It's one of those game that you play and say "ok this is really bori.. WOW I got a Lucario ! Sweet!!"
News 'Pokemon Duel' Now Available in English For Android and iOS!
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This could be my new favourite app! The gameplay is really smooth and easy to understand right from the start, and it's awesome that you get a good mixture of Pokémon when you first start the game. I've seen some players in online with regional variants of a starting set of Pokémon, like the three Sinnoh starters with Luxio and Bidoof, or the three Kalos starters with Fletchling, so I'm not sure if the Pokémon you get when you first start the game is random or not... either way I got the Kanto set, which I'm a huge fan of thanks to Bulbasaur's status moves. Squirtle and Charmander are already off the team, but Bulbasaur is sticking around for now, because both sleep and poison are really useful almost 100% of the time.
I can actually see quite a lot of deeper strategy that could come out of the TFG. I'm always a fan of movement-based strategy over stagnant building strategy, so the TFG seems to be my bag over the TCG, which is more of the latter. Having a free2play TFG simulator with an at least reasonable playerbase (since I can find matches in probably 30 seconds quite easily) is a blessing. My strategy right now involves having some hard-hitters with higher movement running around the field defending while I have my two golemic titans steadily approach up the flanks with their one movement per turn so they can capture the enemy's spawn points. My higher movement Pokémon are Pikachu, Lapras and Fletchling, with Bulbasaur giving them status support. My titans are Golem and Tropius. Tropius is awesome in this game because of the Whirlwind attack. It's a purple attack, meaning it beats all the basic white attacks, and it takes up a large segment of the spinner. Its effect is that it sends the target back into the other player's reserves party rather than the Pokémon Centre, but besides that it's essentially a OHKO. This makes it perfect for capturing a spawn point, because both Whirlwind and Solar Beam, a 120 power attack, make killing the enemy's figures a hobby!
The pay2win elements are present but overall quite unnecessary. The pulls you get from the boxes you buy are all random, so I would have a difficult time justifying the purchase of these boxes anyway. Besides that, there is an energy metre for the campaign mode. Different battles have different energy costs, but it looks like energy refills ever 2 or maybe 3 minutes, and you start with 120. The most I've spent to start a fight in the solo campaign mode is only 8 energy, but each game tends to take a little while anyway, and 2 or 3 energies are recovered by the end of it. Later on I assume the energy costs will increase, but it doesn't cost energy to play online against human players, so if you really don't want to put the game down you don't have to pay. It's more of a Hearthstone-style system of "we'll give you the tools to beat top players if you're devoted and good at the game, but feel free to pay and make the process a bit quicker", which is a system I can respect.
The only issue I've found with it so far is that "Wait Victories" seem to be very easy to get in the campaign. Of course, I'm still only in the first hotel, so maybe later on the amount of turns it takes for a Wait Victor will increase. Right now it seems to be 34 turns, but each players' move counts as a full turn, so in reality it's only 17 moves a-piece. Most games online take longer than this to win because of the considerable strategy, and I seem to keep finding myself getting the AI opponent backed into a corner around this time and then losing out on the satisfaction of a legitimate victory because it's like "lol you win because of a Wait Victory anyway grats!!". Again, a very mild criticism, and one I expect the game will fix itself later on as level progression increases.
If you haven't got this game yet I would, however, highly recommend it! It seems like there's options to maybe add other players by nickname or something, though I haven't looked into it a great deal, and it may only be possible over Bluetooth. If there is online friend-searching, though, maybe we could even get a PokéBeach TFG League going!
