The game also encouraged that you buy things through micro-transactions, or a "top-up" as they described it.
Pocket stars full#
At its prime, these modes were all usually very full and active, but around when the game announced it would be shutting down they seemed to come to a halt. There's a bounty-hunting mode (where you fight in the sky), a blimp where you fight players throughout every server, guilds where you could join forces with others and fight other guilds, and a few others with the same ideas in mind. There was a boss fight mode where on specific days (at certain times) all the players would be able to fight a health-packed boss for a few hours. If you fight enough people, your overall ranking out of the players in the server moves up. There is an Arena mode, where you're able to fight different people based on your power level.
The game carried a lot of modes and different ways to play throughout, most having to be unlocked.
Of course, each can also be done through micro-transactions here and there, the main source of how the game made its money, which is why you could typically see players with absurd levels of power in servers. Your characters can be upgraded through the loot you get when completing a stage (or by simply leveling them up), giving them stars (each character is defined in power by the level of stars they have, the limit is 5) or by "awakening" them at level 50, giving them more overall power. All of these are done through a character's gauge-meter filling up, which fills over time based on how much damage they do in an attack. This can be over-complicated by the character's special attacks, team attacks, or Pokémon attacks. Typically (if you aren't playing Pit of Trials or the Arena) you only go through this twice before the stage is over. This goes on and on until eventually, one clears out the other unit. A character from your unit attacks (based on your direction as to where), and when they finish, a character from the other unit attacks. The gameplay consists of your unit and the enemy's unit.
Nintendo most likely had a part in it as well, as other bootlegs involving their IPs were shut down around this time too. The game was shut down early 2017, reasons listed as server issues/loss of money. Pocket All-Star is a relatively well known Chinese bootleg name that achieved notoriety in 2016 for being an odd mashup of multiple IPs, including Nintendo (for the most part) along with SEGA, Capcom, Konami, and Blizzard.