Después del éxito absoluto de Pokémon Go en el universo móvil, The Pokémon Company ha decidido dar más apoyo a este tipo de iniciativas y le ha confiado a DeNA desarrollar uno de los títulos más interesantes de toda la franquicia, que incluso generó muchas más expectativas que los juegos de la saga principal. Pokémon Masters es una apuesta diferente en el universo de los monstruos de bolsillo que deja a un lado los elementos RPG para centrase más en la experiencia y la historia de todos los personajes que han aparecido en la franquicia a lo largo del tiempo. Cuenta con un sistema de combate por Sync Pairs (un entrenador y un Pokémon) y una historia que nos transporta a la isla artificial Pasio, construida exclusivamente para llevar a cabo el PGL, un torneo de Sync Pairs en donde los mejores entrenadores de todo el mundo Pokémon demostrarán sus habilidades para llevarse el título y ser el mejor. El sistema de batalla cuenta con un medidor de movimientos que se va agotando y que puede regenerarse con el tiempo o bien con alguna habilidad, cambiando por completo la estrategia a la que estamos acostumbrados y obligándonos a formar equipos con Sync Pairs que se complementen unos a otros. El juego se enfoca mucho en la interacción y el diálogo entre personajes ofreciendo una apuesta fresca de mucho interés para los seguidores de Pokémon. Todo líder de gimnasio o miembro de la Elite 4 que haya aparecido con anterioridad, aparece como Sync Pair en compañía de un Pokémon, dando a conocer más aspectos de su personalidad por medio de diálogos, cosa que en los juegos base no es posible ahondar. Existen las micro transacciones, pero son muy bien utilizadas tal cual como en Pokémon Go, y no dan ventaja en absolutamente nada relevante. Las Gemas que son la moneda de cambio general solo sirven para conseguir nuevos Sync Pairs y la gran mayoría de estos se desbloquean al avanzar en la historia. De igual forma conseguir gemas jugando es algo relativamente fácil, por lo que obtener la pareja que se quiere solo toma algo de tiempo. La música del juego es un remix de cada una de las melodías que han estado presentes en los juegos base de la franquicia, y es una delicia escuchar esas canciones con un toque especial y diferente, especialmente diseñado para este título. Pokémon Masters es un buen juego, creado con mucho cariño para los amantes de Pokémon y que se mantiene actualizando cada mes, con eventos en línea en donde te puedes conectar y batallar con otros jugadores y con nuevos Sync Pairs que mantendrán el replay value por los cielos durante mucho tiempo.

Very underrated. It obviously has the expected problems that come with most gacha mobile games, but you know what you're getting into before you're downloading it.

But behind that veneer of a gacha is some neat stuff. Firstly, the models for everything are fantastic! I love this anime-style CG, and wish it would get used in more games, because it's just very appealing on the eyes. Given that the characters are the heart of this game, having them stylishly designed is key. The characters also have fun interactions, and although voice lines can be limited at times, I'm honestly surprised they went the extra mile to record any lines at all for a mobile game.

The game mechanics are quite fun too. They're not the traditional Pokémon mechanics, instead simplified and distilled down. But I was frankly okay with that. I didn't go to this game expecting a traditional Pokémon experience, and the fact that they decided to retain any of the turn-based mechanics at all is just a pleasant addition.

Where this game falters is the length and the eventual grind. Leading into the far end of mid game and into late game, the pace of your progress slows down significantly. Leveling up your trainers is an extremely long process, and battles can be way too difficult, leaving you stuck. This may have been improved upon from the time I stopped playing, but it was this grind that made me stop playing when I was otherwise having a good time.

But of mobile games, this was a lovely time. If you light fun, light-hearted, cute Pokémon aesthetics, especially from all your favorite trainers throughout all the games, this is a lovely little diversion.

Overall a game for people who like the Trainers, this game can actually be hard to get Pokemon fans hooked. That’s because when you’re playing Pokemon, you’d usually stay for the creatures. Besides that, why else?
-Lots of mechanics are laid out to grasp.
-It suffers from typical gacha downsides.
-It’s endless, so if you’re really behind, it can be hard to catch up.
-Free sync pairs tend to be unusable for the most difficult challenges/modes/events.
-Kind of related to what’s said earlier, it also suffers from story and character nonsense. Since it’s a gacha game, the writers seem to try to find a way to keep the show going on, even though that means the story continuing won’t make sense (e.g. Most of the Villain Arcs), the lore of the core series will be messed up (e.g. the random presences of legendaries, but the issue is probably minimized by the fact some battle facility Trainers own them beforehand), or a character becomes rewritten to a certain extent.
-If your favorite character is unpopular, good luck wishing for them to get a playable sync pair soon. Popular characters usually are the ones who get new sync pairs. If they’re among the most popular ones, they can get multiple, maybe reaching around three or four as of now including their original look.

However, the good things I can think of are:
-The costumes can be cute or cool!
-Characters from different games get to interact, and this may be the first time in forever you can see a character again.
-You can get to know characters better by seeing them in action more!
-It has better odds for limited-time character banners than most other gacha games.

First, let’s talk about gameplay. Again, it took a long time for me to grasp it. It was overwhelming. A lot of explanations on skills and training and battling are given and it can be boring.

