Originating as a mobile game in 2017 before being ported to Steam, indie monster collecting game Nexomon has drawn inevitable comparisons to Pokémon. In a direct comparison, Pokémon comes out on top, as nicknames, abilities, and other frills are absent from Nexomon. However, this doesn’t mean that Pokémon is entirely infallible.
In the 26 years that Pokémon has been a franchise, the games have poked and prodded at many different mechanics, to both positive and negative reviews. Where games like Nexomon shine in comparison is when they identify a weakness in an existing mechanic and twist it into something new and user-friendly. Such is the case with how the game handles random encounters in the grass.
Pokémon games have consistently has wild Pokémon appear in tall grass, with such encounters randomized. The franchise has toyed with alternative approaches, most notably overworld Pokémon encounters such as those in Let’s Go, Sword and Shield, and most recently Legends: Arceus. Sinnoh remakes Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl might have returned to the classic randomized encounters, but this was met with severe criticism from players who much preferred to see and possibly avoid potential encounters.
Nexomon toys with this mechanic somewhat. While cave encounters play exactly like those in Pokémon, as far as the tall grass is concerned, Nexomon takes a hybridized approach. Should players step into the tall grass in Nexomon, there’s no guarantee that they’ll actually encounter one of the title creatures unless they run into a patch of grass that’s moving. Similar to how shifting grass in the Gen V Pokémon games indicate a strong Pokémon, shifting grass in Nexomon is a signal of any presence.
This has both benefits and drawbacks. By limiting encounters to these moving patches, players can avoid encounters entirely, should they so desire. This can be especially useful when the player wants to get through a section quickly. For instance, this option can come in handy when players are running back to the nearest town for more supplies and a quick trip to the local Healing Center, the Nexomon version of a Pokémon Center.
The drawbacks come when players try to grind or hunt for new Nexomon. Since Nexomon are only encountered in patches of moving grass (outside of a cave encounter), this means that once the grass stills, players have to wait for a new patch to start shifting and try again. This can be frustrating when a rarer Nexomon refuses to get into a NexoTrap and players have to grind through dozens of Common Nexomon to try to spawn another. Additionally, some patches have a higher chance of spawning rarer encounters, but since different patches of grass will move every time, this means that there’s some wait involved for the right patch of grass to be shifting again.
Still, the benefits can’t be ignored, and the grinding can be somewhat forgiven when one recalls that as a mobile game, Nexomon was originally intended to be played in short bursts. As far as the mechanic itself, it’s interesting to see how others in the monster-capture genre handle the mainstays associated with Pokémon. The Pokémon franchise has so dominated the genre that any others in the field are accused of being clones, but it’s fun to see how these so-called clones handle a mechanic that doesn’t vary much in the dominant franchise.
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