Magikarp Jump (iOS) Review

The Pokémon Company goes on to answer the request no one had, except for masochistic challenge runners, a game in which (nearly) all that can be caught is Magikarps. What to do with this mountain of carp Pokémon that can do nothing but splash? Why not a competition about whose Magikarp can splash the highest? This is basically the setting of the world in which Magikarp Jump takes place in.

It sounds like a really arbitrary way to make a game just about Magikarp, and it is! Magikarp Jump is the kind of game that feels forced to become a meme, but what a meme it is! Magikarp Jump has all the elements people hate about smart phone gaming stuck into the very same game for maximum meme power. Arbitrary time or money-gates? Check! The ability to randomly lose progress? Check! Non-interactive gameplay? Yeah, it's got that too. The only thing the player can do to help their Magikarp is to tap on food and train with it sometimes.

This sounds like a terrible game in all possible ways, and it truly is, but it is done with such self-awareness that it turns into a beautiful satire. Magikarp Jump is just that, a satire of mobile gaming. It is ingenious in a way that shows just how much The Pokémon Company truly knows about gaming and what makes it great. It breaks all the rules about what makes a fun game in the most hilarious ways which makes Magikarp Jump into a truly enjoyable experience.

Normally many of the things in Magikarp Jump would annoy the player to no end, like a Pidgeotto swooping down from the sky and eating the poor Magikarp and forcing the player to restart from scratch, but because of the very nature of Magikarp Jump the player will just laugh these things off. Annoyances become features in Magikarp Jump, and what a bunch of features they are!