So, I played Pokemon Unite and I’d like to tell you all about my experience with this
game.
First off, if you don’t know what Pokémon Unite is, well, it’s a brand new game released
on July 21st for the Nintendo Switch that’s actually completely free to play, and heck,
it will even come out for mobile devices later this year.
Pokémon Unite is a MOBA or a multiplayer online battle arena.
Think League Of Legends, but simpler, and full of amazing Pokémon!
Pokémon Unite teams you up with 4 other players, pitting you against the other team in short
10-minutes long matches where you’ll need to be the team that has the most points at
the end.
To make points, you’ll first have to defeat some wild pokémon scattered all over the
map to collect those points and to level-up your pokémon.
Once you get an opportunity to get to one of the enemy’s goal circles, you’ll then
be able to slam dunk your points and score for your team!
Obviously, this is the simple way of describing Pokémon Unite, because, as you can probably
figure out, it’s a little bit more complicated than that!
At the time of me making this video, there’s a roster of 20 playable Pokémon with more
being planned to be added in the future, and those Pokémon are split into different categories.
There’s the attackers, Pokémon that have low Endurance but are heavy damage dealers,
the speedsters, who move super fast mobility and attack speed, the all-rounders, which
are more balanced-type pokémon, the defenders, or what we usually call the tanks, Pokémon
that have a lot of health point and defense, and finally, the last category are the supporters,
or Pokémon that can heal allies or inflict status conditions on the enemies.
To achieve victory, you’ll typically have to balance your team in order to win the team
fights and end up with the most points.
Speaking of, defeating the enemy team is not the most important part of a Pokémon Unite
match.
Of course, defeating enemies gives you points and puts them out of the match for a couple
of seconds, but playing smart is more important than getting a big K/D ratio.
The goal is to score some points, remember, so attacking the wild pokémon is actually
more important than fighting the other team for the most part of the match.
There’s also some Pokémon that are stronger and more difficult to defeat, but also provide
you or your team with a buff that can help out quite a lot.
Defeat Ludicolo and Bouffalant to get more attack power and be able to reduce the enemy's
movement speed.
Defeat Rotom to get instant point capturing abilities, and get rid of Dreadnaw for a team
boost of experience points and shields.
Finding a way to defeat those Pokémon while fighting other Pokémon and defending your
goal is not easy, but very worth it!
When there’s 2 minutes remaining on the clock, the legendary Pokémon Zapdos will
also appear and defeating this dude will give your team a huge advantage that can completely
turn the tide of battle.
If you do, all of the enemy’s goals will be defenseless for 30 seconds, and all of
the team members get 20 more points.
During the last 2 minutes, all points are also doubled, so as you can imagine, if all
of the team gets 20 points and manages to score, they get 40 each, bringing the total
to 200 more points!
This is kind of overpowered in my opinion, but hey, I’m not the one working for the
Pokémon Company, am I?
In true Pokémon fashion, if you pick a Pokémon like Gengar for example, well, you’ll start
off the match as Ghastly and will slowly evolve as you defeat other Pokémon and level up.
This is actually pretty cool to start off with the least evolved state of a pokémon
and see it change throughout the match.
Levelling up is accomplished by defeating Pokémon and scoring points in the enemy's
goals, and it also comes with the ability to choose new attack moves.
After every couple of levels, you’ll get to pick between two different moves and these
can also be upgraded if you keep levelling up.
This means that 2 of the same Pokémon may not face off with the same exact set of moves,
which leads to really amazing battles.
Oh, I almost forgot.
Every single Pokémon has a “Unite Move”, which is the ultimate attack of that Pokémon.
The cooldown on these attacks is absurdly long, so make sure to use them only when necessary,
because they can mean everything during a team fight!
They also look super stylish, so there’s that!
Of course, some moves are slightly more powerful than others and combining certain moves together
will lead to a very powerful Pokémon and just like every game ever, if you search online,
you’ll find some really amazing builds that players have tested and that have been proven
to be very effective.
As every match is 10 minutes long, you’ll get to try out many Pokémon and move real
quick and will eventually end up on one or two Pokémon you truly love playing more than
the others.
That’s good, because a team cannot have two of the same Pokémon, so when starting
a match, you’ll often see players fight over certain Pokémon, which can be frustrating,
but that’s part of the game.
Each Pokémon can have held items that can increase their health points, attack, defense
and give them a couple more abilities.
You’ll unlock those held items as you play matches and you can upgrade those to make
them more powerful.
Trainers can also hold down one battle item that’s mapped to the Y button and can be
used at any point during the match.
These battle items can heal your pokémon, or make them teleport in a direction, give
them a boost in attack speed and way more effects.
You can play different types of matches in Pokémon Unite.
What we’ve been talking about so far are normal matches, but you can also play the
Ranked mode, which will track your victories and defeats and will allow you to climb the
ladder to become the very best like no one ever was!
This mode is very stressful, but also very fun to play!
And if you want to relax, there’s also a quick 5 minutes mode, where you play on different
maps, with different objectives and they’re usually less stressful and just plain easy
fun!
I mentioned at the very start that this game is free-to-play, which also means it comes
with a lot of different mechanics meant to get you to actually spend money in-game, because
yes, you can actually pay some big bucks to unlock stuff in Pokémon Unite.
This game allows you to buy Holowear for your Pokémon, which is basically just a different
word for costumes.
Look at that Machamp!
Very boring and cringe, am I right?
Well, for the low low price of 10 bucks, your Machamp can actually look like this!
Wow!
All jokes aside, I have no problem against people who like buying cosmetic items for
their trainer or Pokémon and I feel like it’s a good way to monetise a good game.
My only gripe is that costumes aren’t the only thing you can buy using real money.
You can also pay to get a battle pass, kinda like Fortnite, which will give you additional
items as you play because you paid the premium price.
That’s also not that much of an issue for me.
My main problem is that you can use real money to buy some item enhancers, which then can
be used to boost your held items.
Remember how I told you some items give you more HP, attack, defense, etc?
Well, these items can be upgraded to give you a way bigger boost and basically, if you
want to max those out more quickly than your average joe, well you can spend a crap ton
of money to do so!
This will obviously not guarantee a victory, as Pokémon Unite is a team-based game, but
it might give a huge advantage in the long run if more and more people decide to spend
money to basically get stronger.
Now, in all honesty, as broken as this mechanic could become, I do have to say that I have
spent a total of zero dollars in this game so far, and I still kick ass and get a bunch
of victories, so do not be too scared that this might change any time soon!
Especially considering how high the prices of those things are!
140$ for gems?
Who do you think I am, Jeffrey Besos?
Being an online multiplayer game, Pokémon Unite will require you to be connected online
to play it, but it won’t require you to be subscribed to the infamous Nintendo Switch
Online yearly subscription, which is a big plus in my book.
Also, I have experienced very little connection issues or problems and matchmaking usually
takes less than 10 seconds to get you into a match, although I have to admit that there
seems to always be one player that doesn’t press start right away.
Come on dude, we’re waiting on you!
You can also add your friends directly from your Switch friend list or you can add them
with a simple trainer id code.
Once that is done, start a match, push the invite button and badabim badaboum, your friends
are playing with you!
This is one of the most, if not the most satisfying online experience I’ve had with a Nintendo
console, and that is really great!
So, in conclusion, I played Pokémon Unite and you should too.
It’s free, it’s fun, it’s an easy game to understand, but it’s a very tough one
to master, meaning you’re in for hours upon hours of enjoyable playtime!