Earlier today Foamstars entered its third season, Mysterious Swing, which adds Foamstar Chloe Noir, and 20 new skins.
While this already sounds like a light amount of content, and according to the roadmap is the weakest season, Mysterious Swing makes the confusing choice of adding Pink Metallic skins.
The Metallic skins were a large point of criticism in my original review of Foamstars. Not only are they one of very few earnable rewards, with a design I would consider divisive, they’re a massive investment. With silver taking 333 matches, and gold jumping to 777 matches, they were a sizable investment for any game. Worst still, the phrasing suggests they are character specific, so playing 777 Foamstars matches isn’t enough.
What Mysterious Swing does is double down on this by adding the aforementioned Pink Metallic skin at 1,500 matches played as a specific character. Not only is this an absurd amount, one that would currently take 15,000 matches to unlock every costume, it comes at a time when numbers are not particularly optimistic.
True Trophies, with supplemental information through GameInsights, posted an article yesterday claiming Foamstars lost “nearly 95 percent” of its player base. While this information is based off their combined network of “over 3.1 million” accounts, it’s still something that stands out.
Not only is the choice to add an even higher tier of time investment costumes curious, I also believe these are included in the aforementioned 20 new skins. Going through the cash shop, and Foamstars customization options, reveals a total of 18 skins. Without the Pink Metallic option this number plummets to just eight.
Unfortunately, I am not entirely sure where the remaining two skins are. Normally I’d write this off as an error, a quirk because I don’t have access to Chloe Noir, or Coiff Guy, or a simple miscount on my part; I actually think they’re considering Chloe Noir’s silver/gold skins as part of the total.
If so, this means 12 of Mysterious Swing’s 20 new costumes are mere palette swaps. Worst still, I wouldn’t be surprised if none of the 10 Pink Metallic skins are ever unlocked. Despite this being its own can of worms, the vast majority of the remaining costumes seem to be part of the Season Pass. This is a step up from last season where many were “time limited” palette swaps, but not by much.
