Pokémon Masters EX

Pokémon Masters EX is a spin-off gacha game released on August 29, 2019 on mobile devices.

Pokémon Masters EX

Pokémon Masters EX! - Certain Sync Pairs offscreen in the title screen

Protagonist(s):	Scottie/Bettie Sync Pairs from different regions
Genre(s):	Gacha
Rating(s):	ESRB: E10+
Platform(s):	Android iOS
Release Date:	August 29, 2019 (Original) August 25, 2020 (Masters EX)
Developer(s):	DeNA
Publisher(s):	DeNA The Pokémon Company
Country:	Japan
Series:	Pokémon

Plot

The player explores the environmental areas of Pasio to encounter multiple trainers, fight masked people of Team Break and villainous teams from different regions, and challenge champions and Lear.

Why it Syncs Up

The concept of the player encountering other characters in different regions to cooperate is interesting.
This game is set on Pasio, an island where trainers get there to compete and train for the PML Tournament and summon sync pairs of their choice.
This is the first time to feature voice acting.
- The voice acting in this game is also good.
This game has plenty of battle modes:
- Training Areas focus on challenging other trainers to get items based on types.
- EX Plazas is a co-op mode focusing on battles to obtain gears and items.
- Legendary Arenas and Gauntlets battle legendary Pokémon with their sync pairs, which cannot be used again after defeating them.
- Champion Stadiums rely on facing the Elite Four and Champion to get rewards. Elite Four get special music during their battles too.
- Battle Villa is similar to Battle Tower from Johto, Hoenn, Sinnoh, and Galar, as well as Battle Subway in Unova, Battle Maison in Kalos and Hoenn, and Battle Tree from Alola, but with the ability to skip halls (starting on January 7, 2022), keeping MP and HP (unlike other modes), and getting special rewards, like Lucky Cookies and Scrolls, after battles.
- With Battle Villa becoming permanent starting in February 2024, it was replaced with Battle Rally, a new mode where players can battle 10 areas to get rewards and stats per type, region, etc. during a rally.
- Ultimate Battle or Challenge the Strong is a type of battle focusing on Battle Facility members pairing with Legendaries (or in Darach's case, Staraptor) to get 300 gems.
  - There are other special battles too like Blissful Bonanza and Daily Type and Region Rotation.
This game is split into 3 stories:
- First is the Pokémon Masters League Arc, where the player trains and battles other trainers to get 5 badges to challenge Lear in the PML Tournament.
- Second is the Villain Arc, where they fight villainous team grunts and challenge villainous team leaders.
- Third is the Arceus Arc, where other trainers investigate the mysterious stone from Arceus. With the power of Arceus triggers certain trainers, they have the ability to become stronger by specializing type effects, activating Divine moves, similar to Sync Moves, to apply different effects, and has the Multi role, which can specialize in dealing damage, supporting allies, negating enemies, etc. Before that, it has a prelude, called Mysterious Stones Chapter, the story where players have connections with Arceus.
It focuses on 3-on-3 battles to face with other trainers in real-time rather than in turn-based form. Here, players can use moves from six gauges, though use up when activated until it refills.
- It also introduces more special moves:
  - Sync moves are powerful moves that can deal more damage once they use more moves.
  - Trainer moves are moves that can gain buffs and other special effects like shields and zones.
  - Buddy moves are moves that create additional secondary effects compared to the original moves. Like Sync moves, they are also powerful moves that can deal damage or status moves that can gain buffs or heals.
  - 6-star EX pairs get EX roles that can get stats increased and with special abilities for EX roles (Strike EX roles deal damage to other opponents for example).
There are 5 roles in this game:
- Strike roles focus on dealing damage. If sync pairs have 6-star EX, they can deal damage to other opponents, but without buffs.
- Support roles focus on defending, healing, and buffing to the party. If sync pairs have 6-star EX, they can double the sync buffs from the team after using a sync move.
- Tech roles focus on debuffing opponents' stats and hindering their Pokémon's moves. If sync pairs have 6-star EX, they can increase attack power by 1.5x to get stronger.
- Sprint roles focus on attacking quickly similar to assassins in MOBA, as well as reducing the cooldown of sync moves. If sync pairs have 6-star EX, they can reduce the cooldown to three once they activate a sync move.
- Field roles focus on setting fields like weather, zones, and terrains. If sync pairs have 6-star EX, they can automatically trigger a special field effect (Dragon Zone, Dark Zone, Ice Zone, etc) before the sync move is used for the first time and it lasts longer than before.
There are many events (such as Story, Solo, Seasonal, Special Costume, Special, and Neo Champion events) that are well-written, especially Hearts United and Threads of Strength. Additionally, once they complete the story, they can grant rewards and gems.
The design of the Pokemon Center has different rooms and they look beautiful as it progresses.
- At first it looks like a generic Pokemon Center with just a shop and a cafe, but once it progresses, it introduces a jukebox (released on January 22, 2022), Trainer Lodge (released on August 2022), and a large TV screen that can look at other events (released on February 2023).
Trainer Lodge was introduced in August 2022 and it focuses on interacting with VIPs to gain friendship levels, so that they can get rewards and special 4-star sync pairs.
Photo Studio is introduced here, and unlike Pokémon UNITE, it can take a picture with any sync pair with effects and frames after taking it. Titles are also given here to unlock after completing certain missions.
For the very first time, characters from the anime (Jessie, James, and Ash) appear as playable sync pairs.
- Additionally, while NPCs as playable Sync Pairs are pointless, they have their time to shine.
Decent soundtrack, due to it being an orchestral theme and graphics.
The cinematic trailer is beautiful to watch.

