A lot of people call this a Pokemon-clone and well, it is, but that's not making it out to be a bad thing. As someone who hasn't played a Pokemon for a very long time now and hasn't played one passed the 2nd generation, Nexomon was a good take on the old school formula.
Probably what's the biggest difference with Pokemon is that Nexomon has an emphasis on the "save the world JRPG story." It even comes with a decent background lore about a war between Nexomon and humans eons ago. The story is rather straightforward and does have a few plot twists here and there.
Despite trying to save the world from possible destruction, there's a ton of comedic moments with many 4th wall breaking jokes. It was a nice breath of fresh air for a game like this.
The main character is silent, but they (you can be a Male/Female MC) have a decent range of emoticons to express their reactions and feelings to things. The MC's android partner does a good job in handling most of the talking.
The other story characters have pretty dynamic designs and personalities. They are mostly memorable and interesting as a result.
Graphics-wise, it has a nice 2D look to it. The character model sprites are simple and does invoke memories of the original Pokemon games. The Nexomon designs themselves look quite nice and the 2D art for them during battle are beautiful. For a first game, it has over 300 Nexomon with great variety in its designs which is amazing considering the first gen only had 151 Pokemon.
One of the biggest surprises and standout is the soundtrack. Town, battle, and event tracks are memorable. It's a shame that it doesn't have an official soundtrack release as far as I know.
Moving onto the key gameplay department, it's pretty solid, but it does have its issues when it comes to balancing. Every Nexomon is divided into "rarity" categories and anything below the "rare" category are just plain outclassed because they don't have the same amount of evolutions. The commons don't evolve at all despite having comparable stats to other rarities at the first form. Uncommons only evolved once. Rares and above have two evolutions which just makes them better stat-wise over the others. The exceptions are the Legendaries that don't evolve, but have competitive stats regardless. A shame since the skillset for even a common Nexomon is solid already.
The other balance issue is that status effects can be too overpowering at times. Once you inflict paralysis, frozen, confusion or bound, the Nexomon is guaranteed to lose out a few turns back to back unless you heal with an item. Opposing tamers don't use any items so you can really destroy them with such effects.
The last balance issue is with the "Normal" Nexomon types. They don't have any element weaknesses in this game, but can actually learn various element moves to take advantage of other Nexomon's weaknesses. Apparently the 2nd game changes this by giving weaknesses to Normal types, but with the first game, they are too good.
Overall, the game is quite entertaining and a great alternative to a Pokemon style game that's not Pokemon. It's not that long at only 20 hours to beat everything up until the Post Game, but it does feel like a longer game when playing.
Probably what's the biggest difference with Pokemon is that Nexomon has an emphasis on the "save the world JRPG story." It even comes with a decent background lore about a war between Nexomon and humans eons ago. The story is rather straightforward and does have a few plot twists here and there.
Despite trying to save the world from possible destruction, there's a ton of comedic moments with many 4th wall breaking jokes. It was a nice breath of fresh air for a game like this.
The main character is silent, but they (you can be a Male/Female MC) have a decent range of emoticons to express their reactions and feelings to things. The MC's android partner does a good job in handling most of the talking.
The other story characters have pretty dynamic designs and personalities. They are mostly memorable and interesting as a result.
Graphics-wise, it has a nice 2D look to it. The character model sprites are simple and does invoke memories of the original Pokemon games. The Nexomon designs themselves look quite nice and the 2D art for them during battle are beautiful. For a first game, it has over 300 Nexomon with great variety in its designs which is amazing considering the first gen only had 151 Pokemon.
One of the biggest surprises and standout is the soundtrack. Town, battle, and event tracks are memorable. It's a shame that it doesn't have an official soundtrack release as far as I know.
Moving onto the key gameplay department, it's pretty solid, but it does have its issues when it comes to balancing. Every Nexomon is divided into "rarity" categories and anything below the "rare" category are just plain outclassed because they don't have the same amount of evolutions. The commons don't evolve at all despite having comparable stats to other rarities at the first form. Uncommons only evolved once. Rares and above have two evolutions which just makes them better stat-wise over the others. The exceptions are the Legendaries that don't evolve, but have competitive stats regardless. A shame since the skillset for even a common Nexomon is solid already.
The other balance issue is that status effects can be too overpowering at times. Once you inflict paralysis, frozen, confusion or bound, the Nexomon is guaranteed to lose out a few turns back to back unless you heal with an item. Opposing tamers don't use any items so you can really destroy them with such effects.
The last balance issue is with the "Normal" Nexomon types. They don't have any element weaknesses in this game, but can actually learn various element moves to take advantage of other Nexomon's weaknesses. Apparently the 2nd game changes this by giving weaknesses to Normal types, but with the first game, they are too good.
Overall, the game is quite entertaining and a great alternative to a Pokemon style game that's not Pokemon. It's not that long at only 20 hours to beat everything up until the Post Game, but it does feel like a longer game when playing.