Aniimo’s art style and tamer-monster Twining may help it stand out in the creature collector genre

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It’s difficult to talk about creature-collecting games without mentioning Pokémon. This is especially true now, with games like Palworld facing legal issues and Pickmon being accused of copying designs from fans. Amidst all this, a new open-world creature-collecting RPG called Aniimo is being developed by Pawprint Studio.

The big question everyone’s asking is whether the creature designs are original, or if they just seem like copies of other popular monsters. A common criticism of similar games is that their creatures look too much alike. The demo at PAX East didn’t show many of these creatures – called aniimo – but the ones I did see seemed noticeably different from Pokémon.

Overall, the creatures – the aniimo – in the demo looked really good! They felt well-developed and are generally quite cute, and it seems the game will feature many different ones. While it’s early days, I can say that, based on what I’ve seen so far, none of the designs feel like obvious copies of existing creatures like Pikachu.

The demo began with a character creator, which was decent but could definitely be better. It really lacked variety in hairstyles and body types, and characters always looked overly polished. The rest of the demo at PAX showed me the core gameplay: catching creatures, forming bonds with them (called “twining”), and exploring the world.

The core of the game revolves around stealthily approaching creatures, softening them up if needed, and then capturing them at the perfect time. While I’m trying not to make direct comparisons to Pokémon, if you’ve played Pokémon Legends: Arceus or Pokémon Legends: Z-A, Aniimo’s action-based gameplay feels somewhat similar. Because the demo took place early in the game, capturing creatures was fairly easy. However, I expect and hope that captures will become more difficult and complex as you progress further into the game.

Okay, so Twining has this cool ability to merge with an aniimo, and it totally changes how combat works. Instead of telling your aniimo what to do, you are the aniimo – you directly control the actions. Honestly, in the demo I played, it felt a little basic. The attacks were limited, and it just felt like it needed more punch. But, it’s hard to really get a feel for how awesome it could be in the full game based on just the demo, especially since it seemed like the demo was also acting as a tutorial. Maybe it’ll open up a lot more later on!

Right now, this feels like a promising idea with a lot of potential. If the developers really succeed, Aniimo could become something truly unique. If they get it right, it could be the feature that makes Aniimo stand out from other monster-collecting games and avoid being constantly compared to Pokémon Legends.

The game appears to heavily feature exploration, which is great – the demo showcased incredibly vibrant graphics and environments, suggesting the full game will be visually stunning. I also saw footage of a campsite area where players can customize their own RVs and visit friends’ RVs, which looks like a fun and engaging addition.

The Animo demo shown at PAX was encouraging, despite needing some work in certain areas. Since the game will be free-to-play, it likely includes gacha mechanics, though hopefully they won’t detract from the game’s potential. Two closed betas have already taken place, and the game appears quite polished, so a release shouldn’t be too far off.

Aniimo is currently scheduled to release on Steam, Xbox Series X|S, and PlayStation 5.

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2026-04-09 07:26