Synced Down Qualities

The game itself is somewhat poor grasp of its original source material, the core series have lots of weaknesses for some Pokémon, here it only has ONE weakness per gameplay.
- It also has plot holes, such as Cynthia getting Komm-o for her original sygna suit and most seasonal scouts get Pokémon that do not own in the mainline games, especially Palentines Marnie and Mawille, complete with a Mega Evolution, despite Generation 8 removing Mega Evolutions in favor of Dynamaxing.
Microtransactions appear in this game, but it only works for buying gems for sync pair scouts.
Missed Opportunities:
- It could also have been in the Nintendo Switch like other mobile and Switch Pokémon games (Cafe Remix and UNITE) so that the game can also implement landscape mode (like Mario Kart Tour).
- Some sync pairs do not fit other Pokémon like the Alola Villain Arc sync pairs and Neo Champion Nate, with the former could have been featured Elio and Zeraora and Lillie and Alolan Ninetales as their respective sygna suits and latter not getting White Kyurem but rather shiny Haxorus.
- Other trainers who do not appear in this game should have appeared too like Wattson, Juan, Byron, Drayden, Ilima, Milo, Kabu, Opal, AZ, and Let's Go's Green.
  - While some characters appear as background characters, they do not have a chance to become playable sync pairs, especially the Striaton City triplets and Matt.
- A true Season Pass, unlike Mario Kart Tour, because it could have been implemented that to get more rewards, gems, and sync pairs that are missed out. It could also have been implemented that since the 1st Anniversary of this game.
Aside from the generic sync moves and Z-moves, some of the sync move animations are the same, but with different effects, such as Grusha and Champion Silver's sync move, they have the same animation but with different effects (Avalanche and Rock Slide respectively), as well as Wild Charge sync move, Sygna Suit (Thunderbolt) Red's sync move (Volt Tackle), and Nemona's sync move (Double Shock), and Sabrina and Drasna's sync move (Psywave and Dragon Pulse). Implying that the developers plagiarized sync move animations from the original owners).
Some of the solo events are bad, like A Pasio Spectacle, Severely Strained Relations, and Let's Have a Fruitful Battle (despite the latter being well-written, though it is still annoying due to Nemona refusing the player to battle).
- Alola VA is the weakest Villain Arc of this game due to having some missed opportunities, not only the sync pairs given above, but also missing some story that is very important like Lusamine getting fused with Nihilego and Guzma not making a big role, thus leading the latter false advertising.
  - It even happened to Lysandre before in the first half of Kalos Villain Arc, but at least he plays a bigger role in the second part.
Starting on October 2023, permanent sync pairs in spotlight scouts get only Generic Sync Moves. Speaking of which, 2023 started a decline where general pools get shorter and most of the sync pair scouts can be scouted with paid gems, especially Mix Scouts because that can only be accessed with paid gems not non-paid gems, which is not good and payers would have to buy it in the shop using real money, as well as EX roles, which can be gained when using EX Roll Cakes.
The game has a lot of unnecessary grinding that can take 20-35 minutes of a playthrough, since to unlock some of the sync pairs, you have to play an insane amount of matches without losing a single one, and while this isn't an issue for some players, it can be very hard for newbies since the game has several microtransactions and many of the events are required to unlock some sync pairs, which can make the game feel excessive at times.
Like other lootbox apps, this game is not available in Belgium and the Netherlands.
Some sync pairs are rather questionable or concerning at best, such as Nate and Braviary, Elio and the Popplio line, (easily the most infamous example) or Sonia's Yamper not being able to evolve like the other partner Pokémon in the game despite having an evolution in Boltund (not to mention that Sonia's Yamper evolved in the Adventures manga of the Sword & Shield Arc, making the sync pair kinda pointless in comparison to other pairs in the same game).
- As mentioned before, the Tapu Sync Pairs are questionable enough to be part of the Alola Villain Arc and the two Unova Neo Champion Sync Pairs (except Rosa and Meloetta), which could have been more potential to get important sync pairs like Zeraora or White Kyurem.
Ash Ketchum's 3D model (based on his Journeys design) can look quite uncanny at times since his design feels ill-suited for 3D and clashes with the other character models in the game, though it isn't as scary as Superman's 3D model in Superman 64 at least.
Sadly, Arc Sync Pairs are similar to the original sync pairs, but with different powers.
- Similarly, 2024 Anniversary Lillie is plagiarized from 2021 Anniversary Lillie, but with different colors, no 6 EX color, and plagiarized sync move from players' Solgaleo. Would be better if the devs fix Lunala's sync move by adding Moonraze Maelstrom instead.

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