Batomon Showdown: a chef trainer can literally cook a new type onto your creature

There is a line on the store page that ought to serve as a model for the entire industry: among the available trainers you will find eccentric bug-catchers, dragon-whisperers, and chefs able to cook a new type onto your creatures.

Cook. A type. Onto your creature. I do not know which meeting produced that idea, but it has my blessing.

What it actually is

Underneath the pocket-monster parody, this is a fairly serious team-building game.

You assemble a team by combining Batomon, trainers, encounters, trinkets and items. The studio owns the objective: find synergies that break the game and become overpowered.

Every Batomon can be pushed beyond its limits through a system of unique abilities, trinkets and items. The principle is explicit and I like it a great deal: any Batomon can become a powerhouse, including the one nobody wanted.

That is the inverse of the genre's usual logic, where you abandon weak creatures. Here you theorycraft until the weak creature becomes indispensable.

Asynchronous multiplayer, which is the right call

You face teams built by other players, asynchronously. No queue, no lobby, no timer rushing you.

That is the ideal format for this kind of game, for two reasons.

First, it removes real-time anxiety. You think at your own pace, which the studio highlights explicitly.

Second, it guarantees variety. Every battle is a team built by a human, with its twisted logic and combinations you would not have tried. That is infinitely more interesting than an AI, and it keeps the game alive without requiring an enormous population.

What to know

Released today at 10.06 euros by berrymint, a solo developer, the game shows 41 positive reviews out of 51, roughly 80 per cent.

One important point before buying: there is no single-player mode. The game is listed as multiplayer only, and everything runs through facing other people's teams. That is not a problem since it is asynchronous, but you should know you will not be building a team in your corner without ever testing it.

My reservation concerns balance, which is the lifeblood of this kind of game. When you explicitly invite players to break the game, you then have to handle the fact that they succeed. The community will find the three dominant combinations within weeks, and everything will depend on the developer's responsiveness.

But for ten euros, a proposition that takes team building seriously without demanding two hundred hours of catching is a very good deal.

Your most shamelessly overpowered combination? We are waiting for it on the InsertCoins Discord, with the screenshot that proves it.