Forget Souls-Like, What About the ‘Pokemon’-Like Renaissance?

Beastieball recently launched in Early Access on November 12. It’s an adorable turn-based Volleyball RPG featuring the cutest critters you’ve ever seen! As of this writing, 99% of Steam reviewers undeniably adore this game! An ambitious, tense, high-stakes but approachable game like this deserves all the support and love the developers clearly put into it! But, I suppose there can be only one creature-collecting game on the market, eh, Pokemon?

(Before I continue, seriously, give Beastieball a chance! You can play the demo on its Steam page!) Beastieball isn’t the first Pokemon-esque game to offer a different spin on the yellow rat’s usual adventures. Before that, it was Cassette Beasts! Yeah, remember the cool creature collector where you can fuse monsters together to unleash hell on your rivals? That was stylish, energetic, and fun (with a surprisingly dark story)? That was an amazing Pokemon-like, too!

And who could forget Temtem? Since its 2022 release, players have certainly been more open to the idea of other games where you collect little buddies and make them fight to the bitter end! At the time? I vividly remember people dunking on Temtem for being “bootleg Pokemon.” But, like, Lies of P and Lords of the Fallen get to peacefully co-exist as “Souls-inspired” joints without the baggage of being accused of ripping off their core inspiration!

it’s time we let those ‘pokemon’-likes thrive in peace and solidarity

Yes, I purposefully omitted Palworld. That situation is a little too dicey to have a home in this conversation. However, I’ll perish on the “Let these Pokemon-like games breathe” hill a thousand times over! Ooblets? Validated! Moonstone Island? It’s your time to shine! Heck, go to Gym Leader Ed’s YouTube channel for the many “monster tamer” games we take for granted!

Pokemon is great. Indeed, the franchise hasn’t been sitting on the top of the creature-collecting mountain for all these years for nothing! Overall, I even admire Nintendo’s willingness in recent years to switch the tried-and-true formula up in interesting ways! But, as we’ve accepted and popularized Soulslikes as their own, so too shall we accept the noble “Pokemon-like.” Admittedly, it’s not as catchy as “Soulslike.” Might have to go back to the lab on that one.