Nexomon: Extinction Review (Switch)

Hey, it’s still probably better then Sword and Shield.

@Apportal I'd like to believe that, though people are only going to look at sales.

For me, lack of multiplayer is a plus. The competitive side of Pokémon ruins the game for me. Game freak even used that as an excuse to remove stuff.

I don't need items and the way they do stamina and the battle system sounds nice. I may give this a look.

ill take anything over swsh

Huh. The difficulty hike isn’t something I expected. Now I’m tempted—I always sail through Pokémon Nuzlockes, despite self-imposed restrictions I might add on item purchase or use... I already had this on order for the library I work at, might check it out once it’s through processing.

It's more of a Pokémon game than anything that came after Gen V.

I might give it a shot. Multiplayer aspect in Pokemon is something I don't care about at all.

However I do wonder if the exploration element is there because more than anything else that is what the modern Pokemon entries have seriously been lacking in with Sw/Sh reaching a new low in that regard by completely eliminating dungeons.

@Apportal doubt that

@Primarina I've read several reviews giving the game 8/10. They have a somewhat different opinion about it. If I were you I would read them to see if your perspective matches theirs or this reviewer better.

@Primarina You're welcome! Any time!

@Incarna They have rated 3rd party titles highly, maybe it's your own bias getting in the way of noticing.

I might get this down the line but it doesn't seem like the Pokémon killer that some people want it to be.

Not bad for a Switch port of a mobile game.

@Incarna The reviewer said battles tend to drag on, and players have to backtrack to the not-a-pokecenter very often, both things that are merely annoying, good reason to take a few points off IMO.

...Cool, can I have Monster Hunter Stories on Switch now?...No? Oki. T.T

I'll definitely keep an eye on this.

To address whether this or any Pokéclones could ever match or surpass the behemoth that is the Pokémon franchise, I think a couple of things need to be addressed. Obviously, alot of Pokémon's success is due to its timing and pushing all the right buttons in it's beginnings. And even with it's flaws and criticism, continuing to push enough of those right buttons.

But I also think it can't ignored that Pokémon (the mainline games and main spin-offs) have been relegated to one platform and company: Nintendo. I don't know if Pokémon is the monster it is if it were spread out over multiple platforms. The franchise and it's name certainly has its own weight in pop culture. But when you think of Pokémon, another name and association also comes to mind: Nintendo. IMO, being attached to and closely associated with an equally as iconic brand has really helped solidify Pokémon's place in the culture

@Incarna dont agree a 9 but agree with you the 6 is a bit much

The price is right to give this a go. Think it’s only $17.99 right now. Do I think it will be better than Pokemon? No. I’ve played Nexomon on iOS and it very much feels like a mobile game. I’m expecting this to feel similar. Anyone curious about the series, you can try it out there first.

Side note: I bet many of the “Pokemon sucks” crowd still don't buy this even though they’ll post on message boards how much better it will be than SwSh. 🙄

Hard pass for me then. Long, tedious combat in RPGs is such a big turn off. Same reason I took a pass on the latest Paper Mario.

the horrible UI and sharp sprites makes it look like a cheap flash game

Also the people who say this is better than Pokemon clearly have absolutely no taste in video games. Their consumer taste in so numb their Switch's memory is probably full of $0.99 shovelware.

@Kalmaro You don't have to play multiplayer in pokemon... How is leaving off a feature a plus when it's completely optional?

That looks alright, but it does seem too similar to Pokemon instead of forming its own identity.

The lack of multiplayer caught my eye. If it means I can catch all the creatures inside the game without the hassle of trading with others (I assume that's true since starters are available in the wild), then that's a big plus for me.

@status-204 Yeah that's not what every single review I read said.

@doctorhino Because GameFreak used that as an excuse to remove stuff in the first place. To make the game more "competitive"

Which failed as the meta settled down anyway and you still see some of the same Pokémon.

@Kalmaro Competitive gaming keeps people playing longer than usual and I wish there was a Pokémon game that actually did it well. The problem is not in the idea but in the execution.

@Kalmaro I feel like they left so much off S/S because they were trying to get the wild areas working properly but that's just my theory.

