Broken by Design – Pokémon Duel Review

I’ve seen a lot of people complain about randomness, but that is honestly the only thing stopping this game from being unplayable. It’s fun in theory, but it’s so pay-to-win that it’s absurd. Moreover, the game is constantly releasing new Pokemon that are more powerful and break the meta harder than the last round. The result: if you’re not playing certain figures, you probably lose. If you hope to get them by playing for free, you’re going to wait a long time. That said, the randomness is, like I said, what keeps this playable. You CAN win, in theory, against any deck if you’re lucky enough and play well. But for me it’s not about winning, it’s about the game being enjoyable. This game rarely is. I play very few games that are enjoyable as equal matches of skill, and most fights are super one-sided. I would applaud them for doing gym events that give boosts to certain types and offers unique figure rewards. It breaks the meta, which would be good except that it just breaks the meta and makes certain figures even more OP and, by some extreme coincidence, there is almost always a gem sale going around that time—so you can try to get the broken figures for the three-day event. It’s a game that is designed exclusively to rake in money. It would be really fun and a breath of fresh air if it wasn’t so broken. Oh, and they’ve had the last few quest areas locked and coming soon since release. I’m guessing we will never see them because quests give things for free and thus don’t make money. Play it if you want, but just be warned that you’ll have to spend money to stand any chance at enjoying it. If you do, never buy at full price, wait for the huge sales. Oh, and players regularly throw tantrums and disconnect to waste 1.5 minutes if your time when they’re about to lose—something which has never changed and probably won’t be fixed.
Review by akakiwu490 on Pokémon Duel.