I wanted to take a moment to talk about something I just know we’re all thinking about nonstop: What Magikarp means for the meta of Pokémon Café Remix. I mean, we all play this game every day, as often as our stamina fills up, right? We’re all thinking about the patterns in game design since they did the big update, and how the game has shifted since it was first introduced? And the way Magikarp resembles an older model of gameplay while balancing with the demands of the current era? Good, I knew I wasn’t obsessing.
For those that don’t know, Pokémon Café Remix is a puzzle game for phones. The setup is that you’re the owner of a café for Pokémon, and each level you complete makes another meal or drink for a customer. The basics are that you link icons to clear gimmicks to meet win conditions before you run out of turns. After you complete the main order, there’s a bonus challenge to complete two smaller orders.
Icons are small round Pokémon heads. The levels are filled with icons for the leader you’re playing as that level and a few other Pokémon chosen at random. The icons move around each other freely, acting like a fluid, and each has different weight, stickiness, stretchiness, etc. You touch an icon and swirl it around to touch others of that type, forming chains. When you release a chain, those icons are cleared and disappear. This is the main action of the game, and your primary way to get points. Gimmicks are representatives of the ingredients used in the various dishes you prepare, and they’re the main obstacles you need to clear to complete a level. Some gimmicks can be cleared by making contact with a chain, while others have to be cleared with a café skill. Those are like special attacks your leader uses, and you get those by clearing an appropriate number of icons. Some café skills have added powers, too. You also get megaphones, representing your assistant manager Leah cheering you on, which act like small, basic café skills. Since the big update, they also introduced specialty gimmicks. Each Pokémon has their own set, and they allow leader Pokémon to clear gimmicks simply by making chains near them, including gimmicks that would otherwise require a café skill.
That last part is important. Since the introduction of specialty gimmicks and the changes in scoring that came with the updated level system, the game has trended much more in the direction of chaining. In the past, there were no bonus rounds on levels, and no specialty gimmicks. Getting and using café skills was more important to clearing levels, and chaining was more a means to that end, since a majority of levels could not be cleared with chaining alone. While café skills are still vital, they have taken more of a backseat compared to the past, since levels are assigned to Pokémon who specialize in one or more gimmicks on it. It’s not uncommon to get levels that can be completed with chaining alone, and chains have become a much more important mechanic. That’s not a bad thing, mind you; I’m just describing the direction the game has moved.
At the beginning of this year, we were introduced to Magikarp as the recruited Pokémon in the monthly pass. He’s a real game changer in this new world. He combines a high puzzle score, making him one of the highest scoring icons in the game, and a really cheap café skill, which takes the fewest icons to generate. With both those things together, he can easily rack up points in a flash and flood the field with café skills just about every turn, meaning you can spam them as much as you want. You only need ten of his icons, or twenty of any other Pokémon’s, to get a café skill; with every other Pokémon in the game, you can generally expect to go through two chains of a non-leader Pokémon before getting a café skill, but Magikarp gets it in one most of the time. He even generates megaphones more quickly than most, if you need them. His skill has some downsides, but I can work with his small effective range and randomly generated area of effect. His main downside is his relatively low weight, which can make forming chains difficult at times, especially in a field with heavy icons. Basically, he’s built to resemble the pre-Remix style of gameplay, with his plentiful café skills allowing you to clear win conditions with skills as much or more than with chaining. You never have to build up to your one good hit on the non-specialty gimmick with him, he just gets it the next turn. While it’s not unreasonable to rely on his specialty gimmicks, thankfully, it’s also true that his low weight makes his own chains more difficult if he’s not the majority icon; he kinda needs his café skill more than most Pokémon in the game, making them as vital as they were before the update.
And he came at a pretty interesting time. The past few special event Pokémon, from legendary events and a few delivery ones, have had surprisingly basic builds. Dialga, Ho-Oh, Palkia, and a few others have all had comparatively low requirement café skills, which have no added effects and simple areas of effect. They’ve all had mid-tier or high puzzle scores, too. The legendaries still play similarly as most Pokémon in the Remix era, with a similar style as the fast attackers. Magikarp, in many respects, follows their lead in that regard, but his even lower rent café skill takes him to another place, where he can play differently than others. So it’s interesting to see how so many of the newer Pokémon lately have been trending that way. I’m expecting the next wave to play more differently than this, though.
I am just really digging Magikarp. I cleared the monthly pass in a few days, as usual, and today I’m going to complete his training. It’ll be so great to see him in that Gothorita Black! Like, I decided a while ago when I started focusing on training up my team that I’d skip over the shiny Pokémon, and also stop trying to recruit more, because they’re literally identical to their normal counterparts. Like, it’s just a Pokémon I already have and already trained? But I’m going to be training shiny Magikarp, because I want to keep playing as him. He’s doing really great, and I’m just so jazzed to see how this plays out with the future of the game.
Life in the Gutters 
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