Summary
Nintendo and Game Freak helped popularize the monster-catching genre when they released the firstPokemongames in 1996. That was in Japan, but the West would not get a taste until 1998. While thePokemonfranchise popularized the genre, it was not the first game to feature monster-catching mechanics.
Many game historians would cite Atlus’Shin Megami Tenseifranchise as the genre’s origins. Even some Square Enix games came out before thePokemongames. Over the years,Square Enix has featured monster-catching in many of their titles, fromDragon QuesttoFinal Fantasy. Here are some of the best examples that would stand up against even the bestPokemongames Nintendo and Game Freak have produced.
Final Fantasy 13-2took place not long after the events of the first game. The tables turned for the leading roles as, this time,Serah had to save her sister Lightningfrom certain doom. A time traveler from the future, Noel, appears one day to help Serah reset the timeline.
Time travel was an experience Square Enix had experimented with beforeviaChrono Trigger. However, monster-catching was not a huge part of the franchise yet. Players would predominantly play as Serah and Noel in battle, but they could also befriend every monster they faced. The party size was maxed out at three and monsters would be swapped out mid-battle.
Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Princeis the latest entry in theDragon Quest Monstersfranchise and most closely resemblesPokemon. Players assumed the role of the titular Dark Prince rebelling against his father who was trying to take over/destroy the world. The plot was cliché, but the gameplay was something that longtime fans enjoyed.
There weren’t a lot of new features in this installment compared to the other games, besides the bigger open-world areas, and time and weather played a big role in exploration and monster-catching purposes. It’s a solid monster-catching clone on the Switch that most Nintendo fans would dig if they gaveDragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Princea chance.
Final Fantasy Tacticswas the first big game in the franchise to feature a monster-catching-like mechanic. Players could recruit mainline story characters in their travels who had distinct jobs and could change jobs at any time. This included the Cid of the game, Cidolfus Orlandeau, who was one of the strongest characters.
Players could also befriend most monsters in the game to join their party, but their jobs were set and they could not equip anything. While this limited strategies, it was still a great experience to go into battle withan army of rainbow-colored Chocobo.
Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distancewas the only 3DS entry, and was also the first in a long while that moved the plot forward instead of another prequel or side story.Sora and Rikuhad to take their Keyblade Mastery exams and Master Yen Sid tasked the young heroes with entering the dream version of worlds. Both characters were playable in separate campaigns, and they were controlled like most other entries.
In this title, players could also craft allies called Spirits, as the game’s dream worlds were being destroyed by Nightmare versions of monsters called Dream Eaters, making Spirits a good version of them. Spirits acted on their own accord in battle, but Sora and Riku could also team up with them for combo attacks. It’s one of the few entries on the list that allowed players to directly interact with the monsters, whether that involved feeding them or petting them using the touch controls.
World of Final Fantasyshared similarities with the likes ofKingdom Heartsgames in that it was a crossover title. The main heroes, Lann and Reynn, got transported into the literal world ofFinal Fantasyvia a book, where they could befriend classic monsters to help them in turn-based battles.
The odd thing about this was that the monsters were stacked on top of their heads, while bigger ones could be ridden. It’s as silly as it sounds, but fit the story well, as it was a more whimsical adventure overall. Fans praised it at the time because they could meet a lot of classic heroes, fromFinal Fantasy 7’sCloudtoFinal Fantasy 13’sLightning. Many fans are still hoping for Square Enix to return to this game someday for a direct or spiritual sequel.
Dragon Quest 5: Hand of the Heavenly Brideis one of the most important entries in the franchise. It was here in 1992 that Square Enix, or just Enix then, first put monster catching into the series. Monsters took the place of traditional party members assisting the hero, with the game being so popular that they decided to start the aforementionedDragon Quest Monstersseries for portable systems like the Game Boy Color.
It was also a more involved entry in the series, as players got to see themselves grow up as the hero from infant to adult, and could even get married. Again, it was released in 1992 for the SNES, but that was in Japan only. Westerners couldn’t enjoy it until the DS version in 2009.
