When I think of 'mining' games, much like the Motherload of old, I think about digging down to find valuables that you sell for various upgrades in order to be able to dig deeper for more valuables that can be sold for more upgrades, ad infinitum. If you're telling me that your game is a 'mining' game but with multiple levels and you need to get to the bottom of each mines in order to continue, I might find that a bit weird, but the potential is still there for a fun game. Obviously, the more you'd progress, the tougher the levels would be, so you would need upgrades. Pocket Mine 2 takes a tiny sliver of that idea and fills the rest with nonsense.
I've explained the core concept of the game in the first paragraph, but it tries to mix things up with special blocks you'll find while mining. Alongside randomly generated 'tough' blocks that take more swings of your pick, you'll get explosives, chests - needing premium keys to open - and other helpful/harmful blocks. Except that you have to get 'cards' to get certain kind of blocks or power-ups from random packs that you buy with real money - or find in game. And then you can fuse these cards to get stronger effects. Why add such systems? Is the greed of iOS games always eroding at the soul of core gameplay mechanics?
There's an energy system with the expected ways to refill and expand it, you lose energy if you get stuck in a level without getting to the bottom - and as the game is balanced in the f2p model, you never can be sure what the odds are, but I'd bet they get increasingly worse as you progress through the game. Which is really sad because mining games have a fun loops of collecting treasures and upgrading yourself. You also find gear with a ton of different possibilities and powers - but you can only use your equipment once per two hours, or pay to shorten that time. Another system bogged down with f2p mechanics that would have otherwise been a neat thing.
No amount of cool core mechanics will ever override the disappointment I feel whenever I play iOS games that try to hard to make you spend money on a plethora of things you might/should not need. The strength of each system is weakened by how much timers, gems, best values and facebook spams are attached to it. Therefore, PM2 wasn't a very strong entry in my book.
