Application Review: Little Masters Riida.com | 5.1 MB | FREE It was regarded to be the Pokémon clone. It was said that Nintendo would have it taken down quickly after release. It was said… It was said. At first glance, the game does seem to take many roots from our beloved Pokémon that have become overpopulated (remember the original 150?). Other than the battle system and artistry though, they share nothing in common. Gameplay The base idea behind the game can be described as follows… Take Farmville, now apply a Pokémon skin to it. You now have Little Masters. The game is a typical time-based RPG that has been made very popular. So, let’s start at the beginning, the egg. You start the game finding an egg that you determine the fate of. The egg contains a monster in it. Which one? Well, you choose a monster of the elements grass, water, and fire. Sound familiar? It should, as each Pokémon game starts the same way; Bulbasaur, Squirttle, and Charmander anyone? You get to choose one of three monsters. After this, the game steps away from Pokémon’s cliché gameplay entirely. You work breeding monsters at your home. There is no adventure, no badges, no honor. You fight monsters, and collect their eggs. Similar to a poacher. You hire people to find you monsters to fight. Each hired person takes an amount of time to find the monster, each egg you get takes time to hatch. You can, of course, spend some gold to speed up time a bit. Additionally, you can also get some more areas to hatch eggs in your little barn for gold as well. If your pockets aren’t lined with money, you can earn gold in the game through quests. Each quest is different and has a different payout. They range from simple things, to more complicated things. They don’t, however, include a nice adventure that a standard RPG would have. The gold payout is low though. Quests earn you gold, they aren’t adventurous either. The battle system is very basic. You select a monster, and start fighting the one that was found by your hired friend. Each monster has up to 4 attacks. Weaknesses and resistence is also included with battle as well. I have yet to see critical hits though. When one faints, you select another monster to come in and finish the deed. After each battle, all monsters return to full health. The battle system is basically a mirror of Pokémon. The game just doesn’t feel like an RPG. The time-based gameplay is really a no-go for me. If I wanted to wait an hour, I would have played mob wars. I want to go out on an adventure, explore the wilderness, and make friends (and enemies). I want to prove myself, this game doesn’t allow that. Gameplay: ★★★★ Graphics The graphics mirrors the classic Pokémon games with the addition of color. The colors are bright, vibrant, with good contrast. Details are scarce in their 8-bit nature. They are enough to make out body parts among other things. The 8-bit graphics create a nice nostalgic feel to the game. The animations do the same thing. The graphics are reminiscent of some classic games. Graphics: ★★★★★ Audio When you start the game, you are bombarded with a cheery, fun song. That song will remain cheery and fun for a little while, but then it becomes downright annoying. There are no options to shut it off either. The sound effects are abundant. Monsters sound different, attacks can be heard as well. The sound effects are nice in quality and number. The BGM can use some work. Audio: ★★★★ Replay This game has no main story. It has a bunch of quests, but they really aren’t quests. The game itself is the replay. To train your monsters is fine for a few minutes. It’s the wait that makes me stop playing. Let’s face it, I don’t want to pay to play. I don’t want to wait 7 minutes to battle, and I sure don’t want to wait an hour for an egg to hatch. I don’t want to blow my cash on gold that will void 1 timer either. It’s annoying, and really just unneeded. At least they have multiplayer... There is multiplayer included in the game... Battle your friend if you play. Replay: ★★★ Value The game is free, and the devs did say it was freemium. They also made a point that money didn’t need to be spent to play the game. Well, if you don’t, you end up waiting 7 minutes to battle and an hour for an egg to hatch. If you pay, it will eventually drain your wallet pretty nicely. The gameplay is fun, but it isn’t that fun; especially with the waiting and all. But hey, it is free. Value: ★★★½ Final Thoughts Did they steal 8-bit graphics, and a battle system from Pokémon? There is no denying they did. Did they clone Pokémon? Last I remember, Pokémon wasn’t a freemium game where you were encapsulated at home like a chained dog where you have to wait hours for eggs to hatch and battle other monsters. So no, it’s not a clone. Overall Score† All prices are in US currency. This review was written by the iFans.com Review Team. Cumulative scores are rounded to the nearest half or full star. All accessories, applications, themes, tweaks, or other products were purchased by iFans at their respective prices unless stated otherwise.
Original 151. Mew wasn't available without glitch/special event, but there's a Pokédex entry for him in Generation 1. Also, Squirtle has one 't.'
No loss if it gets pulled. Played it for about 10 minutes, didn't have any gold anymore and got bored by hiring people so I can fight. A real RPG would be quite nice, even with 8bit graphics. But like this I delete it again.
Its been available for 3 days now. Usually if it would have been pulled by now so I think this is here to stay.
I'm excited to see that they do when they update it. The prices are high for gold, though. I'm over all disappointed, I don't like FarmVille stuff... EDIT: Just got a critical hit. I couldn't screenshot it for proof because it goes by so quickly, so you'll just have to take my word for it I guess. I can't tell if I'm glad or disappointed that I'm not mashing the A button during battles...
Looking in the files of the app, I noticed a couple things. First off, there are only seven monsters. This has nothing on Nintendo's original. Second, and more important, your little pets don't evolve. That's right, it's a lie. Even the characters tell you they evolve by eating berries or whatnot left by the evolved form of the little tykes, but there are no sprites for any evolved forms. There are just a few sprites for the seven regulars (Dodeed, Sealap, Worcel, Tentric, Fleap, Sporoom, and Pyreft). I'm sorry for crushing your dreams, but you'll have to wait for an update. EDIT: Okay, it seems like when you encounter a new monster (whether it be catching it or fighting one online against someone), the app will download the sprites for it. So from what I see, there are at least fifteen monsters. Oh, and evolutions are theoretically possible too.
That's not true. I've been playing for a couple of days and already have 16 different monsters (not including evolutions). I have been able to get one of my monsters to evolve, my Pyreft. It takes a while though, they have to reach level 25 or higher in order to evolve.