I can actually see quite a lot of deeper strategy that could come out of the TFG. I'm always a fan of movement-based strategy over stagnant building strategy, so the TFG seems to be my bag over the TCG, which is more of the latter. Having a free2play TFG simulator with an at least reasonable playerbase (since I can find matches in probably 30 seconds quite easily) is a blessing. My strategy right now involves having some hard-hitters with higher movement running around the field defending while I have my two golemic titans steadily approach up the flanks with their one movement per turn so they can capture the enemy's spawn points. My higher movement Pokémon are Pikachu, Lapras and Fletchling, with Bulbasaur giving them status support. My titans are Golem and Tropius. Tropius is awesome in this game because of the Whirlwind attack. It's a purple attack, meaning it beats all the basic white attacks, and it takes up a large segment of the spinner. Its effect is that it sends the target back into the other player's reserves party rather than the Pokémon Centre, but besides that it's essentially a OHKO. This makes it perfect for capturing a spawn point, because both Whirlwind and Solar Beam, a 120 power attack, make killing the enemy's figures a hobby!
The pay2win elements are present but overall quite unnecessary. The pulls you get from the boxes you buy are all random, so I would have a difficult time justifying the purchase of these boxes anyway. Besides that, there is an energy metre for the campaign mode. Different battles have different energy costs, but it looks like energy refills ever 2 or maybe 3 minutes, and you start with 120. The most I've spent to start a fight in the solo campaign mode is only 8 energy, but each game tends to take a little while anyway, and 2 or 3 energies are recovered by the end of it. Later on I assume the energy costs will increase, but it doesn't cost energy to play online against human players, so if you really don't want to put the game down you don't have to pay. It's more of a Hearthstone-style system of "we'll give you the tools to beat top players if you're devoted and good at the game, but feel free to pay and make the process a bit quicker", which is a system I can respect.
The only issue I've found with it so far is that "Wait Victories" seem to be very easy to get in the campaign. Of course, I'm still only in the first hotel, so maybe later on the amount of turns it takes for a Wait Victor will increase. Right now it seems to be 34 turns, but each players' move counts as a full turn, so in reality it's only 17 moves a-piece. Most games online take longer than this to win because of the considerable strategy, and I seem to keep finding myself getting the AI opponent backed into a corner around this time and then losing out on the satisfaction of a legitimate victory because it's like "lol you win because of a Wait Victory anyway grats!!
". Again, a very mild criticism, and one I expect the game will fix itself later on as level progression increases.If you haven't got this game yet I would, however, highly recommend it! It seems like there's options to maybe add other players by nickname or something, though I haven't looked into it a great deal, and it may only be possible over Bluetooth. If there is online friend-searching, though, maybe we could even get a PokéBeach TFG League going!
It seems like the server issues have mostly cleared up, and I like that it's not really P2W right now. Just now my team of Lucario, Lapras, Gastly, Metagross, Xerneas, and Salamence was able to take out a team with 5 EXs, Latios included. And you don't get all that many Gems out of paying, either. So in my opinion, it's doing a good job cleaning up after itself. And the gameplay rocks! There's a ton of strategy, and I kinda like that there isn't a meta yet. Although Water decks with Manaphy have started to pop up, which could be a problem...
In my opinion, Lucario is one of the best figures in the game. Metal Claw is a good attack for 70, beating or tying most figures. But Aura Sphere is really makes him good. It's a one-star Purple attack that auto-kills the opponent or someone behind it. That's an incredibly powerful effect, because it doesn't matter how powerful the opponent's attack is, they're still gonna lose. I've had him KO a Latios who spun Luster Purge before, and make game-saving knockouts with it on defense. I was really lucky to have pulled him!
As for Celever's idea of a Pokébeach League, I love that idea! But we'd have to have a decent amount of people.
In my opinion, Lucario is one of the best figures in the game. Metal Claw is a good attack for 70, beating or tying most figures. But Aura Sphere is really makes him good. It's a one-star Purple attack that auto-kills the opponent or someone behind it. That's an incredibly powerful effect, because it doesn't matter how powerful the opponent's attack is, they're still gonna lose. I've had him KO a Latios who spun Luster Purge before, and make game-saving knockouts with it on defense. I was really lucky to have pulled him!
As for Celever's idea of a Pokébeach League, I love that idea! But we'd have to have a decent amount of people.
That Lucario figure does seem really good! Aura Sphere's effect seems similar to Tropius' Whirlwind I described in my post; where Tropius' attack is 2 stars, Lucario's is only one, but can hit 2 players.
