Drawing inspiration from a Pokémon Stadium minigame, Magikarp Jump is the latest Pokémon-themed game to make it to mobile. Going in a different direction from the classic Pokémon RPG games and the more recent augmented-reality title, Pokémon Go, it challenges you to raise a magikarp who can jump higher than all the others.
Unlike the main Pokémon games, the point of catching a magikarp this time around isn’t just to evolve it into a gyarados as soon as possible. Instead, Magikarp Jump charges you with training your fishy friend to jump higher than the competition. Feed it, train it, and teach it how to maximize its jump power.
Once it’s fully trained, you can take your magikarp to test its mettle in local tournaments, before heading to the grandest stage of all: the world championships. Can you become the greatest magikarp trainer the world has ever seen?
No magikarp can jump forever, though, so if it becomes knocked out or retires after a long career, you can start again with a new generation of fish, retaining some of the skills and abilities of its forebears. Maybe you’ll be lucky enough to unlock a classic shiny one, or one of the newer variants, which can sport calico or polka-dot patterns.
To help you out along the way, several other Pokémon will offer you food and assistance to keep your magikarp fighting fit. This being a freemium app though, there will also be in-app purchases which speed up the leveling process and help you become a champion, if you’re willing to pay for the advantage.
There are also microtransactions for aesthetic options, letting you customize the decor of your magikarp’s habitat with various trophies and items. Some of them can also be earned through gameplay.
Magikarp Jump is available now, for free, on both iOS and Android.
