As a practically lifelong Pokémon fan who just can’t stop trying to catch ‘em all, I spend a lot of time thinking about games where I can capture monsters and fight with them. Although Nintendo‘s unstoppable series will always be my favourite, there have been a lot of alternative creature collecting games I’ve enjoyed over the years. Cassette Beasts was a wonderful indie twist on the Pokémon formula a few years ago, and whenever Dragon Quest Monsters gets mentioned I’ll jump up with glee and talk about my Slime collection. Creature Keeper is the latest game about gathering monsters to grab my attention, and it’s a little more action based than the games that inspired it.
In the world of Thera our protagonist Blank is a Creature Keeper in training, hoping to one day protect the masses with a squad of monster friends. It turns out his dream job leaves a lot to be desired though, and is mainly just tidying up after the established keepers. Well thankfully it doesn’t take long for Rogue monsters to show up, and Blank is more than happy to step up and play the hero. I must admit the story is a little slow going and got in the way of the action more than I wanted, but it’s not the end of the world.
The main reason you’ll likely be playing Creature Keeper is to force cute critters into battle. This isn’t a turn-based affair as it so often is in the genre, and instead features full on isometric action sort of like a 2D Zelda game. You’ll have a creature (or later in the game more than one) by your side, and alongside them you can attack with your own weapons. Three weapons of various types can be equipped at once, and depending on the enemy you’re facing some will be more effective than others.
The variety of weapons is great for a lot of reasons, but more than anything it’s helpful for hitting weaknesses and stunning enemy creatures. Taking down a foe takes ages if you don’t hit weaknesses, but when you do your ally will follow up on the stunned enemy for huge damage which is always satisfying. Your creatures all have specific damage types that help with stunning too, so combining the right weapon with the right furry or feathery friend is the key to victory.
It won’t take you long to gather a massive selection of creatures to bring with you into battle, and you don’t need to force them into balls to control them either. It’s all about befriending in Creature Keeper, which is nice and easy. At the push of a shoulder button when you’re standing next to a creature you’ll be on the friendship screen, and then you can feed it berries to get gifts and eventually take ownership of the bee, wolf or bird of the moment. Using a favoured berry will help with this too, but it’s still all very straightforward.
As well as collecting a selection of fauna in Creature Keeper, you’ll also want to research them for a load of benefits. The more you get to know a species by fighting and befriending it, the more skill points you’ll be granted in its individual skill tree. These skill trees provide all kinds of benefits, which include health boosts for Blank, easier befriending of that species, and extra party points that allow you to bring more monsters on an adventure. It’s a cool system that rewards you for getting to know as many creatures as possible, and a unique way of improving your character.
If the standard fighting and befriending loop if Creature Keeper isn’t enough for you, you’ll be glad to know there’s a whole gardening mini game to dive into at your secret portal base. By planting crops next to statues of various animals you’ll gain all sorts of stat bonuses, but this will really test your organisational skills. It’s almost like Resident Evil 4’s legendary inventory shuffling, but with more nuance and a whole lot of melons.
Creature Keeper has a lot of great ideas that should make for a compelling creature collecting game, but a few issues let it down. The combat itself probably features the most of these, and it’s such a shame. Enemies have massive health bars and whittling them down gets old fast, especially because almost every encounter feels practically the same except for the weapon you use. Alongside this a big reason I play games in this Pokémon inspired genre is to see the various monster designs, and in Creature Keeper they’re so uninspired. It’s hard to connect with a tiny pixel art bee or an incredibly normal looking wolf, and in a game like this I want to form a bond with my cute and cuddly buddies.
Creature Keeper is an enjoyable creature collecting game, but its combat really lets it down. There are some great ideas like the research system and gardening mini game packed into this retro style RPG though, you just have to fight with issues like the dull monster designs to get to them. With a few improvements Creature Keeper could be a must play game in this beloved genre, but in its current state it isn’t quite on the same level as many of its peers.