Godzilla X Kong: Titan Chasers Review: Safe and familiar, but fun

Godzilla and King Kong dominate their niche of giant monsters on big screens, and for good reasons. They’re iconic, and even when the movies are bad they’re still fun.

But neither creature has really made huge strides into the video game space. Sure, there was that King Kong tie-in game back around the launch of the Xbox 360 that was actually pretty good, but you’re more likely to see a knock-off of Kalju in a video game than actual Godzilla.

So maybe the latest from the Godzilla cinematic universe is ready to change that. We’re playing Godzilla X Kong: Titan Chasers, a mobile 4x strategy game that wants to drop you right in the middle of a survival situation with Monarch and a bunch of titans. Is it fun? Let’s find out.

Gameplay

The gameplay in Godzilla X Kong doesn’t stray too far from the beaten path, and you’ve probably had some experience playing this kind of game before.

At its core, GXK is about base-building. After some introductory cutscenes to get you into the world of Godzilla, the evil antagonist corporation in Monarch, and a bunch of genetically modified enemy monsters to blow up, you start building your base. You start small, with an HQ and a couple farms and lumberyards, and you quickly expand into guard barracks, research stations, storage facilities, and so on. Use resources to make bigger buildings that get you more resources to make even more significant buildings. You get the idea.

Where Godzilla X Kong does a fairly decent job differentiating itself is a generally easy-to-use interface that doesn’t overwhelm you too much. If this is your first survival base building strategy romp, it might be a lot to look at, but anyone familiar with the genre will pick this up and hit the ground running within the first 15 minutes. The tutorials are well-paced and aren’t too long, and they introduce you to all the different resources and currencies decently enough. There are a lot of resources and timers and things to manage, though, so don’t be fooled. Plenty of meat on the bone.

Battles and PvP

When you’re not building up your base and farming resources, you tackle small-scale missions with a group of three chasers or monsters. You’ll be introduced to all of these characters through the plot, but they have their own individual stats and play styles that add a layer of strategy to clearing out waves of enemies during the campaign. You’ve got big damage dealers, tanks that support and soak up damage, supports to heal the rest of your party, and so on. It’s interesting enough, and the battle system works like a simplified Final Fantasy where your basic actions generate AP to use on bigger abilities. Should you splurge your AP to clear out wave three or hold it and hit wave four with a bunch of damage right out of the gate? There’s enough complexity to make the battles fun, which helps save some of the bloated waves of fighting the same enemies over and over.

The third layer to your base is building alliances. This is where you’ll team up with other players to pool resources for bigger game challenges (and rewards), and more of the “idle” game takes place. You can send your troops out on missions to complete those weekly objectives and get more rewards for your base and upgrade your chasers and monsters. There’s also a PvP element to this, with alliances fighting over territory and rewards, but it does still boil down to higher numbers winning these fights. We don’t typically see a lot of strategic elements in the PvP of these kinds of games, and GxK isn’t breaking that mold.

Graphics and Story

The most appealing part of Godzilla and King Kong is watching big, destructive action sequences, obviously, so we’re expecting some visual flair from games that have both of their names attached.

Godzilla X Kong generally looks fairly good for a mobile game, with the campaign fights being pretty entertaining. There’s a variety of abilities and effects, from zap guns to scorching flamethrowers and explosions, and the monster designs are great. There’s some deep diving in what monsters you’ll encounter, too, with your party to fight Death Jackals, monsters from some of the in-universe graphic novels.

There are quite a few of these, so if you’ve only ever watched Godzilla or King Kong movies, you’re going to be introduced to a pretty significant variety of new monsters. You can also “tame” some of these monsters and use them in your party, too.

The plot itself is, well, about what you’d expect from a mobile game. There’s some fluff about Monarch tech, bandits, titans taking over all of the territory and making things unsafe for chasers, and so on. The initial campaign is spread out over about six chapters to introduce new characters through short snippets of dialog, but once you’re done with the campaign, the focus is entirely shifted towards the gameplay loop of building and resource gathering. There’s not much interaction with the actual big titans, like Godzilla and Kong, unfortunately. The developer seems to be holding those back for big moments and in-game events, but it does feel like a missed opportunity not to see more plot elements driven by big names from the Godzilla franchise.

Microtransactions

Godzilla X Kong is, of course, free to play, and that means microtransactions. This business model shouldn’t surprise anyone who’s been on the Play Store in the past decade, but it’s alive and well here.

Fortunately, it’s not terribly egregious like we see in some other F2P titles. The game doles out resources fairly quickly and generously, at least at first, and I had no trouble making things work with what you can gather just from your base and some missions. There are time gates to some of the resource gathering, so like any F2P game, you’ll save a ton of money by simply playing this for 20 to 30 minutes at a time a few times per day. If you’re trying to sink 6 hours into a single play session, that’s when you start to feel the itch to start typing credit card numbers.

You’ll also be bombarded with $25 bundles and ad-supported stamina recovery while you’re playing, and there is already a premium battle pass and some timed in-game events on the horizon. Can’t really knock the game for this since it’s just how mobile games are these days, but be aware of how the monetization here works. Fortunately, I did not deal with any non-optional ads, so if you just want to play ad-free and without spending money, you definitely can; it’s just a slower progression.

Worth it?

Godzilla X Kong: Titan Chasers is genuinely pretty fun, especially if you’re a fan of sci-fi and monster battles. The turn-based fighting through the campaign add a nice wrinkle and a bit of strategy, especially if the developer continues to build out new campaigns and events with that system, and the resource grind is player-friendly enough that you can enjoy the game without having to cut into the rest of your monthly entertainment budget.

There are still missed opportunities, as we mentioned; I’d have loved to see more Godzilla, or Mothra, or anything that the series is really known for. The Chasers don’t have enough screen time of backstory to pull you in beyond their two abilities and their stats, and their designs are much less fun than genetically hijacked monsters and bugs.

But if you’re a fan of the Godzilla universe, this one’s worth the install, at the very least.