I don’t know about you, but when I play Pokémon, I’m ready to explore a new region, made from real world inspirations, an inspired fantasy world sprouts forth with charm and significance, allowing anyone to begin an adventure in a larger than life fantasy..

PokeRogue says no; you just fight an endless tide of monsters and beef yourself up bit by bit until you either faint or beat up the entire universe. There’s no exploration, no weird NPCs claiming you can’t progress because of a blackout, and no surprise trip to another dimension to beat up your friends’ tentacle monster-possessed mom.

PokeRogue is a gauntlet; the goal is to get to the end with the friends you pick up along the way. But that’s not all. You can hunt for special power-ups, rare shiny Pokémon, hatch Pokémon eggs, and very special unlockable modes which means the fun never ends, literally.

So, let me tell you about my journey in classic mode, a 200-battle gauntlet with some truly unforgiving fights. At the start, you only have access to the main starters with less-than-optimal stat boosters and no natures.

So naturally, after picking my favorites, I lost at the 8th level out of 200. Turns out that the only starters who may have any chance of carrying you far enough are Fuecoco due to its powerful attacks and perhaps Piplup due to its steel typing it gets after evolving. But I caught a few new Pokémon and found they could now be used as my starters. In fact, every Pokémon can be used to start a run if you catch it previously.

Which leads to how this game becomes an addicting mix of setups and progression. Catching Pokémon is not the only way to unlock new starters; you can also get eggs out of a luck machine using tickets from defeating bosses. Some of these have a bigger chance of being shiny, and items can increase the odds of getting them.

Gameplay is all about choices: where to spend money, when to heal, what to catch, what’s a good team member, how many Pokémon are you willing to sacrifice to catch a better one, and in the end, just how prepared are you to fight some of the more unforgiving and powerful boss Pokémon you’ll encounter. Every Pokémon is in this game, and if you have a favorite, you’ll for sure enjoy searching for the perfect shiny variant of your best pal.

Did I mention the game has special modes, too? One mode dedicated to an endless run for farming eggs and getting Pokémon to absurd levels. I believe that in these modes, the maximum levels may be somewhere in the region of 99999. And on top of that, there’s a separate mode where you can fuse Pokémon together to create the ultimate beast to destroy everything. Endless possibilities and endless grinding potential. If you really like the type of game to play mindlessly on your lunch break, this is for you. Or you can be like me and mindlessly play for 8 hours straight and lose most of your day.

PokeRogue can be found at PokeRogue.net on your browser! It’s free and I would recommend it to any Pokémon fan out there.