In an ideal world I’d spend every day of the harsh winter tucked up in bed raising and battling monsters, and now thanks to a whole host of indie developers (and even larger teams) that’s more than just Pokémon. There’s very little more cosy for me than creature collecting games, and at this point that’s been the case for the vast majority of my life. The selection of these titles is growing every single year, whether you’re playing on a home console, a cheeky handheld, or even on your phone. Evocreo found a whole lot of success on iOS and Android recently, and is now moving over to Steam.
In Evocreo your adventure doesn’t start with a twee journey of self discovery, it starts with your Dad going missing because of a shifty criminal organisation. After you’re told about this though you do still start a twee journey of self discovery, which begins with you picking between three starting creatures. Then you explore the world and battle other Evokers to be the very best. Okay, it’s admittedly somewhat similar to the narrative of its peers, and I can’t pretend the similarities end there.
You’ll spend the bulk of your time with Evocreo battling wild monsters or those trained by others, and this is done in classic turn-based combat. As you level up your little darlings they’ll learn various moves of different types, and you’ll slowly start to learn which ones are effective against flaming deer and wet turtles. It’s nothing you haven’t seen before, but it’s enjoyable all the same. Eventually by winning enough fights you’ll get to evolve your Creo too, and that never ceases to be exciting.
With so many monster designs to check out, I made it my mission to try and collect as many as possible. There’s actually over 170 to recruit, which means way more designs to check out than most of its peers. You can probably imagine how catching them works, but just in case I’ll tell you. You need to lower their health as low as possible, and then throw a capture device at them. If it ain’t broke then don’t fix it I suppose.
Evocreo is undeniably derivative in a lot of ways, but it does also have some unique elements. By earning experience for a huge variety of tasks, you’ll level up your character themselves. Doing this grants skill points you can put into a skill tree that’ll make your journey easier. You can unlock abilities that grant quick healing between battles, more experience for your Creos or even faster running speed, and there are just enough options for you to prioritise whatever you think is most important (with the option to respec if needed too).
Combat itself has a few unique elements too. Your critter’s attacks are on various cooldowns, so you actually have to switch up your offense instead of just pushing the button on your strongest move over and over again. This also incentivises using status effects and healing, which adds a lovely extra layer of strategy. I must admit each Creo coming with self healing does feel overpowered though, and can lead to some pretty drawn out battles.
There’s nothing particularly wrong with Evocreo as a game, the main issue it has is just a lack of charm. The visuals leave a lot to be desired, and you can absolutely tell this is a mobile port. The designs of its monsters are just not particularly exciting either, which was made apparent the moment I selected my first ally called Deor (which was an incredibly ordinary looking deer). This may appeal to those who prefer more animal based designs in this genre, but I like weird walking bin bags and floating cogs.
It’s a little hard to be excited about Evocreo when comparing it to the plethora of similar games on the market. On smartphones it was likely pretty impressive, but when up against the likes of Cassette Beasts and Coromon it’s just not quite worth recommending. If you’ve played everything else the genre has to offer you might get a kick out of it though, and with a vast world to explore that’ll keep you busy for over twenty hours it’s not slim pickings in the content department.