Review: Pokémon UNITE
by William Hernandez
It has been over two years since Pokémon UNITE came out and the game has evolved into something quite different from what it started off as. The metagame has shifted with every other character release and the "skill" ceiling has only gotten higher with time. It's still noteworthy that the game is also available on mobile phones, increasing its outreach and player base. It has since become a staple at the Pokémon World Championships and it is definitely here to stay. That doesn't necessarily mean everything's all good under the hood, though. Every play session is going to be different, but a common theme is that the lows are going to feel much more impactful than the highs. When so much is out of a single player's control, this is bound to happen. With UNITE, this is a systemic issue more so than a user issue. Money makes a difference. Stronger Pokémon make a difference. This game doesn't do enough to properly address this.
Enjoyability: 9/16
Making nice plays should feel good. But unless your stats are getting overinflated by bot lobbies, it is genuinely difficult to regularly walk away from a game and feel like you made a substantial difference. The problem is that making the right choice is just a basic expectation for winning. The best path to success is being consistent. But what isn't consistent? Both your allies and your opponents (mainly just your opponents if you do get a full stack for your team). Either you're going to feel frustrated that objectives aren't being properly taken or you're going to loathe the fact that you have to deal with a Mewtwo and Comfey in your lane. The problem with the balance in the game is that you're very likely going to come away feeling like you're either taking way too much damage or not doing enough - more on that later. There's just too little positives from playing the game. It almost never feels rewarding outside of long winning streaks. A big problem comes from the fact that not everything is available to all players. Holowear, licenses, clothing, and items are all things that can be bought. Not everything there is easy to get otherwise. Beginning players are going to have trouble making up ground in terms of boost emblems as well. This creates a huge disparity in terms of actual strength in game. All in all, it's just too easy to have your experience soured by one or two matches. Feeling like something is unfair just happens too often in UNITE. Can you have fun with your friends? Totally, but quit while you're ahead if you ever get the chance.
Gameplay: 12/16
UNITE has fairly simple controls, making it easy to pick up by anyone. For the most part, the role of a Pokémon is readily apparent after a few games and how they need to be specifically played doesn't require too much experimentation. Where players will initially struggle is mainly with understanding team dynamics. Making a push for an objective requires your team. Protecting your goal zone will require a team effort. Taking Rayquaza should never be done if - guess what - it doesn't benefit your team. To that end, UNITE is actually a fairly complex game. I suppose you could call it a watered down version of "more traditional" MOBA gameplay, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. 10 minute matches make the game more accessible to get into and only having two usable moves generally prevents your screen from getting filled by way too many animations. It would certainly be nice if every Pokémon were viable so that players could just use their favorites, but unfortunately that's not the case. Proper balance is an issue that UNITE regularly struggles with and the new Mewtwos show that it is clearly not on the forefront of the minds of the developers. Way too often do new Pokémon need to be readjusted shortly after release. Older Pokémon, on the other hand, need to wait months if not years to even get any type of useful revision. Machamp, for example, is simply ill-equipped to handle more modern Pokémon. Choosing it over other options puts you immediately at a disadvantage. Overall, the core gameplay loop of Pokémon UNITE is fairly well-designed, but the lack of proper balance really hinders the experience as it promotes severe levels of monotony. Certainly not terrible by any means, but the game has been trending in a bad direction for a while now.
Atmosphere: 3/6
Surprisingly, UNITE doesn't feel too entrenched in the world of Pokémon. It kind of just goes through the motions by including professors and researchers who are of very little significance past the basic introductions to the game. Trainers from previous games have only shown up sparsely in events like Legacy Trainer Showdown which is surprising given how much more money UNITE could make just by making those kinds of cosmetics available all the time. Outside of the playable Pokémon, UNITE doesn't really celebrate much of the history of the series, preferring to celebrate real-world holidays more than anything else. This wouldn't be much of a problem if UNITE actually had anything interesting about itself, but it doesn't really. The background music and SFX are surprisingly poor relative to the standards of most Pokémon games. The map designs are fairly generic-looking; though, they do look pretty nice for the hardware they run on (and the Theia Sky Ruins do at least feel unique). It's hard to shake off the feeling that UNITE is just interested in cash grabs, seeing as the most notable and well-designed things in the game are the Holowear. Damn, do they look nice, but I'll stick to the free ones.
Design: 4/6
UNITE has interesting alternatives to the more standard ranked and unranked battles even if they're not of too much importance to the average player. Looking at the other actual gamemodes, custom battles can make for some good fun if you have multiple friends at the ready to play with. Instead of debating who to make a party of 5 with, it can be pretty nice to just setup a match solely between friends. There's going to be a lot less ire involved and it's also not a bad way of testing out a new Pokémon. These kinds of battles can be a lot more repeatable just from the sheer fact that they're more casual affairs and so it's actually a great option to have. Quick battles are your other alternative and these are better suited for when you just can't find a fifth teammate, but want to play. These are shorter games, though, they can snowball just as badly as 5v5 matches. Quick battles aren't terrible, but there's nothing too thrilling about them. Special modes, on the other hand, are a much more interesting diversion just from how different they feel. They rely a lot more on gimmicks and that makes them feel unique enough. They tend to have pretty good incentives for playing them so that also factors in as well. For a free-to-play game, UNITE has some pretty good depth to it. One last thing I want to highlight is the UI and, my goodness, it is one of the worst I've seen on any game. There are way too many things you can interact with and finding the exact thing you want is a nightmare. This isn't going to change anytime soon and that is a real shame.
Direction: 10/16
There is really only one main objective for players on any given season and that is to make it to Master Rank. That is the ultimate objective. Whether you are a new or old player, that's going to take quite a number of games to achieve. The rank system in Pokémon UNITE, however, is fundamentally broken which makes that goal a real pain in the ass. The problem with the different ranks is that they don't effectively filter out bad players. You're unlikely to get actually savvy players as teammates until Ultra, but at the same time you might face very well-disciplined teams as early as Expert or Veteran. At times, playing solo might be a lot better for you because you have a better chance of facing a badly organized opposition. At other times, you'll absolutely need a full party because your other random teammates just won't cut it. It's a really frustrating process and unfortunately ranked battles are the primary reason you're going to be playing the game in the first place. Is it the worst ranked system ever? No, but it definitely holds the game back from being a smoother experience. Honestly, it just needs another rank or two to better differentiate players' skill levels. The grind to the top may end up being more exhausting, but players would benefit by having higher-quality games the higher up they go.
