would be a nice rhythm theme game where you raise a Jigglypuff and teach it to sing many famous songs so to put people to sleep.
@Luna_110 I'm mad at his ignorance, and I'm not even Italian. I realize it's normal for people not to recognize every single language at first glance, but gibberish? Really?
@MarcelRguez
I'm not mad, though. Italian has the same roots as Spanish, good ol' Latin, so it's quite easy for us to identify words, if not phrases in languages such as Italian or French. English doesn't have the same roots, so it is far more difficult to identify foreign words if you don't know the language.
@Luna_110 As a native Spanish speaker myself (and a linguist), I'm well aware of that. I'm just saying that it's a very blatant display of ignorance from his part. If he can't read it, it's his fault, not the language's.
(Not to mention he's a mod; I'd expect a bit more mindfulness from people in that position)
@MarcelRguez So what you're saying is, his opinion is wrong?
@Kalmaro What opinion? Italian is not 'gibberish text' no matter how you slice it, him not understanding it doesn't change that.
@MarcelRguez You do know what gibberish means, right? They could not understand what was written so they described it is gibberish. The world's literally made no sense to them so gibberish is valid.
No need to take it so personally. It was just thier opinion on what they saw.
@Joeynator3000 as an Italian myself I'm not mad, but I think calling any other language "gibberish" is not exactly a display of common sense.
Also, a mod (and reviewer too if I recall correctly) should definitely know better than to post this kind of ignorant comment.
I don't do reviews...
What on earth is the problem here, it's just their opinion. Why are people getting their feathers ruffled over this?
@Kalmaro Yes, it's you who doesn't know what the word means. It's a widely misused word, @Pocky got the actual term right.
'Gibberish' is any text that can't be made sense of because there's no actual meaning behind it. If the text has meaning (as it obviously does in this case) but the reader can't make sense of it, then it's not gibberish. And if you don't get why people might take offense, it's not your place to question it.
Ugh, it's national "Joey unintentionally causes problems in comment sections" Week. >_>
@Joeynator3000 This can only be resolved by you. We're you saying the language was gibberish or that it looked like gibberish to you?
@Kalmaro It's pretty clear-cut. He wanted to say the latter, he said the former. It's really not a big deal, or I would have addressed him directly. Doesn't mean I can't voice my frustration over what he expressed.
"Overall, Pokémon: Magikarp is a fascinating package. It has great style, but it severely lacks in gameplay." Is it not one giant conceit for the best Pokemon in the world Magikarp?
@MarcelRguez I'd rather hear what he says first, I don't want to put words in his mouth.
@Pocky Even if you mentioned it as a joke, it's still a better term. It's borderline argot, but the different connotation you mention makes it more appropriate. In fact, I too pointed that out in #11.
About those last sentences, read #22.
Its all Greek to me.
Pokemon GO has depth? Eh, no.
@Joeynator3000
And I just wanted to say a joke.... Come on guys, this is too damn depth for a review on a Magikarp game.
Oh, Magikarp...
Until it evolved into Gyarados....
.....where's our Shuckle Pokemon game? 😭
@Pocky of course I'm not a native speaker so I might be wrong, but to me "gibberish" is more like the "Banjo Kazooie-speak" than two (for example) Chinese people speaking.
I mean, "gibberish" gives me the idea of something inherently meaningless, not simply unintelligible because of other reasons such as not being able to understand the language.
But then again, I'm not a native speaker.
@TheLZdragon It has more depth than this game
@Serebii I don't know if that can be considered an accomplishment
Already a review for this?! Still no Kirby review? Failure!!
"but it just lacks the depth that we've come to expect from the other Pokémon mobile titles such as Pokémon GO"
Trolololo Trolololo!
to bad I like the art style its like the gba games I would at least like to try it O.o
Ghibberish is what I saw in Rayman games, BK/YK, and Croc2. Calling that other languages ghibberish is not nice. But if that was a joke or an accident then just leave it guys.
It's not worth to argue over it on the net.
Anyway...
I thought the game would get 4/10 score. I don't even know what it is, aside from being it just another mobile game but with pokemon skin. So, is it really that above average (6/10), if you remove the pokemon theme?
@Joeynator3000 Gosh Joey, these generic responses are getting out of hand.
@Serebii @ThomasBW84 Magikarp Jump is now out in 13 Asian countries plus Italy(!) which got it a few days early - probably to test the servers lol.
It has OVERWHELMINGLY positive reviews on the App store.
Today it is the NUMBER 1 Downloaded free app on IOS in Japan and rose form #150 to #100 in the top grossing apps chart in it's first day. As a result - Nintendo Share price in Japan rose a whopping 3.24% after a whole week of solid value gains. Brilliant news and a brilliant result!
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