Micromon

Micromon ,also known as Micromon: The Legend of Vaithe, is a 2014 video game made by MOGA for iOS and Android. It is frequently described as the first successful knock-off of Pokémon  series on iOS. The development of the game was started in 2012 with a failed Kickstarter campaign, and lasted for two years. It’s sequel, Nexomon, is released later on.

Why It Rocks

 * 1) While this game is considered as one of the many rip-offs of Pokémon series, it has a higher quality, comparing to other rip-offs. And you don’t have to do a lot of in-game purchases either: the game itself will award you enough money (Diamonds) to buy powerful Micromon as you proceed.
 * 2) The game’s battle mechanic is similar to Pokémon, but not as same. Micromon uses Stamina to determine if you can use a move, similar to the ‘Magic Points’ in other RPG games. Beside this, a Micromon with high speed can sometimes act twice in a turn.
 * 3) You can freely decide what move a Micromon can have at any time, and change them at your will instead of having to forget the move or remember it at a cost.
 * 4) Amazing music and wonderful story line, which is somehow also appealing people to walk into real life.
 * 5) Nice, smooth graphics.
 * 6) Element weaknesses are not as important, as the damage towards a Micromon with an element that is weak to yours is only slightly increased instead of being doubled or even quadrupled, so it’s possible (and very likely if you use a good strategy like using Slam, which may stun the enemies) to beat the game without collecting a team of legendary Micromon, which saves the player a lot of time and doesn’t require you to do boring backtracking. Leveling up is also rather easy here.
 * 7) Instead, the game focuses on strategy. You will want to use Sharpshooter, a move that always hits, to cancel an oppoment’s Rock Wall effect, which makes them evade one attack. There are also many moves that has a high chance to stun the opponent for one turn, effectively giving you another turn. These moves will be very important when you fight against some powerful enemies, such as the Legion Member Rematch, which uses godly Micromon as their main source of damage output.
 * 8) The Lucky Lottery is a wonderful thing to try. You are awarded with one of the best monsters in the game each time you use it. And it doesn’t cost a lot - the game will give you a lot of diamonds, enough for you to get one or two of your ideal Micromon throughout the game. Most importantly, the Micromon you get through this way will be around the same level of your current team, meaning that you don’t have to train it from a low level, which saves another bunch of time.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) There are only four elements in the game: Wind, Mineral, Fire and Water. And unlike most RPG games just with these four elements, the type properties are messy. Mineral is just the same as Fire, being strong to Wind and weak to Water (as opposed to the common setting that it’s weak to wind and strong to water). On that topic, there’s also a ridiculous ‘Special’ type that makes no sense. It has no weaknesses just like how Normal does, but there are four Micromon with this type that each specialize in one of the four elements mentioned above, and this makes them broken.
 * 2) The five starter Micromon seem to have a final evolution, but the game simply doesn’t give you access to it. You have to catch them in secret area (which costs something like 200 Diamonds) or by lottery. Same for the four godly Micromon mentioned above (you can actually catch Vaithe during the post-Vaithe quest).
 * 3) There isn’t a post-game after the B003 battle.
 * 4) Some Micromon, like Unicrab, are broken. They are almost always faster than you.
 * 5) After receiving a Game Over, you are returned to the last save point, which is often inside the boss battle cutscene because the game automatically saves your progress (and this can’t be turned off). You may lost a lot of things you’ve got just because you forget to level up your Micromon before entering the next room or even, if unluckily enough, being stuck in a softlock-like state.
 * 6) There are only about 130 Micromon in this game. And you only have 3 attempts to catch a Micromon in a battle, meaning that unless you use a Golden Chip (100 Diamonds), you are very likely to meet a rare Micromon, fail, and let it go. This is somehow ruining the fun of repeatedly trying to catch a monster you desired.

Reception
The Sydney Morning Herald rated the game a 7/10, and IGN rated it 6.7 out of 10 points. Touch Arcade rated this game 4.5 stars out of 5.