@SmaggTheSmug I don't mind competitive gaming at all. What I do mind is removing content for the sake of making a game more competitive, only to fail miserably in the end.

So now we got less content and a game that has the same problem we've always had, the top players using teams that all look similar.

I don't play Pokemon for multiplayer and this may feel better in some ways than S/S. I'll pick it up

@doctorhino Well that didn't work, though they made sells in the end so I guess it doesn't matter.

From their point of view, everything worked fabulously.

@Magician People need to stop saying this because it's false.

Extinction isn't a port, it was built from the ground up for PC and consoles. Some are actually bitching because it isn't available on mobile.

Nexomon is a mobile game that got ported to Steam. Nexomon: Extinction is the next entry in the series.

The devs said they are open to the idea to add online multiplayer but it will depende on the game's reception and player base size. They said that the game has Cosmic variants I guess is like shiny pkmns.

@Kalmaro You are saying the wild area didn't work? I'd have to disagree. Sounds like you're so bitter that the game didn't do exactly what you wanted it to. It's still a game series that will have its ups and downs but objectively it did get the game to the latest gen and on an actual console for once. Also provided quite a bit of content and good looking graphics, even if the animations weren't amazing. Better than that gamecube atrocity that set it back on consoles until the most recent one.

I read there are tons of items in the game hidden to find. I wonder if the reviewer didn't come across them or if the other reviewers were wrong. Either way, though he made a good point on the combat that worries me, the other more positive reviews and gameplay footage still has me excited. I like monster capture games period, seldom come across one that I don't like.

@doctorhino On the contrary, I think the wild area did exactly what it was supposed to do. Make the game feel bigger than it really was as well as giving them an easy place to have events.

That's basically all it was meant to do and it's clearly working. The fact that it's largely barren, the Pokémon animations are stiff and the graphics itself don't look like that big of a leap hardly factors in for most people.

So it's hard to say it failed in that aspect. When I say it failed I meant in respect to what you were talking about. The idea that they cut stuff to make it work. There really wasn't any reason for them to cut anything for the wild area.

@RPGenie ya, i read that the game has items we all know how it works like exp share, a ítem that help you to get more exp in battles, ítem that hepl you to get more money, some ítem affect the stats of ur nexomon but you actualy equip the ítem to the nexomon. To ppl that like the genre, dont sleep on this one.

@Kalmaro Well yeah, it's not exactly the most complex thing a game can do but perhaps they were not prepared for a true 3d graphics engine. They didn't even bother with the normal areas making them unfixed, seemed like they saved it for last.

@doctorhino I think they could have been if they hadn't rushed things to align with the anime.

In my opinion, the reason we got all of this drama in the first place was because they were rushing and decided to cut corners.

Then lied about why they cut corners and now we're where we are today. We have a game that is still massively successful while a lot of fans who kept up with what was going on feel like they've been slighted.

That said, I'm still happy for the people who like what they purchased.

Is it me or that robot from the not-Pokémon Center looks like Echo from Overwatch?

@Incarna nah, it's still a 6.
It's Pokémon that's a 5 cause they add points to anything Nintendo or exclusive.
It's the other way around 😉

@Switcheroot

Ah, that's cool. I didn't intend any negative connotation by it being a mobile game. I mean, can you blame me? It looks identical to the previous game.

@doctorhino sorry to burst your bubble, but those "GameCube atrocities" are still better-looking and more engaging to play than Swoosh.
They were more limited in scope, sure, but the fact that a non-Game Freak spin-off on 2001 hardware still looks better than Swoosh, both artistically and technologically, is simply unacceptable, especially for the largest media franchise.

So SwSh gets 8/10 with all of it's problems, and yet Nexomon gets 6/10 because of lack of multiplayer and items?

Shouldn't these two scores be switched? Or perhaps both get 6/10, which is being very generous when it comes to SwSh?

Maybe why the SwSh review was so high was that the reviewer for it was bias when it comes to Pokemon games.

@status-204 I never said anything about grinding.

@clvr This?
https://www.retroplace.com/pics/gamecube/ingames/60694--pokemon-xd-gale-of-darkness.png

On one hand, this seems almost like a clone of Pokemon, which isn't ideal. Not a big fan of bootleg experiences, so to speak.

