Review for Puckamon

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marionline
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Review for Puckamon

Post by marionline »

**Infos**
The game Puckamon by FnrrfYgmSchnish was released in 2010 for the Ridiculous Games Contest and received a update in 2016.
This game is a parody on the well-known similar sounding games by a company that starts with the letter N. The Puckamon copies the style of the first gameboy games, it pretends to take place in 1995.
I have not played the whole game. So I can only comment up to the point where I played.

**Plot**
Just like the original games about the pocket monsters, the game starts with an introduction scene there professor Tree greets the player. Then the player is asked some questions by professor Tree.
The story begins in Mallet Town, where the hero, here he's named ASH overslept and was to late to get a puckamon. Professor Tree gave Ash a weak Pikachu as first puckamon.
And Ash sets off to become puckamon chamion ...

**Bravo! Great Design!**
I really liked how the game copies the old game boy game style, in sounds and colour, and the allusions and jokes about the original games.
- Trying to find and catch the different puckamon was fun. (Although some of them look ... rather strange than funny.)
- I really like the slime and pointer thing in the sewers, that was interesting.
- team sputnik's introduction scene
- The puckadex shows how many monsters you caught

**Things that could be improved:**
The battle are quite a bit time consuming, well I guess it's what the game is about.
Still, I feel one needs lots of training to improve the team, so the battles should be faster. It seems to get better as the game progresses. But in the beginning battles are way to slow.
And the monsters in the swastika cave were way to strong.

**Overall Impression:**
Puckamon was fun, but the progress through battles felt a bit to slow. FnrrfYgmSchnish took many good elements from the gameboy games and put them into the Puckamon game as such as Puckamon centers, gyms, training, finding items, the pukadex and catching and collecting puckamon. So basically what one would expects of a game of that genre. :)
I haven't seen the whole game yet, but to me it seems there's even a plot that resembles the original games: Trying to beat your rival and become puckamon champ and beat team sputnik on the way.
Being a parody the game is full of jokes (most of them are funny), often NPCs make remarks that one would not find in the original game. Like the guy saying he carries his PC everywhere, the rumor of the professor taking puckamon medicine instead of drugs or the meta-humour like "It's 1995 you can not play as a girl."
I like the idea of creating a new team, called team sputnik, ( that travels faster than the spread of communism). Their design is inspired by the team rocket, but they got new outfits and (russian?) accents.
Like mentioned above I strongly suggest to make battles fast, since battles are an important game play element of the game, it weights hard on the fun. Also the gap in power of the monsters in the banana tree forest and the monsters in the swastika could be adjusted to allow a rather smooth progression from one place to the other. I haven't played the whole game, can can't say much on the intentions why there was this communism-and-nazi-theme put into the game. It might be a cultural thing, but personally, this whole nazi-topic feels kind of misplaced in a parody(!) game.
Anyhow, this game is a good parody and quite fun to play and you get a hint of 90s nostalgia. :D

Trivia:
The swastika symbol is banned in Germany (link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strafgese ... ection_86a), so some of the the game's geography might have to be censored here. You usually only get to see the symbol in history books and documentaries.
Attachments
Battle Time
Battle Time
puckamon0023.bmp (63.55 KiB) Viewed 1899 times
Hero and Rival
Hero and Rival
puckamon0014.bmp (63.55 KiB) Viewed 1899 times
Team Sputnik
Team Sputnik
puckamon0043.bmp (63.55 KiB) Viewed 1899 times
... but the hero were lucky and still got a Pikachu despite begin late
... but the hero were lucky and still got a Pikachu despite begin late
puckamon0006.bmp (63.55 KiB) Viewed 1899 times
Last edited by marionline on Thu May 11, 2017 5:29 am, edited 1 time in total.
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