When it comes to the monster taming genre, Pokemon seem❀s to have a monopoly in terms of player base, something that should be expected considering the series will be celebrating its 25th anniversary in 2021. That being said, Pokemon isn't the only monster taming game out there worth playing, especially if you weren't happy with how Sword & Shield turned out.
While we wait for the inevitable Sinnoh remakes or Let's Go Johto games, there are plenty of othe𒅌r games that allow you to tame and battle with various monsters found around the world, some better than others, that can fill the need for a good monster taming game before the next Pokemon release.
10 📖 Digimon World
Getting the obvious competition out of the way first, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Digimon World has largely fallen by the wayside in recent years, with the most recent release, the PS4 port of 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Digimon World: Next Order, mixing up the established formula. In most games, you are tasked with taking care of one Digimon at a time, exploring the Digimon World, and battling other creatures to save it from some evil force. Unlike most other monster taming games, you don't catch wild Digimon, instead, when your Digimoꦗn inevitably dies, either of old age or through battle, you will be given a new Digi-Egg to ไbegin the process over again, raising it from a Fresh Digimon all the way up to an Ultimate or Mega, depending on the title.
9 ♍ Yo-Kai Watch ♐
Like Digimon, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Yo-Kai Watch was once strong competition to the Pokemon license, even resulting in the Alola season of Pokemon being drastically different to try and cash in on the slice-of-life style of the Yo-Kai Watch anime. These days, the brand has lost all momentum, largely due to an outright refusal to localize their games an⛄d anime outside of Japan that severely limited its fanbase. However, the Yo-Kai Watch 3DS titles are still some of the best monster taming games out there, particularly Yo-Kai Watch 3, which is an enhanced version of the Japanese games that were split in two, bringing both versions together on one cartridge as well as adding a very fleshed out Blasters mini-game that could have been its own title.
8 Monster Sanctuary 🅷
One of the more recent monster taming games to have released, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Monster Sanctuary takes the normal monster taming formula of finding, befriending, and battling with various monsters and wraps it in a 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Metroidvania style 2D platformer. The result is not only ♎one of the best monster taming games in many years, but also one of the better Metroidvanias around.
While the story is a little lacking, that has never really been the focus of monster taming games, and the core combat is some of the best, and most challenging, seen in any turn-based RPG. Monster Sanctuary also makes good use of the monsters outside of battle, as each has its own effect in the overworld that replaces item progression found in most Metroidvania games and means that, even if you aren't using ไa monster in battle, it is still worth keeping for its overworld effects.
7 Siralim
Siralim, like Monster Sanctuary, takes the monster taming formula and gives it a fresh coat of paint. In Siralim's case, it is a monster tamer crossed with a rogue-like dungeon crawler, as well as a class system for both the tamer🃏 and the monsters, giving the game a huge depth gameplay customization that can make the game somewhat difficult to pick up for the first time. However, the most recent in the series, Siralim 3, features a library area that functions as an easily access🦹ible information center so new players can learn about the intricacies of the game in their own time, as there are many aspects of both rogue-likes and RPGs melded together here.
6 ✨ Monster Hunter Stories 🐽
Unlike the mainline 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Monster Hunter series, which is a fast-paced action game, Monster H♈unter Stories slows the combat down to a turn-based RPG where the player fights alongside monsters they tame rather than spending all of their time simply killing them. You can also ride the monster you tame, allowing for faster traversal or, in the case of some flying monsters, allows you to fly over the map to reach areas faster. The monsters themselves also have a neat ability to transfer skills from one monster to another, similar to breeding down egg moves in Pokemon, 𓆏and means that even if you don't plan on using a particular monster, they will probably still be useful in some way.
5 🍃 World of Final Fantasy
Although World of 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Final Fantasy isn't the only time that the series has experimented with monster taming, as 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Final Fantasy XIII-2 made it so the third member of your party ඣwas a monster rather than an actual character, similar to Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance, it is much closer to a monster taming game than either of those attempts. What makes World of Final Fantasy stand out, aside from the stacking mechanic where monsters stand on the player character's heads, is that each monster has a different requirement in order to catch it, either by reducing its health or inflicting a certain status effect, among many other requirements.
4 Ni No Kuni: Wrath of🍬 the White Witch
Before Level-5 dived into the world of Yo-Kai Watch, their first large scale monster taming game was the first 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Ni No Kuni title, which has a very similar luck-based approach to monster-catching that can often be infuriating when you are tr🐻ying to catch a particular familiar.
Although the combat was decent, using a real-time action style rather than the standard turn-based combat that is shown in most monster taming games, the monster taming aspect was later dropped in favor of a more fleshed out action RPG 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:centered around the main characters.
3 Nexomon
Starting life as a mobile game, Nexomon is a love letter to old-school Pokemon titles, clearly taking most of its inspiration from the 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:first three generations. Although it has many similarities, it also has many stand-out features, such as the ability to obtain all starter Nexomon fairly easily as well as having a much more fleshed out story than most Pokemon titles. The most recent title, Nexomon: Extinction, also adds many elements from traditional JRPGs, such as guilds and side quest♔s ꧒that Pokemon is sorely lacking in.
2 TemTem
Another monster taming game that takes huge inspirations from the Pokemon series, TemTem focuses on the double battle format rather than one-on-one, as well as introducing online aspects that makes it something of an MMORPG. Like Nexomon, TemTem's similarities to Pokemon are clear and hard to miss, but the quality of its combat and world design makes it stand on its own merits and is well worth looking into, even thougඣh it is still in early access.
1 Shin Megami Tensei ♍
The Shin Megami Tensei series spans multiple monster taming titles, from the mainline SMT series, which is finally 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:getting its fifth iteration in the near future, as well as the incredibly popular Persona series. A common gameplay element throughout the series is the ability to recruit demons to fight by ꦍyour side in the mainline SMT games, with demons being replaced by Personas in the Persona titles, as well as its high learning curve and difficulty that makes it hard for gamers unfamiliar with JPRGs to pick the game up.