On the other hand, this sounds more like what I'd prefer to see in a modern Pokemon game: large routes to explore and get lost in; decent NPC writing; a focus on single-player content; and a battle system that requires actual effort. Not sure why a lack of multiplayer is a problem when the game doesn't pitch itself as a multiplayer experience.

Weirdly enough, actually reading the review (instead of just looking at the score, which seems unfair given how positive the review was) made me a lot more positive about this game.

Yeah, I will get this. I think by removing the bias you have against third party clones of existing Nintendo/Gamefreak titles, this shouldn't be too bad. And Sword & Shield was trash.

@Tulio517 My thought as well. But to be fair, Echo is not that unique of a design.

I rather like the first game, and Micromon before it. That was their first step into this arena, iOS exclusive that changed hands and was pulled and re-released, so a lot of people don't really know about it. But this is their third game and I'm interested to see how they've improved.

I know it is a contentious time right now for Pokemon fans. I wouldn't bill this as your answer to SwSh. Rather I would just say that if you like Pokemon, and want to try something similar but less bloated by just the sheer weight of decades, give it a go.

Who the heck buys this crap?

I watched the first hour of gameplay and found the writing really weird and kind of all over the place, but was prepared to dive in if the gameplay was fun because I think some competition to Pokemon is a good thing.

Money being tight and preventing me from capturi... taming Nexomon would be a problem though. I want to ca... tame them all! I can't do that if I can't buy... pyramids?

@Apportal I honestly love the game so far. It's no Pokemon Emerald, but it's better than the Pokemon games after X & Y.

@Kalmaro Yeah it's a blast to play, and the story is actually pretty good, albeit 4th wall breaking and goofy as heck.

@DoktorTotenKopf Who wouldn't buy it?

I downloaded the mobile version of this last year, played it for about twenty minutes, and never opened it again. Found it clunky, tedious and the writing was cringe.. and this sadly doesn’t look too different.

@Joeynator3000 I’ve said if before and I’ll say it again, Monster Hunter Stories is the best Pokémon game on 3DS

@doctorhino exactly that.
Watch it in motion and don't cherry pick monotonous background, then we'll really talk about it.

I still hate how lazily the game copies retro Pokemon's over world, and I have no idea how anyone thinks the cheap tweening animation in this is a step up from Sword and Shield.

I'm not that into monster collectors, and while the stamina bar sounds fine, it's not enough to grab me, especially if it actually does become tedious.

I actually like the look of the game but the battles are putting me off with the stamina bar and having to constantly go back and heal. Also not being able to buy lots of Pokeball equivalents does put me off.
Might try it one day but it can go on the wish list.

I don't know who did it first, but Temtem also uses a stamina bar instead of PP.

Just played the first hour or so. The writing is a mixed bag. Lot of cringe moments, but also some jokes that worked for me. And I like that they waste no time and skip a lot of cliches on purpose.

Graphics look like a good phone game. There definitely went some love in it. But well, still looks like a good phone game.
I usually avoid these, but having so much enjoyment with the Langrisser remakes (which look like a bad phone game) made me a bit more open minded about it.

The constant healing and rarity of the items feels already like a grind though. And not in a good way.

@clvr find me a screen of Pokemon s/s that looks half that bad and we will talk. That game was just models from Pokemon coliseum anyways.

It just seems obtuse to argue that gamefreak are so clueless they made a game worse than the one of the worst received Pokemon games and screw sales, the real fans know it. Screams of spite and not being able to be objective.

Read more like a 7/10 revw to me. However, I will probably still download it as my younger kids want to try it after looking at the trailer. They are Pokemon fans from the DS era

@doctorhino so many wrong things in this comment:

"find me a screen of Pokemon s/s that looks half that bad and we will talk."

1) Swoosh does look bad in a lot of areas, see the trees, the textures, many animations and the weather effects. Those look insanely bad for a 2019 game.

2) the fact that for you Swoosh needs to actually look worse than 15 year old GC games says it all: your standards are incredibly low.
Compare it with games on the same hardware, not 2 gens prior.

3) you speak of objectivity but then treat Swoosh as the holy grail based on brand alone, as if big franchises have to be good just cause they're popular: that's the way fansites like this review things, and that's super biased.

