LogFAQs > #963016430

7) Nexomon: Extinction
Vewo Interactive, Inc. / PQube
PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Switch, PC, iOS, Android
Released August 28, 2020
Would make my top 100 list if re-written: No

How ironic that a new Pokemon mainline game gets announced right before I write up this game for the list. Anyway, Nexomon: Extinction is a monster-catching RPG that takes a lot of its inspiration from Pokemon, but differentiates itself enough that makes it a much better title than most of the more recent games in that series.

One of Nexomon: Extinction's strengths is the storyline and dialogue throughout the series. It starts off like any other Pokemon title, where you're a kid that finally reached the age of becoming a Nexomon tamer, but that's basically where the similarities end. The Nexomon world is under siege by a number of tamers controlling powerful Nexomon known as Tyrants, and as expected your character will have to do something about that; however, it's not as clear-cut as I'm saying here, and it deviates in some surprising ways. The dialogue is also spot-on, as the characters will frequently break the fourth wall and comment on how absurd the game gets or how various tropes keep happening throughout the game. The main character is a silent protagonist, but they placed another character along with the main character so there's actually some worthwhile dialogue when characters are talking to the protagonist.

Battling in Nexomon is a bit different than expected due to the stamina stat; all Nexomon have an amount of stamina, and more powerful moves use more of this. If stamina gets low, a Nexomon must skip a turn to restore a small portion of its stamina. It provides more strategy to manage the stamina of all six of your party members. Nexomon: Extinction also uses level scaling to make it more challenging. As you level up the Nexomon in your party, the entire game levels up with you, so there's always a decent challenge coming up throughout the entire storyline - and even the postgame, where I started with all tamers having Nexomon ten to fifteen levels above my current party (and you can keep challenging tamers as much as you want, and they keep upgrading their teams by evolution and leveling up to around the mid 70s). The final battles in the storyline also have a decent challenge to get through, as the tamers have varied types in their arsenal.

Cores also provide a nice customization aspect in the game. You collect shards of different types throughout the game, and can use these to provide different effects to your Nexomon, such as a buff to different statistics or more EXP in battle. Each Nexomon can equip four cores, so there's a decent amount of what you can achieve there.

Overall, I was impressed at Nexomon: Extinction's execution on how it overturned a genre that was getting quite stale to me. My only complaints with the game are that it runs a bit sluggish in the menus, and the game is actually very short in its length. Neither is too big of a deal, though, and I will eventually get the final few trophies which involve catching all the Nexomon in the game at some point later.