It’s been just shy of two weeks since the Android and iOS App Stores were graced with “Pocket Mortys” from Adult Swim Games. This shameless “Pokemon” clone may be one of the best mobile games available to date. Yes, it is literally the core system of Pokemon, drilled down to it’s most basic premise. Explore area, find creature, battle creature. That, in itself, is what makes “Pocket Mortys” so beautiful. The game is clever, quick to pick up, and has enough depth for a free game that there is no reason you shouldn’t spend time in the world. Even, if you are not a fan of “Rick and Morty” which can only be equated to your lack of a soul, this game gives many opportunities for a great time.
If you’re completely unfamiliar here is a quick summary to get you going. Rick and Morty are in the lab working on another adventure when they are suddenly joined by a strangely dressed Rick with a Morty in tow. He is in search of “the one true Morty”. One thing leads to another and Rick and Morty find themselves in front of the council of Ricks without Rick’s handy portal gun. From here the battling/crafting/collecting begins. Again, if you’re looking for insane amounts of depth, huge meta game, and wild strategy, you’re in the wrong world. Battling is based on Paper, Rock Scissors, this isn’t in the gaming sense of fire beats ice, ice beats flying or whatever. This game is literally based on Scissor Type, Rock Type and Paper type Mortys. This unique crew (82 in all) of hilarious characters are divided among the three. Rock beats Scissor, Scissor beats Paper, Paper beats rock, Rock beats Scissor. This takes the metagame to a minimum. Since paper type can only learn paper moves, rock type can only learn rock and so on, your battles are spent trying to remember what a specific Morty is and how to counter it.
Aside from that, you are collecting a few pieces of junk that you can craft into memorable items from the TV series either for your own personal gain or to complete quests which lead to riches, and then warping from “random” zone to zone to collect Mortys and battle the other RIcks for badges. This is where the curve of the game can get a little slow. The beginning is difficult due to your lack of resources, once that is overcome the middle is a sort of easy grind, that becomes repetitive and yet, is still fun as hell. After that the ending scales up the difficulty again as your level will even out with your opponents. Once you have completed the story (which has a great twist ending) you are then set free with your portal gun to collect the remaining Mortys, (except for the mascot Morty which is currently unavailable due to a bug).
This game takes everything that a mobile game would normally do just ok as a cash grab, and does it extremely well. Yes there are like 6 songs that play in the background, yes the quests are all basically the same, and yes, the worlds, though randomly generated very quickly start to look the same. But you are enjoying the world so much that the novelty remains. It is also an added bonus that while it is possible to utilize in game purchases they are far from required. You can also watch advertisements to gain additional “shmeckles”, but again, you gain enough just roaming the world that you don’t have to by any means.
With the promise of new Mortys to be patched in, the only thing that can be left wanting would be network play for Morty battling, trading of Mortys and hopefully, more story in the future. This game is free, go download it, now.