4) the GC games were spin-offs developed by Genius Sonority, which speaks volumes about how good a job they did at the time shaking up the formula more than GF ever did, and/or how low the bar is for the Pokémon games made by the main devs.

5) "Game Freak are so clueless"
Yes, my friend, they are. They're a bunch of handheld devs clearly in over their heads since Pokémon went 3D. It's so obvious that they've lost the reins of their own franchise, what with gen VI onward being misstep after misstep.

6) the fact that you have to consider Swoosh better than Colosseum and XD just because they're mainline games, even though they look like barely upscaled 3DS games with loads of pop-in not even the GC spewed out, is indicative of just how clueless and/or naïve you are.
If you wanna go around judging games by name instead of content and quality, by all means go on, just don't try to convince people that's the way to go.

7) "so clueless they made a game worse than the one of the worst received Pokemon games and screw sales, the real fans know it."

Lol at "screw sales" and at "real fans".
Screwing sales was never an option, every single Pokémon game has always sold gangbusters and will keep doing that, based on brand power alone. It's plainly demonstrated by the fact that this empty husk of a game sold 16+ or so million copies, more than objectively better games like Splatoon 2 for example.

And "real fans", dude, seriously? 😂
Speaking "real fans" just makes every argument look silly in any case, but in this case in particular what does that even mean?
People who blindly gobble up whatever has their favorite brand plastered over?

If you enjoy Swoosh, great for you, I'm genuinely envious, I've enjoyed my fair share of mediocre games too; just don't try to convince people these are quality titles made with quality first and foremost in their minds, because it's painfully clear it's not.

@SmaggTheSmug Whilst I agree that in most games competitive play keeps people “playing” over anything else. Its not necessarily true with Pokemon. 1) the obvious not all competitive being played in game, and 2) a lot of people “shiny hunt” and those people also continue playing long after the based game is done as well. If anything due to some mechanics being overused in game but not sim at certain times past, it was the shiny hunters that carried that engagement for the base game.

@clvr Direct quote "sorry to burst your bubble, but those "GameCube atrocities" are still better-looking and more engaging to play than Swoosh."

then just now
" the fact that for you Swoosh needs to actually look worse than 15 year old GC games says it all: your standards are incredibly low."

I was not the one who started that argument. I don't really understand how this became me trying to prove the latest switch game is better looking but w/e. You're not even focused enough on being objective to have a reasonable argument.
What you are doing is having an emotional argument. You say a bunch of stuff, then move on to making another argument based on the last comment alone. Again, it screams to the fact that you're just bitter. I'm not interested in having a personal fight about it.

@doctorhino

It seems to me that the concept of context eludes you.
It's not hard to understand that a good looking GC game and a good looking Switch games are different things, with different standards.
I might've been clearer in my explanation, that's for sure, but it's really not that hard to understand:
the GC games look incredible compared to Swoosh when taking into account the hardware they run on, as succintly explained here:
"the fact that for you Swoosh needs to actually look worse than 15 year old GC games says it all: your standards are incredibly low."

If it's acceptable to you that Swoosh look marginally better (from a technological standpoint, what with being HD etc.) than 15 year old GC games, well, I don't know what to tell you, you probably would've settled for BOTW being in the Twilight Princess engine then.

"You're not even focused enough on being objective to have a reasonable argument."

Says the guy who dodged the overwhelming majority of points I made in the previous wall of text.

Also, you're the one suggesting Game Freak are incapable of making a subpar game, even when the evidence is right in front of you: at this point, you're simply blinded by your love for the brand, so don't speak to me about objectivity, please.
I'll say it again: if you enjoy the game, great! It's just that I haven't seen you bring any objective argument to the table. I'm talking about the game, you're talking about me.

I personally feel that there are so many ways to twist the pokémon formula into something new and exciting and this game doesn't seem to do that. It just feels like too much of a clone without bringing anything new to the table. I'll probably wait for a heavy, heavy discount and buy it.

@Cool_Squirtle 100% agreed.
I'd really like to see these new clones create a style of their own, like Digimon and Shin Megami Tensei, for example.
I mean, if they don't they're bound to be seen as "oh, you mean that Pokémon clone?" and little more.
A shame.

