Review for Nexomon: Extinction. Game for PC, Mac, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch, the video game was released on 28/08/2020
The mood of the era we live in pushes people towards a landscape that sadly - in the opinion of the writer - suggests that nothing really new can be conceived, at most it is possible to revitalize, reinvent, modify what already exists. Assuming this as an objective fact, even in the videogame field we push ourselves towards the goal of improving what already exists by providing additional features or original stories, albeit in a context that is now more than tested.
This isn't necessarily a bad thing when the goal is hit, and that's exactly what the guys of the VEWO INTERACTIVE INC team must have thought when, in collaboration with PQube, they created Nexomon: Extinction, which lands on Nintendo Switch. PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC.
The comparison with the very famous Pokémon series is clear, starting from the name that immediately brings to mind the Game Freak saga to get to the content that from the very beginning turns out to be familiar to the point of making one's nose turn up. Here too, although the plot has a more mature and adventurous cut, in fact, you find yourself catapulted into the action with the now iconic choice of an initial starter from a more stocked roster than the standard to which the general public is accustomed and which is made up of 7 creatures of seven different types.
It must be said that the types of Nexomon and their relative implications in the clashes have, in Nexomon: Extinction, a greater value than the titles of the same category, given that in this game it is not always and only a question of the level of the beasts used in combat.
The accent of a more aggressive plot is not a factor to be underestimated. Worthy of the best cliché, our protagonist turns out to be the fulcrum of an adventure seasoned with flashbacks and unknowns that sees him at the center of an intrigue that unfolds as the adventure continues, but everything has a more mature imprint, devoted to resolution of a conflict and a mystery more than just go around and have fun. And there will also be twists, mature and well integrated into the main story.
Upon awakening from the nightmare in which the prologue catapults us, we find ourselves in an orphanage, ready to face the exam that sees us become tamers of monstrous and funny creatures. In fact, the Nexomons are creatures with which the population has learned to live together to the point of seeing them perfectly integrated into daily life ... but it has not always been this way.
In fact, once humans and Nexomon were enemies as the monsters were under the control of a tyrant who incited them and made them fight. A fearless tamer, however, had the courage and strength to defeat the king of monsters to relegate him to oblivion, allowing the Nexomons to become companions and allies of humans ... at least until now.
This is where our adventure in Nexomon: Extinction starts. The tyrants are back, they fight each other for power and we must restore order, with the help of the team we will form by capturing the wild Nexomons encountered along the way to be locked up in the Nexotraps. And without spoiling too much we can also anticipate that not all tyrants will be our adversaries ...
As for the dynamics of the gameplay of Nexomon: Extinction we can say that no gamer can find them new or that he may have difficulty in mastering them. Capture wild Nexomons, face opponents - be they tamers or enemies - evolve your pups and teach them new techniques. Few differences, just a few facets in the capture phase, where you can use food or other features to appease the opponents Nexomon. Nice collection of minerals that sees the foundation for the creation of nuclei able to give features to your Nexomons in battle.
Nexomon: Extinction also has a hint of dungeon crawler and a propensity for grinding, since even a single badly calculated fight can send you back to the last save point making you retrace long stretches of what is a similar 2-dimensional isometric open world, with a respawn of all wildlife and otherwise. In practice, you are either ready or you are screwed. Hunting, carrying out the countless secondary missions, recovering and reselling materials and Nexomon and above all exploring is the only way to continue an adventure that is all in all free from the point of view of the approach. An important thing to keep in mind is the use of Nexotraps, which vary in element and quality and which give life to a mini game during the capture phase, unfortunately practically only an end in itself.
Unfortunately, the RPG component is barely sketched and perhaps, given that this has always been one of the shortcomings of the famous Pokémon, a little more effort could have been made to improve it. But the strength of titles of the genre is certainly not this but rather that of tickling the collecting component of the players and Nexomon: Extinction is no exception.
In this respect the title stands out in the universe of clones with a care for the attention of the monsters that exudes passion and love. Each Nexomon has more than one evolution, and every time it evolves it changes and improves not only the physical characteristics but also the story that accompanies them in the description. There are more than 400 different Nexomons and each of them is really characterized with care and precision, both in its basic form and in its evolutions. In addition, there are different types of Nexomon that must absolutely be taken into account.
As mentioned above, one of the sore points of titles similar to this one is that absurdly, by enhancing only one type of creature, you almost always have the better of all the others: you get a team with one strong creature and several weaker ones. In Nexomon: Extinction this happens with much more difficulty: from the beginning it is better to have a varied and uniform team from the point of view of level and power; in this way it will be easier to continue but no less long since in any case leveling and camping are imperative.
The menus are quick and easy and perfectly adapted to the version we tested for the Nintendo Switch, but we found several code inaccuracies in the translation, which we are sure the development team will fix before the official launch of Nexomon: Extinction. To compensate, we find a characterization of the type of dialogue in itself nothing short of hilarious: with jokes that pierce the fourth wall and a black humor at times irreverent that makes skipping the dialogues a crime.
Nexomon: Extinction, produced by VEWO INTERACTIVE INC and published by PQube, for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC turns out to be something already seen and revised at a glance. That said, the title manages to carve out a slice of the market thanks to a proven gameplay, an affordable price and above all thanks to a quantity of Nexomon to capture and evolve that will delight collectors. If you pass over the similarities Nexomon: Extinction turns out to be pleasant and well developed and able to give several hours of fun.
► Nexomon: Extinction is an RPG-Adventure-indie game developed by VEWO INTERACTIVE INC and published by PQube for PC, Mac, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch, the game was released on 28/08/2020
