The Pacific Rim mobile game could never be anything other than an Infinity Blade-style swipe-fighter.
Oh there were other game formats that would have worked just fine. Imagine a visual novel adventure with hand-drawn 2D battles between titanic robots and immense aliens, or maybe a Puzzle Fighter-esque game with a dual-sided board, to allow two players to operate a mech at the same time. So many possibilities, but none were ever going to happen.
This is a movie game, and any mobile game based on a movie in which one or more characters is hitting something gets the Infinity Blade treatment. See Man of Steel.
So yes, this is a series of one-on-one battles, in which the player must dodge, block or counter the enemy's attacks. It's a young genre that already feels tired, even when it's executed as proficiently as it is here.
Through battle the player earns cash, used to upgrade robots and buy new weapons and skins for their battling behemoths. Missions take place around the globe, from ruined cityscapes to seaside fights with both combatants up to their ankles in ocean.
At one point you fight this guy:
He makes me happy. Also, there's a picture of Ron Perlman:
He pretty much covers the $2.99 admission price.
Reliance Games, developers of the After Earth endless runner and the Real Steel swipe brawler, really does a fine job of quickly pumping out quality movie tie-ins.
The problem here is really the same issue that's plagued movie games for decades — an overall lack of innovation. I'd imagine it has something to do with the way film executives' minds work. What's a popular mobile game? Temple Run? Infinity Blade? Let's make that and paste our property over it. I'm surprised this didn't end up a Candy Crush Saga-style match-three puzzler — also a little disappointed, now that I think about it.
Pacific Rim isn't a bad Infinity Blade-style mobile game. It's just another one.
Pacific Rim
Genre: Rock-Em, Swipe-Em Robots
Developer: Reliance Games
Platform: Android, iOS
App Size: 263MB (iOS), 224MB (Android)
Price: $2.99