Justice Monsters Five (iOS) Review

Square Enix has a wonderful track record when it comes to free-to-play smartphone titles, with a beautiful line of games. In the background of this history, the premise of Justice Monsters Five sounds wonderful. A title like this has all the potential in the world to be a great and amusing experience for players; in this case, though, it is only amusing.

The story is as nearly non-existent as is often the case on the free-to-play market, and is a big let-down compared to other mobile games Square Enix has released in recent years, which have often had pretty good excuse stories when compared to the competition, with colourful and interesting characters. This flaw is overshadowed by the gameplay, though.

It is difficult to see how a pinball-like title can get outright boring, uninteresting and stale. Especially one with a lot of different stages, as the only bane of a pinball machine is when the stage starts to feel too dull after one too many rounds. Somehow, Justice Monsters Five manages to do just that, though. The problem is that each and every stage plays nearly the same. The only exceptions are the boss stages at the end of each world, which can offer quite a challenge for under-levelled players. These feel like a fresh gust of wind.

It might be slightly unfair to compare Justice Monsters Five with a full sized pinball game, though. The gameplay is more akin to a fast-paced mix of pinball and Breakout, which manages to take the annoying part of both and mix it together into a formula weaker than its parts. From the pinball genre, it takes bumpers and high-speed gameplay, and from Breakout, it takes the extreme need to deliver perfect skill-shot after skill-shot to get a good score and progress through the game. This is while removing the strongest aspect that they both share: challenge and thrills.

To add to the mix, they have added gacha mechanics, which Japanese developers seem to believe is a godsend to save any game with the feature. Gacha is a wonderful freemium mechanic, yes. It makes people pay those extra bucks to get that character they want, while still keeping the game fun and interesting for free players who might introduce it to their friends. However, for it to work its magic, the game experience must be fun in itself, and the characters must feel desired. Justice Monsters Five fails to fulfil any of these two conditions, and therefore the gacha feature feels transparent. Who is going to pay for more characters in a game they are not really enjoying—and who is going to introduce that game to their friends? No one.

It isn't that Justice Monsters Five is a bad game in any way or shape; it is just that it is extremely mediocre in exactly everything it does—from the character designs, to the free-to-play smartphone game story (i.e. an excuse story and shallow characters with one personality trait), to the very gameplay itself. This, combined with the fact that the pinball elements feel extremely pinned on the game, does not give it any saving grace. It is a shame, as the concept is strong enough. It is, however, strongly outplayed on the market in most aspects, especially by Square Enix's own titles, which most potential customers already know of and likely play already.