My favorite part of the game is the Champion Stadium solely because, as a free to play player, I can clear it with no problem. In other times, like the recent Water Type Event (an event that gives higher multipliers for every water-type sync pair in a team), I struggled because I did not have enough sync pairs raised. The leaderboards in a lot of modes (e.g. the type event I mentioned and the Legendary Gauntlet) are full of people who pay for this game. That's because the Type Event requires a handful of strong sync pairs of a certain type, while the Legendary Gauntlet requires lots of strong sync pairs for a longer win streak. The in-game successful teams list feature is also sometimes unhelpful to me too because they also seem to be sourced from people who pay. For example, a Ghost-weak opponent would have a successful team list full of compositions including Sygna Suit Cynthia paired with Anniversary Lillie, and I don’t have the former. In short, paying for the game gets people far because of more upgrade materials and more sync pairs to use. Admittedly though, I am not the best at strategy games so using the lists as a guide could basically be cheating for some, but I have recently been completing every Champion Stadium at Master Rank and 12-streaking Legendary Gauntlets ever since I started picking up the gameplay. I must say, I’m mostly carried by having the Master Sync Pairs, which I advise for new free to play players to roll for due to the main banner character having a Master Skill that ups the team’s damage deal and reduces their damage taken, 2% higher rates for 5-stars, and additional roll bonuses. I don’t advise playing this game if you have other games you have scheduled to play daily. On days you can’t play, you can simply login every day just to collect the login rewards and then leave.

Next, music. Not too fond of most remixes of core series music, but I don’t mind the originals. If I got it right, the remixes usually take some of or remove buildups to the point the tracks’ energies do not feel the same to me. However, there are exceptions. Some remixes (e.g. Grimsley’s Champion Stadium battle theme and the special remix of the Subway Boss battle theme which song key was given away for free) are great!

The rest… Some stories that try to be inspiring or serious become hilarious to me because of the gacha nonsense the writers make up to explain why the sync pair exists. Ho-Oh appears out of nowhere and Morty immediately comes back in a sygna suit. Hilbert has another Kyurem different from Ghetsis’s and he basically says “there’s nothing wrong with having two” as if the writers are aware its existence is going to be questioned, all to conveniently give N a sygna suit. Oh yeah, and N has both Reshiram and Zekrom for some reason, even implying he had them both for a while now. All these may be explained by the fact that Lear, Pasio’s owner, owns a Hoopa that transports people from different places and time periods. So, this can come off as funny.

Some characters, like Cyrus, are also changed so that the story can continue. In Diamond and Pearl, Cyrus’s goal was to eliminate the human heart. But in this game, he was written to understand the opposing side, unlike in the core series. Perhaps it was for closure? Regardless, this effort is all put to waste in my eyes because the Villain Arcs seem uninteresting and nonsensical to the point I’d be fine with just a short event to replace them.

Another thing I feel like pointing out is that the game loves to pander to people who like to “ship” (the romantic fan pairing of characters) characters—an example I can think of is that Calem, who in this game is based on the rival take on him, is way too much nicer in this to the point it’s hard to believe this is the same guy. In X and Y, he was so infamously passive-aggressive—consistently and intensely jealous of the player character’s strength, but in this game he’s the so-called friendly rival who seems to harbor no aggressiveness towards the protagonist of X and Y in this game who is Serena. He always proclaims how awesome a rival she is, mentions that he and Serena are mistaken to be in a “relationship”, and is present in a handful of story sequences that star the latter to support her or to talk about her. Serena in turn mentions that she is wholeheartedly thankful of him and goes on shopping with him occasionally. That’s not all, Calem’s description in the Trainer Lodge mentions her to be someone he respects more than anyone else could. There’s also others, like Dawn with Lucas, and May with Brendan (I must say for May and Brendan that already existed since OR and AS). It can be a pain. I get that this is pure fanservice and a gacha game tries to attract all sorts of fans, but it can be painful or annoying when it gets shoved to your face all the time.

Sigh. For all its disasters, I love this game. I love some of the costumes, I really loved the Summer Nights & Wishing Stars event and the recent Solve the Mystery two-parter. I like seeing characters from different games finally interact, and a lot of characters who aren’t seen for a long time also return (e.g. The excitement for N was big!). There’s also satisfaction in completing the limited-time challenges that occasionally come with events (again, this can be hard if you do not have limited-time sync pairs). So, yes, if you love the Trainers, I recommend looking up the stories in this game if you cannot play it or do not want to play it.

This game actually has a very fun battle system that changes Pokemon battles from the traditional turn based system to that of a timed-energy system, and all battles are 3v3 with designated Strike, Support, or Tech class Pokemon.

Unfortuantely all of those positives are ruined by mobile game mechanics. Endless upgrades, repetitious events that require you to play the same battle a hundred times, and way too many characters to actually have any sort of balance. At least half the roster is literally unusable and has no scenario in which they would be worth picking over another character. There are options for increasing the power of moves like repeated pulls and more, but that is really only useful for Strike characters. Increasing power is basically useless for Tech and Support classes because their value doesn't come from raw strength.

I've got pretty much every character to their max level so I just play the hardest battles which are either too easy or too hard, there is no in between.

I'm pretty bored of playing the game at this point and have mostly stopped. I occasionally play it for a week or so when they have an event going on. But it's really come down to just a collecting-fest. Barely any substance anymore.

This game is honestly very good. It's very welcomed to see more of the human cast of the Pokemon games show more personalities, you get to see the protags display personality too and you get interesting interactions (although it does rely a bit on CYOS when it comes to some characters teaming up).

The music is phenomenal, with remixes of so many battle themes and some attention to details like Wallace and elite 4 members getting their own spins at their regular battle theme.
And the voice acting is amazing as well. It shares a lot of its cast with the Fire Emblem games, and they're just as competent as they are there. Well, except for Galar because they caved in to the meme of "but Galar characters should be bri'ish" (Allister and Bede sound great, though).

Unfortunately, gacha be gacha...