You discover an island full of treasure and Pokémon, but everything here is cube-shaped!  It’s up to you and your new cubic Pokémon friends to explore the island, battle rival Pokémon, and find all the treasure.  Pokémon Quest is free to download on Switch and later mobile devices, but reviewed on Switch here.

After setting up camp and choosing your starter Pokémon, you’ll send them into stages to battle other Pokémon in various locations.  You don’t control them directly in battle, they’ll walk around on their own.  You can choose to press buttons on screen to select which attacks to use once a timer runs down.  But since you’ll want to use the attacks pretty much right when they’re ready, you might as well set this mode to auto where they perform moves on their own.

After battles, your Pokémon will earn experience points to gain levels, as well as items like Power Stones and food ingredients.  Equip Power Stones to your Pokémon to increase their stats, like hit points and attack power.  Mix food ingredients in a pot back at camp to make different kinds of stews.  After battling a few times, the stew will be ready and depending on what you put in it, it’ll attract certain Pokémon who will become your buddy and fight for you.

And that’s pretty much the cycle of the game.  After beating bosses and earning Poke Mart tickets, you can buy stat boosting decorations to place back at camp.  You can get these PM Tickets by performing various activities, or you can buy them with real money.  That’s where the in-game purchases come in.  While I did like the unique graphic style and the game is a bit addictive at first, I soon realized that not a lot of gameplay is involved and you really don’t do much.  So I lost interest in it pretty quickly.  Plus I think this game would work better on mobile devices than the Switch.  But it’s free so if you’re curious it won’t hurt to download and try it.

Kid Factor:

Pokémon Quest is rated E for Everyone with an ESRB descriptor of Mild Fantasy Violence.  Cubic Pokémon ram into each other and perform attacks, and defeated monsters just explode into little cubes.  Reading skill is helpful for the text, and parental supervision is recommended for the in-game purchases.

Tags: Game Reviews