For those who are still considering whether or not to get the game, I want to amend something in my last post: Wait Victories are got by incapacitating the opponent to the point where they can't make any moves at all. Capturing spawn points is obviously central to this, but status effects such as sleep also work to make Pokémon who are out on the field unable to move or attack. I've found myself getting more Wait Victories than otherwise, but I'd say it's probably only a 65/35 split between them. Now that I've figured out how Wait Victories work, I'm even more excited for the game. After all, multiple ways to win adds even more depth to the game!
I've made a couple of small edits to my deck. I'm still using Pikachu, Lapras, Bulbasaur and Tropius, but I've now replaced Golem with Armaldo and Fletchling with Quilava. Quilava really comes into its own later on in the game thanks to its Ember attack, which actually gets more powerful the more Pokémon you have in your Pokémon Centre. This is great for rushing the flanks later on in the game. Armaldo has replaced Golem because of its ability, Battle Armour. This gives the player the option to force any attackers to reroll once, which makes Armaldo excellent for defense. This has great synergy with the next thing I want to talk about...
...Plates! They seem easy to ignore to start off with, but actually I've found myself really enjoying the utility plates bring to the table. Right now I'm running Pokémon Switch, X Attack, Max Revive and Goal Block, and they all have really great effects. X Attack is essentially a one-time nuke attack on a Pokémon like Quilava which has a very small "miss" segment. Max Revive lets you take a fainted Pokémon out of the Pokémon Centre and put it back on your bench, which helps a lot with the fickleness of good and bad matchups to make sure you have the upper hand. Pokémon Switch and Goal Block are for higher movement with my titans. A lot of the time I find myself rushing an enemy spawn point with Bulbasaur, thanks to its excellent 3 movement points, and then using Pokémon Switch to send Armaldo or Tropius straight from my bench to form a pretty reliable wall, meaning there's only one spawn point my other 5 Pokémon need to focus on securing. Goal Block is a god-send for any times when the opponent makes a mad break for it. It lets you send any Pokémon that's currently out on the field onto the goal point itself, giving the Pokémon with higher movement another obstacle to overcome. Usually the higher movement Pokémon have spinners predominantly comprised of blue or purple moves with one quite weak white attack, so it can block their attempts at capturing your goal perfectly, as purple and blue moves can't knock an opponent out (with a couple of exceptions, though these tend to be exclusively on slower Pokémon). I'm really pleased with the mechanic of Plates, because at first I thought they were just filler mechanics to make the game appear a bit deeper. In reality they actually matter a lot, and it has the cool Z-Move mechanic of one-use only but still super strong, meaning that even though the effects are great, you can also easily waste them.
I've also got a great set of plates without having yet paid a penny on the game. They're very generous with how they hand out in-game currency!
As for a PFG league, we might just want to set up a conversation for it? There is indeed a way to choose people to play with over the internet (the room match feature) and it looks pretty smooth. It'll be great to have some challenging opponents as opposed to the scrubs I find on the online matchmaker.
I'm using Keldeo, Lucario, Blastoise, Empoleon, Jolteon and Pikachu. Lucario is the best thing that happened to me in this game, so I am focusing on leveling it up first. Also, @Celever I think everyone gets the Kanto starters. I think that there are lots of bots on the league play. I restarted the game once and battled the same teams. First where Johto starters, then Hoen starters etc, and at one point I battled the same team of Mewtwo-Voltorb-Espurr-Diglett-Zubat-something else for 3 times against 3 users" with different names.
The Game is a joke and is broken. Too many people have 6 EX's in their deck. There's no pokemon types envolved, no catching pokemon either just collecting them like they were a collectable barbi's item. Here's my full review on why it sucks feel free to voice your opinion in my comment section if you agree or not. "Hate'n on Pokemon Duel GMVR Gameplay Review"
No offense, but why are you so adamant about putting this game down? It's literally the only thing you've posted about, and you've done it in a bunch of places. I understand if you don't like the game, but you don't have to spam my profile page about it; you could have just left all your thoughts right here and been done with it.