@Cool_Squirtle Yeah, weird to think the freshest spin on the monster catching formula in years was Pokémon GO...The market leader isn't playing it safe and is reaching hordes of new players who never played the original.

Yet the indie scene for monster catching/battling hasn't been around long but is already stagnant producing cookie cutter clones of the gameboy Pokémon games.

Downloaded and ready to go, too bad i have to work today -.- or else id be playing this all day.

@Kalmaro Thanks for your conversation with Doctorhino. I started reading down the comments here and was sadly not surprised that it immediately became a SwSh salt bath. Your responses to Doctorhino set an example of how to express a critical opinion in a thoughtful and informed way, while also managing to refrain from carelessly antagonizing those who might feel otherwise. I really appreciate that and I think it should be praised.

As for my impression of Nexomon... I rarely read internet articles about things that don't interest me, and Pokemon-alikes don't interest me. But I do occasionally read articles about Pokemon-alikes to see how professional reviewers measure them against the original. Kudos to Nexomon for earning some quality praise for their efforts; I hope their game is bought and enjoyed by many. Still, I'm content that no pretender has yet managed to topple the champ.

I'll give it a try-preordered it.

@clvr The GC Pokemon games really don't look good by the systems standards. The games locations are tiny little areas with ugly textures, NPCs who aren't the main characters barely have any detail. Models are very crude with places like Agate Town's houses are being near enough grey cubes..

The 3DS Pokemon games literally had better graphics, more detailed characters(even X/Y's chibi characters) despite the 3DS being about as powerful as the GC and lower resolution.

You might be able to find an ugly texture in Sword/Shields Wild area. But it's a significantly better looking game than Colloseum and XD.

@Paej13 Such high praise, thanks. It's just easier to have conversations when both sides aren't insulting each other.

This game looks interesting, though I'd most likely get it on sale from steam than on the Switch. That's just me though.

@Apportal AGREED

@Dr_Lugae thanks for the level-headed reply.

I agree that those games were never the pinnacle of GC performance, but I'd say they still hold up nicely next to the very best the GC had to offer (Metroid Prime, SM Sunshine, the Zeldas, etc.), compared to Swoosh vs Odyssey, BOTW, Luigi's Mansion 3, etc..
And that is especially true if you take the animations in consideration: it's true that there were a lot fewer Pokémon to animate, but that quality has never been replicated in any other Pokémon game, as far as I know.

Edit: oh and btw, if you haven't read all the discussion it might not be clear, but the point I was trying to make with @doctorhino is: how can you call the GC games "atrocities" when they comparatively hold up much better, taking into account both the hardware and other games running on the same hardware?
It sounds to me like he's made up his mind already and decided to discard the GC games just because they're spinoffs, while at the same time elevating GF's work to unreasonable heights.

You shouldn't include "no multiplayer" as a con. Not everyone wants multiplayer in a game. It's actually a plus for me.

@Joeynator3000 Yes, for the love of god or whatever you believe in please hear this man!

giveing a bad review cus of no multiplayer thats funny and theres plenty of items s

Ah yes, and Nintendo Life gave Sword/Shield an eight out of ten, a terrible, completely linear game, with some of the worst internet connectivity issues, slow-down, hand-holding I've ever seen in a Nintendo or a Pokemon game. Seems fishy to me. I don't trust the reviewer at all

"that is what the modern Pokemon entries have been lacking in with Sw/Sh reaching a new low in that regard by completely eliminating dungeons."
@Expa0 I thought the death of dungeons started with Ruby&Sapphire in the Advance days. I don't remember any actual dungeon in a pokémon game since the 32bits games. Only corridors where no research or being lost was possible. So your remark about S&S makes me wonder how they were able to eliminate dungeons.

PS: now that I think about it, one could consider the post-league cavern in S&M as a dungeon. But I didn't have that impression at all.

I really enjoyed this game til the random crashes started. This is complete garbage on Switch - 17 crashes and counting. Also, playtime clock keeps resetting - very buggy and should never have been released on Switch. too bad because if it didn't crash I would really like this game.

Was wondering if this was reviewed here.

So Sword and Shield gets an 8/10 and this gets a 6/10? Happy to see not much has changed with Nintendo life LOL.